10/4/2023 0 Comments Bg chopper city![]() ![]() In 2004, these two generations of NOLA musicianship would finally hook up when B.G. The former grew up there in the 1980s and '90s, the latter, except for a brief period during World War II, when they lived in the Calliope Housing Development (that would later be home to the Miller brothers), spent their youth on Valence Street in the 1940s and '50s. and the Neville Brothers have strong ties to Valence Street. The Neville Brothers, sometimes referred to as the Crescent City's First Family of Funk, have two particular albums in their catalog, "Uptown" and "Valence Street." Cash Money artist B.G.'s 1996 album "Chopper City" contains countless references to that very same Valence Street and that very same Uptown. If it was for rap alone, I would have probably not heard what else New Orleans had and still has to offer to music enthusiasts. But in their time, fans of Master P and Juvenile might have been just as guilty of ignoring what was happening on the other side of the fence. To come back to the initial argument, within hip-hop New Orleans did get acknowledged as a pool of unique talent, despite the reservations parts of the hip-hop establishment held against its most successful labels, No Limit and Cash Money. Mos Def recorded "Katrina Klap" (based on UTP's local hit "Nolia Clap"), while Houston's K-Otix captured the situation best with their interpretation of Kanye West's "Gold Digger," the internet exclusive "George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People." Rap stars called for financial aid and donated substantial sums themselves. Sixteen months later, the rebuilding of New Orleans and the other affected regions is finally under way and hip-hop found its way back into the headlines and into my consciousness with both acts of charity and words of criticism. You're invited to research the city's unique musical history, purchase records by New Orleans artists and to make any other kind of donation if you can. Yet as I absorbed the disaster in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina from the safety of my home, I didn't think of Master P or Birdman, TRU or the Hot Boys, I went for my funk and soul compilations and played the songs we have encoded for you today for our humble tribute to The Big Easy. ![]() rap scene could be ignored in such a documentary. But this was also at the time when Cash Money Records put out a string of successful albums, most notably Juvenile's "400 Degreez" (which I still consider Mannie Fresh's chef-d'oeuvre.) So I was slightly offended that once again hip-hop - and its close local cousin bounce - were kept seperate from more established forms of music, annoyed at how the burgeoning N.O. John in the late '80s, I still marveled at how a place could live and breathe history, not turning into a museum. Although I was already vaguely familiar with what New Orleans represents for modern music, having been introduced to the likes of Professor Longhair, Allen Toussaint, The Meters, the Neville Brothers, the Marsalis family and Dr. Some years ago, I was watching a documentary on New Orleans' musical heritage, featuring some of the elders that were still around, and the youngsters that carried on the tradition. To build on a post I put together for the weblog Can I Bring My Gat ( The City That Care Forgot), let me quote what I wrote under the impression of the havoc wreaked by Hurricane Katrina: ** RapReviews "Back to the Lab" series ** ![]()
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