Sunday, November 22, 2015

Song of the Day #229 - MF DOOM - Potholderz (ft. Count Bass D)

Hot shit-! Awwww, shit!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iU1L5dP2DhY

Is this the greatest beat ever? Maybe not but I dare you to say that while listening to it. The way it starts so arrhythmic and chaotic but then suddenly latches onto such a definitive groove, throwing those samples - goddamn is that not the greatest sample use ever? - first off-rhythm, and then synching everything all up together. "Beef Rapp" and "Hoe Cakes" are super sick too but when the beat for "Potholderz" comes in you absolutely lose it. I can really distinctly remember... some time in 2009, I think, in my first year of university, I was listening to this album with a good friend, and it was super hype because we both loved the album and I hadn't ever met anyone else who even knew who DOOM was, and it was probably the first time I had ever listened to it with someone else, and when "Potholderz" came on I jumped back in my chair and hit my head really hard on the wall behind me. Hot shit!

Is MF DOOM the greatest rapper of all time? That's a big question, but when you read a line like "Some say the price of holding heat is often too high/You either be in a coffin or you be the new guy" and it's obvious that for all the songs that have talked about guns and drugs, no one could have ever lined them up quite like DOOM. And when you consider the greater context of the song, where "heat" is broadened to an ur-concept of power, but danger, with weed, guns, crime, and musical talent. But in all of these you need to get your potholders, cause you don't wanna handle this stuff directly. Man I dunno, I dunno how to talk about this song. It's basically perfect. You can just keep listening to it and thinking about it and it gets better and better.

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