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Rappers Love Radiohead: "This is the Remix!"

by Jarrett Martineau | December 12, 2007 at 11:52 am

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Like you and the rest of the musicnerd world, I love Radiohead too. I paid cold, hard, iTunes-rate, British pounds for 128 bits of In Rainbows. I eagerly anticipated its release. I laughed and cried and danced ecstastically when I was finally able to listen to it. But I darkly feared the prospect of having to endure reductive micro-genre (euro-disco/dubstep/psyphy?) rainbow'd remixes.

Well, thanks to DJ/producer Amplive, Radiohead is about to get reworked over 95 BPM boom bap beats, when the album is interpolated by the American left coast, hip-hop underground.

I'm a huge fan of hip-hop, including talented MCs like Del and Zion I, but I'm wary of Radiohead remixes. To date, the only one that I've managed to enjoy is Fila Brazillia's hauting take on "Climbing Up the Walls" -- which does a beautiful job of working with the spirit of the original song, rather than against it.

So can a blunted-out Too Short verse co-exist with Thom Yorke's spine-tingling incantations? Stranger things have happened. You can hear the results on January 10th when the album is released as a free download. Sound familiar?

Del Tha Funky Homosapien will be among the hip-hop artists lending their talents to Rainydayz Remixes, an unauthorised cut-up of Radiohead's In Rainbows album. It's the brainchild of Oakland-based DJ Amplive, who has worked with Akon and Talib Kweli, but has likely never come within fifty feet of Thom Yorke & Co.

Del Tha Funky Homosapien is an MC in the hip-hop groups Hieroglyphics and Deltron 3030, and a former member of Gorillaz. He will appear on an undisclosed track, as will rappers such as Too Short and Zion I.

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LocoLive

at 13:26 on December 12th, 2007

Thom is God

Martha Jones

at 13:41 on December 12th, 2007

Hmm - Radiohead remixes? I'm too much of a purist though I agree that Climbing Up The Walls was good. Looking at it the other way round, Radiohead doing other people's songs can work, like their recent Smiths and New Order covers on their webcast.