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Mix Tape - Lil Cuete
by XICripZ
"Mix Tape" was a 2007 release from Lil' Cuete, an underground Chicano rapper out of Northwalk in South Central LA. He never really made that much of an impact to the mainstream and only really worked with other names such as Mr. Capone-E and Mr. Criminal who found fame through rather unmemorable collaborations with more famous ... West coast rap acts. This came as a compilation of his works from 2003, up to this point.
1. "LA's Most Wanted" (Intro)
2. "Trace You In Chalk"
Getting a little help from some fellow undergrounders (who need not be mentioned) this one has him getting off to an extremely poor start, in which you see that he comes with a terrible track, in which he drops some weak rhymes on some of the lowest-quality production which you are likely to come across from a professional release.
**One Star**
3. "Never Run"
You get things progressing quite a bit here as you find that on this one you get one which sounds much more like the type of thing you expect from Latino Rap out on the West Coast with the beats and rhymes both geared towards this sort of style, but the quality doesn't really take much of a lift with it, so it doesn't really matter.
**One Star**
4. "Rainy Days"
You see him getting into the expectedly annoying material here as he chooses to get into some much colder rhymes in which he talks of how the bad time sin the relationship with his girl have effected his mood and brought him right down, and I really can't see who would want to actually listen to it for any reason.
**One Star**
5. "Wait A Minute Homie"
On this one you get him driving the thing with a rapid flow which has him coming relentlessly with some rapid-fire flows which take you by surprise and force you to take notice as he comes at it hard with his distinctive style, but what is said has no real substance and the wack beats don't help it at all.
**One Star**
6. "Roll With Me"
The funky material comes through here too as you see that h goes on, off a fly sample, and it means that he s able to get you to connect with him momentarily as he jumps on some fairly decent beats, but the content of his rhymes (which have him trying to mack girls) just isn't worth getting excited about. *
*One Star**
7. "No Jealousy"
Here you get perhaps the biggest featuring artist on any of his works as you see that with this one, he is able to convince Bizzy Bone to come and help him out and give him a boost, but as expected, it did nothing for it, and with one of the weakest Bone Thugs-N-Harmony members, it remains an unmemorable recoding here.
**One Star**
8. "Bullet Holes"
Mr. Knightowl comes to assist him here as he lends his raps to this one too, but personally I don't think that it really did anything for him as he comes with flows which are even worse than what you have from Cuete, and so it makes for one which is bound to put people off more with his jacked style making for very plain Gangsta Rap.
**One Star**
9. "Take Me Away"
This is another pointless one which you get from him, and one which shows his desperation. If you can't rap then you never try out something such as this where he tries out the emotive rhymes about his struggle to support his daughter, and so it doesn't more to show how pathetic a rapper he is.
**One Star**
10. " A Solider Ready For Death"
The beats in this one seem to lift the quality a little bit as you see that we get production on this one which takes you back a little with it's G-Funk synth groove and I felt that this mean that to a degree you were able to excuse the standard of the rhymes for a short while, but it certainly isn't something which can save the album.
**Two Stars**
11. "Real Love"
With a Roger Troutman-esque Voice Box hook, you see that in this one he tries out everything he possibly can in order to impress and pull in listeners, but with the rest of it being so poor, this cheap use of the Voice Box does nothing for it at all as he des more of his wack love raps which can't possibly excite anyone.
**One Star**
12. "Runnin' Out Of Time"
With this one you see that Cuete twists the direction of the music once again, showing how weak his choices are as he doesn't give you any sort of chance to actually get into the sort of material which he tries to put upon you where he takes you from one emotion to another in an instant. Rather than allowing it to be explored-fully or developed to any extent.
**One Star**
13. "Baby Girl"
Here you get him on some improved beats, but with him using these to prop him up as he gets into more of the general love raps again, it really isn't able to assist in actually impressing anyone to any degree. The rhymes are predictable and do nothing for the fly West Coast two-stepping joint which you have backing him.
**One Star**
14. "We Got Gunz"
This one has a pounding beat to it which livens him up as he gets to his rhymes and it appears to motivate him to come up with much more impressive flows to accompany the fly production which is clearly a long distance from what else the Hip Hop world was producing in '07, but still gets you swaying along.
**Two Stars**
15. "I Can't Believe"
Coming off a relatively strong one on the album, you see that here as the beats take a turn towards the less impressive side with its blatant, weak attempts to take on popular trends of its time; it just flows and exposes all of the weaknesses in the rapper and his music in general. It gets him turning towards the darker rhymes and failing to actually engage with the listeners (making it laughable).
**One Stars**
16. "I'm The Baddest" (Lude)
16. "You And Me"
The title of this one seems to give you a strong idea of where exactly he will take things here, and as ever, he doesn't attempt to really bring any surprises by getting into one where he pays attention to his girl and doe son where he raps in what sounds to be a soppy manner, but it really flops resultantly (and expectedly).
**One Star**
17. "Don't Want None"
In his final effort, you see that with this one you see that he tries out something new here as he goes on beats which are completely unlike anything else which you get on the album where he jumps on some club beats, which initially sound quite alright, but it hits you soon after that this isn't the case with it taking on a very outdated style and the least intimidating Gangsta Rap lyrics you will find anywhere.
**One Star**
18. "Streets Of LA" (Outro)
It's not that this album isn't too my tastes, it's that the album is just plain terrible. It is wack in every way, and I can't see how he managed to gain any sort of attention. He will never break the mainstream as he has no skills and with beats such as what you get from this 'greatest hits' collection, you aren't lively to ever see him bumping anywhere, any time soon.
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Nedudai - Ben-Canar
by dangaroo
I'm not sure why but European folk music unless it's distinctly roma or klezmer seems to bore me a bit at the moment, the last offering from Orange World had a more exotic flavour. With a name like Ben Canar, I had little doubt where the Israeli band came from but I still wasn't sure about the type of music, ethnic music of some kind was ... to be expected as that's what Orange World specialise in but the album cover kind of gave off electronic vibes.
This album is ethnic through and through and it has a very Middle Eastern flavour to it, you could easily be walking through the markets of Jerusalem when you hear this. Incidentally it's exactly the kind of music which gets ignored in Israel these days, when I visited a year ago locals were baffled as to the popularity of klezmer and sephardic music in Europe and the US, in particular the young generation.
There's a wide range of wind instruments and drums throughout this album, the Siberian born artist Ben Canar plays a major part in the band, playing guitars and drums whilst a wide-range of predominantly Russian speaking Jews are called in for the other instruments. I don't know enough about this band to be completely sure but by listening to the album it seems as though it may be put together during recording rather than the kind of music that gets played live, it just seems a bit impossible that Ben Canar would be able to do several things at once. Either way, the outcome is extremely enjoyable music with a very Middle Eastern flavour.
1 Jericho
2 Yerushalaim
3 Isaskhar
4 Ruah
5 Af ehad
6 Tahanun
7 Nedudai
8 Derekh
9 Hoshaana
10 Masaa
11 Tshuvaki
12 Mizmor
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Vivum - Stara Lipa
by dangaroo
Another album amongst those recommended by the record label Orange World was Vivum by the band Stara Lipa. Another release of theirs obviously and yet another folk album, this time out of the label's homecountry Poland. Stara Lipa got together in 1997 and have to my knowledge only released the one album in 2003.
The type of ... music sounds like a cross between flamenco and a medieval style, I'm a fan of this type of music when it's done properly - Braagas are the best I've come across to date. There's a lot of flute used on this album though and it's not an instrument I'm particularly fond of, the violin playing is very good and the drumming extremely varied and unique sounding, rather dark to some extent.
For the most part of the album it's the guitar playing that stands out to me, played in a classical way, it's rather intricate and the guitarist's fingers must be close to falling off at several moments! Overall, it's excellent music but whilst many listeners will undoubtedly praise the forever in tune very natural sounding vocals, it's the choir sounding high pitchness that actually puts me off the album a little bit.
Generally, I prefer this album when it's instrumental only but those who like that type of singing will likely be very pleased with the wholesome sound this band have to offer, those who don't will never be fully satisfied by it - it's therefore the kind of album you might want to select a few tracks from but with it being hard to come by and not particularly cheap, it's unlikely that'll be an option.
It goes without saying that the content of the album is the typical earth, wind, fire, water- Captain Planet inspired topics you'd expect for a folk album of this calibre.
1. O Fader Wise
2. Zimowe Intro.
3. A Na Polu Sosnina
4. Wioskowy Glupek
5. Montesque
6. W Ogniu.
7. Modlitwa Robaczka Swietojanskiego.
8. Taniec Misia.
9. Kalina Malina.
10. Danuśka.
11. Epilogue.
12. Lipowa Kołyska.
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