Song of the Day #222 - AraabMuzik - Outer Limits

You are now listening to AraabMuzik

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIvgSdpqFus

If you are a regular reader of this blog you will know that I am a big fan of production tags, the brief soundbytes that some musicians use as an auditory watermark, typically in electronica and hip hop. It's like nothing else... the sudden interjecting of something not just familiar, but the exact same thing, it somehow "places" you in a certain moment, like, amid the sensory intensity that is the track, you suddenly are given this crystal of familiarity, signifying so much, a guarantee of quality that reminds you of all these other great experiences...

I love when producers mix it into the song, like in all-time masterpiece The Blanguage or more recently in Rick Ross's Foreclosures, or "unconventional" ones like how Ab-Soul samples the Schoolboy "YAWK YAWK YAWK YAWK" or how Kendrick has the Logic "you you you you" in The Blacker the Berry. Suddenly it's like this whole other world inserted into the sound... your mind suddenly reaches out and grabs this entire other artist's space... and it's like, you can really tell that they understand the weight of the sample, that they're saying "we loved the same thing about this other thing, and I am telling you that it is here too" or whatever.

But sometimes you just want the simple, functional "this is my track" at the start of the song, which probably is pretty necessary here, because I think if you didn't every twelve year old on Earth would be telling his friends he made this. Like if you're twelve years old and you don't think this is the coolest shit you've ever heard I don't know what to tell you. While last time we talked about how footwork can make you feel like shitposting online is "elite", this makes me feel like playing Melee is some slow-motion spinning-camera attack-on-the-mainframe thing. My friend once described this as "tech skill music" and I think that's pretty accurate. It's crazy unsubtle, a sort of "how did he think he'd get away with this?" feeling, where on one hand you feel like it ought not to sound as good as it does, like, that there ought to be more to it than huge synths and offbeat "hey"s and crazy spinning pans and stuff but nah, the other hand smacks that doubt right out of you as this song echoes in from the massive "Miami Vice", and you're greeted with the familiar but always hype "you are now listening to AraabMuzik".