SOUNDTRACK: MARAJ-“Gettaway” (Tiny Desk Contest Runner-Up 2015).
Last week, a Tiny Desk Contest winner was announced. This week, All Songs Considered posted ten runners up that they especially liked. And I want to draw extra attention to a couple of them.
I know very little about these bands, but I assume that these folks are all members of Maraj. They are from Kalamazoo MI and they do hip hop with a twist. I loved that there was a live upright bass player. And that the music had a steel drum sound (although it was all electronic).
The verses were done by two different rappers Motor Cit Kam–whose flow is incredibly fast and clear (even if I didn’t actually know what he was saying, the style was great) and Dari G who has a very different flow (and also sings a beautiful backing vocal later). I enjoyed that there were two rappers, but I liked even more that the third verse (or perhaps bridge) was sung by two of the women in the band. They totally change the tone of the song—an excellent mix of rap and singing.
What I thought set this song apart was that the chorus–while the music was the same, the slower singing gave a very different sound to the song. It really changed the flow from the fast first verse. And the singers–all six of them–all sing well together.
[READ: December 23, 2014] The Graveyard Book
Back in 2009, I read the prose version of this book. Now in 2014, it has been re-imagined as a graphic novel. And it’s funny, now that Gaiman has well established himself as a novelist, that I forgot he was originally a graphic novelist. So this format works for him quite nicely.
As I said, I read the book five years ago, but I didn’t remember all the details. Naturally the most exciting parts came back to me as I was reading it, but the little details has been lost to time.
I gave a rather detailed review of this book here and there’s really no reason for me to rewrite what I thought about it because it is pretty much unchanged.
But in sum: the story is about Bod Owens. His family was murdered when he was 18 months old. He escaped to a graveyard (while the killer tried to track him down) and he was raised by ghosts. They keep him safe from Jack, the killer, whose superiors want him to finish the job. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 