Music Reviews
DJ Krush
Zen
(Sony Music Entertainment)
DJ Krush has earned deep respect and admiration internationally as a
hip hop maestro, easily forging tunes across a broad spectrum of sometimes cool,
sometimes mercurial sounds, fusing jazz, hip hop, rap, soul diva R&B and new
jazz beats.
A master of the remix as well as an original sound creator, Krush's
offerings have tended be either a new collection of his own tunes or a DJ
compliation with his own mixmaster flourishes thrown in on a
dozen or so club-set segues.
"Zen" is in the former camp - these are all new Krush tracks. It follows
on last year's "Code 4109," the remix record that featured the likes of sophisticated
Berlin trio Jazzanova, France's DJ Cam, Beats International (think Norman Cook before his Fatboy
Slim incarnation and post-Housemartins), and Eminem, as
well as homegrown talents like Ryu, alongside Krush's own tunes.
This disc was as much a chronicle of influences from years of club tours in Japan and
abroad, and was a document of , if testament to, favorite sounds and the art
of the DJ set list. More of a snapshot of one night's unique mosaic of
record picks from the ever-growing and shifting contents of his record
crates.
Zen is Krush back in full-tilt creative form, and while the sound is naturally
more sophisticated than the seminal "Meiso" disc of the mid-nineties, which
was in effect Krush's international calling card, Zen picks up on the same
notch of artistry, with surprises and curve balls that work inpart by dodging the
potholes of experimentation left unchecked for experimentation's sake. Zen is Krush's best work since Meiso, hands down.
Krush is the mature but restless artist polished, a veteran at the craft, carrying
us along Japnese and American rappers, including Black Thought's rhymes,
which give Krush props with the following:
"And Krush comes wit the guilliotine fa this mix, like"
And then there's Company Flows line on the edgy, ominous "Vision of Art."
"DJ f*****g Krush will make your children throw furniture"
Nearly all of the 12 tracks on Zen owe something to a colloborator,
with vocal and instrumental appearances by Company Flow, Zap Mama, Black
Thought, Sunja Lee, Tunde Ayanyemi, N' Dea Davenport, Kazufumi
Kodama, PhonosycographDISK, Amir Thompson, and Boss the MC.
Zen offers a subltety and range that is rare within today's global hip hop and its otherwise notorious connotations of American hip hop stars and their braggadacio, parochial politics and internal feuds. On Zen, the poetry
is as much in the musical aesthetic as it is in the rhymes. - JS
Related Links
DK Krush Official Artists's Site
http://www.mmjp.or.jp/sus/djkrE1.htm
DJ Krush Unofficial Site
http://www.djkrush.com
DJ Krush - Sony Music Japanese Site
http://www.sonymusic.com.tw/news/200104/20010410-1/
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