ReMix: Asterix 'Niggaz 4 Life'

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Okay, this one does need a bit of a disclaimer, and yes, it's because of a certain word that happens to be in the actual mix title. People are different and different words offend them, and this is certainly one of them. My personal take has always been that words themselves shouldn't be offensive - the ideas and intentions behind them should, and clearly the ideas and intentions in this mix are groovy, rhythmical, and decidedly not racist in any way. Nevertheless, if you can't get over a few expletives and "appropriated" racial slurs, i.e. "explicit lyrics," you should probably skip this. You'll be missing out on some true creativity and musicality though, as I'll describe below.

Honestly, adding a disclaimer to this felt a little lame, because it's just pretty damn cool. You really need to listen to the original off the NSF to fully appreciate the rhythmical fun being had here - to have heard the source material and come up with this hip-hop tour-de-force full of slick rhymes, Star Wars references, pizzicato, a rubbery bass of formidable funk, amusingly "serious" vibrato singing on the chorus, a relentless beat, blaxploitation synth, and even some props to the game arrangement community.... well, it's one of those tracks that is definitely a singular experience, a shitload of fun, and clearly involved talented people having fun ReMixing. If you can listen to this and find a scrap of anything truly mean-spirited or intentionally offensive, I'm surprised. Furthermore, I'd be surprised if - even if rap/hip-hop is not your thing - you don't find yourself humming the chorus incessantly. I actually found the chorus running through my head at work the other day and I had to be careful not to sing the lyrics, even under my breath, as the workplace is definitely not as ideologically liberal when it comes to vocabulary. The original melody was minimal enough so that it didn't have to be oversimplified to work with the genre, and Ubik and zykO pull a key change as well as pitch-shifting the vocal steadily downwards in one bit.

Maybe one day ReMixes will be so ubiquitous that it wouldn't be uncommon for Outkast or Jay-Z to cover something like Journey to Silius, but I'm not sure I'd wanna see that degree of pervasiveness and all the repercussions it would come with, and besides that, this is just as good as most of what I'd imagine would be produced. A touching story of friendship, deadly rhymes, goofy singing, and a boatload of creativity, this is indeed a classic.

― djpretzel  



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All compositions, arrangements, images, and trademarks are copyright their respective owners. Original content is copyright OverClocked ReMix, LLC. For information on RSS and JavaScript news feeds, linking to us, etc. please refer to resources for webmasters. Please refer to the Info section of the site and the FAQ available there for information about the site's history, features, and policies. Contact David W. Lloyd (djpretzel), webmaster, with feedback or questions not answered there.

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