Customer Reviews

Marc Mac Presents: Dirty Old Hip Hop

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Marc Mac has stated about this record, "I needed to produce the tracks like hip-hop records that sound fat in a club and not like dinner jazz. It's about reclaiming jazz." I would argue that he has done just the opposite. One-half of UK duo 4 Hero, Marc set out to reinterpret classics as a way of honoring hip-hop's production element. What he accomplished is a little different, but wonderful nonetheless.

Reinterpreting hip-hop is a tough assignment. The genre's production is essentially the reinterpretation of all that has come before. To reinterpret a reinterpretation... well, you see the difficulty.

Visioneers is not a band, but a studio project. Marc Mac composed the material and brought in long-time collaborators Brad Somatik and Luke Parkhouse to help with the execution. It is at heart, classic hip-hop covered and reworked by an extremely hip band.

Marc takes hip-hop's original production elements and expands on them while at the same time bending them to the sensibilities of traditional jazz music. While Marc says he wanted to reclaim jazz, I think he reclaimed hip-hop to an even greater extent. At a time when hip-hop as a genre is threatening to marginalize itself, projects like this help keep it relevant to progressive-minded artists.

Dirty Old Hip-Hop is rap music filtered for the set who are offended by the coarseness of the lyrics. It is the potential soundtrack for the Smithsonian's hip-hop exhibit. It's a project that puts the virtuosity of hip-hop's producers on a pedestal and recognizes it as something to be studied, preserved, and revered.

Marc uses hip-hop as source material. "Runnin'", "The World Is Yours", etc. are treated as beloved forerunners in a show of respect that is not given nearly enough for the genius of the genre's producers. Visioneers allows you to take hip-hop to the snobbish music professor at your school and say, "This is my music and it is great." They won't be able to argue.

4.5 is the real rating,,wat ive heard soundz supa organic,conscious,feel good mental twang boom bip,yeah!!!!!!!Junior