I listened to company flow tonight

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And then I lookd through various CoFlow threads in the ILM archives and man, I'm looking at this music entirely differently than most people on here, I feel like...I don't see it as being all that progressive or pointlessly esoteric...in fact, I like it for a lot of the same reasons I like Mobb Deep circa Infamous - the MCs are talking lots of shit about people, including me the listener on occasion, and the beats make me want to smack someone in the head with a sack of doorknobs. Why does everyone see this as some sort of intellectual modernist album? It just sounds like grimey hardcore New York stuff made by kids slightly geekier than Mobb Deep. And it's still dark and fucking badass.

djdee2005 (djdee2005), Friday, 22 October 2004 05:31 (twenty-one years ago)

the most harsh-most loved track I heard by them is Vision of Art. Insane bro'. It's on the Dj Krush album "Zen". Trust.

cs appleby (cs appleby), Friday, 22 October 2004 06:12 (twenty-one years ago)

sociology rock crit 100 dismembers dees taste again!

bulbs (bulbs), Friday, 22 October 2004 06:13 (twenty-one years ago)

get some credible hip-hop friends and listen to it (the beat) for 15 years before applying for a cute badge.

I don't know anything.

cs appleby (cs appleby), Friday, 22 October 2004 06:27 (twenty-one years ago)

sociology rock crit 100 dismembers dees taste again!

Nonsense! I've merely learned to articulate my tastes better :)

djdee2005 (djdee2005), Friday, 22 October 2004 06:34 (twenty-one years ago)

yes

bulbs (bulbs), Friday, 22 October 2004 06:39 (twenty-one years ago)

I also wanted an excuse to use the phrase "smack someone in the head with a sack of doorknobs" which I think works well here.

djdee2005 (djdee2005), Friday, 22 October 2004 06:43 (twenty-one years ago)

djdee never mentions a good entry point for Company Flow?

cs appleby (cs appleby), Friday, 22 October 2004 06:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Um Funcrusher Plus is pretty much the thing to get, its like a singles collection I believe. Some disposable stuff but overall pretty great, dirty and dark, stark, minimal, "You can't even fuck with my idle fidget."

djdee2005 (djdee2005), Friday, 22 October 2004 06:53 (twenty-one years ago)

will do. :)

cs appleby (cs appleby), Friday, 22 October 2004 06:59 (twenty-one years ago)

"You can't even fuck with my idle fidget."

that even the best line from Bad Touch Example!

cs appleby (cs appleby), Friday, 22 October 2004 07:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Since you're my special friend, come closer for a special treat
(Uh)
I'm going to let you touch me in a special place
(But I don't want to touch you there)

It is never ok to touch someone else's private parts
Your mom and dad will tell you so

Verse One: Bigg Jus

Yo' eyes get, blind like Tupac gettin shot in the lobby
Most MC's styles is robbery of my freestyles as a hobby
I pick apart monkey brains and spread disease through hot zones
My cameos on promos seem strange like someone's not home
Bigg Jus the outsider rain on your dream field
With styles so freaking wet niggas need maxi panty shields
Expose more moles out the closet that lead paint on your tenement
Got more Black Thought to my Roots than most niggaz got in their pigment
It's the baby-faced lieutenant with the Luck like Luciano
Hardcore like Kool G Rap music made for concert piano
So dust off the candelabra, hip hop's version of the super Don Dada
with the license to give more ass whippings than Father
You couldn't see me with binoculars, way ahead of myself like telepathy
Make most crews disappear like blackheads on Oxy creme
Under the lights I fuck up mics with my uncanny ability to heat seek
Through brain facilities with the science of microchemistry
This history of my hip hop is too deep to be dissected
Bitch recollect don't even half step or try to test it black
Bigg Jus, I drop so much shit my anus needs an ice pack
In fact I'm all that, El-P yo bring the horns back

(Yes)
Right through the center of your focus picture a long silver needle
(You are correct sir)
Piercing the outer lens of your eyesight

[El-P]
And once again
In one verse we have proven
That we can rip all these signed big budget motherfuckers
(89.9)
Peace to Stretch and Bobbito
(Bob-bi-to!)

Verse Two: El-P

Ye olde lyrics of fire
Surface bombs from X-wing fighters, stance to B-boy actors fracture
Negative thirty below wind chill factor
The counteraction is just a helpless action of the hapless flinching
My supersonics leave you mute like Maggie Simpson
Taxidermist El-P I defy translation
Instigate and set in crates(?) throughout your whole situation
Practice exposing perfection like Ricki Like exposes white trash
My shit is strange X-file number 2-6-7 whiplash
Triple felon emcee minus the melanin
When I bomb it the type of shit to make Baby Jessica jump in the well again
Sunshines or rain acid, El-P the battle master
Lactose breaking down your fucking fractals till you're flaccid
I'm leaving Las Vegas like a hundred flying Elvises
Raid, spot my prey, swoop down and cross their pelvises
Rat nerve like David grill smoke bitch
Catch my frozen frame suspended
You couldn't even fuck with my idle fidget
My birthright I'm pulling swords from stones high tone beam
Phonetically abort it try to distort it and catch a silent scream, fetus
The raw daddy tactics prove Krush Groove unstoppable
Testing luck it's like sucking on lead pink popsicles
The enigma, no one can fuck with me yet but I'm not signed
(You wanna battle?)
It's better to look in the
(mirror)
Say Candyman five times

Candyman (whispered 5x)

Just a promo
Understand
(Candyman)
To be the man you gots to beat the man
(It's so clear now)
Me and Bigg Jus
(The beautiful light)
Company Flow clan
(I can touch it)
Mr. Len, 'sup?
89.9
Hit me with that shit some time

Bigg Jus, Lune TNS
The almighty El-P
The imperial DJ Mr. Len
Company Flow swinging it to you live for '95

cs appleby (cs appleby), Friday, 22 October 2004 07:28 (twenty-one years ago)

It just sounds like grimey hardcore New York stuff made by kids slightly geekier than Mobb Deep. And it's still dark and fucking badass.

definitely. 'end to end burners' is still deathlessly cool, too. i remember mark sutherland, melody maker editor, sneering about 'em after their performance of said song on jo whiley's first TV show. he said they were the worst thing he'd ever seen. i about thought they were the best.

stevie (stevie), Friday, 22 October 2004 08:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Same here, that was the first time I'd heard them - I think it's their best track.

The instrumental album is good too.

Chewshabadoo (Chewshabadoo), Friday, 22 October 2004 09:03 (twenty-one years ago)

I'd love to hear Mark Sutherland's frame of reference for *that* statement. "They were no more than 12.6% as good as the Field Mice and had barely a tenth of the power of Sleeper on an off day"

DJ Mencap0))), Friday, 22 October 2004 10:12 (twenty-one years ago)

i think cardigans were on the cover that week, a washed-out photo thereof.

i remember when i quit the mag, he genuinely couldn't work out why. he phoned me up at home, and spent an hour brow-beating me, telling me my career was over, i was crap, etc. he also sensed i was uncomfortable with the stupidity, the sub-Loaded laddishness of the mag - the last issue i wrote in had a blow-job gag about Zoe Ball on the cover.
"I suppose you thought that was 'sexist', didn't you Stevie?" he sighed at me (the man always sighed, i think he had a respiratory problem). No Mark, I said. I just thought it was unfunny and shit. Goodbye.

stevie (stevie), Friday, 22 October 2004 10:24 (twenty-one years ago)

For alot of us Co-Flow were the first thing we heard on Rawkus and therefore they got kinda sucked into being compared with all the indie hip-hop that came in their wake. Whereas tracing them BACK is more interesting - DJdee's right that 'Funcrusher' (if it can be compared to anything) has way more in common with Show & AG, Real Live, Black Moon & the weirder end of Camp Lo than any of the more backpacker-friendly stuff that it inspired.
Stevie - thanks for both accidentally making my blood boil by reminding me of the existence of Mark Sutherland AND making me grin like a lapdanced middle-manager at the thought of that phone conversation. Star!

Neil Kulkarni, Friday, 22 October 2004 11:00 (twenty-one years ago)


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