Hip Hop Week Part 3...



Rammellzee - Bi-Conicals of the Rammellzee

Rammellzee is seriously old skool hip-hop, before hip-hop there was graphitti, specifically creating 'burners' - big ol paintings on trains using very stylised 3D lettering, like many graphitti artists Rammellzee gave up tagging trains and went on to creating 'proper' art. He now seems to specialise in recreating those stylised 3D letters as scupltures, sometimes even as costumes (check out the image on the front of this album, dude looks like a transformer). I've no idea when making music came into the equation, apparenlty quite late by the copyright date on this CD; musically it's sort of old fashioned hip hop (roland 808 and 909 samples all over the place) but with a very futuristic edge (lots of synths); lyrically - well Grant Morrison (author of the Invisibles, keep up people!) would love this shit! Rammellzee is pretty much obssessed with the use of letters as weapons, he likes to make armour, he doesn't seem to be in the least bit bothered with the real world, he's frankly mental - in a good way of course. What do I think of it, well I think it's great, the beats have this weird timeless feel to them, and Rammellzee spits out and growls some of the weirdest, most abstract lyrics I ever heard.