mixtape maestro (2.0)

Last May, we took notice of New York duo Telephoned and their awesome “postmodern takes” on rap hits from Soulja Boy and T-Pain, and drooled over their promise that more of these reinterpretations were to come.

Well, quite some time later, Maggie Horn and Sammy Bananas have finally fulfilled on that promise with this newest entry, a semi-cover of The-Dream’s woozy club jam “Rockin’ That Thang” that finds Horn cooing bite-sized lyrical snippets of the original atop a blissed out disco-house club soundbed.

Good stuff, even if we’re a lil’ bit disappointed Maggie couldn’t have blessed us with at least one go at the track’s “We beat it up like gorillas” line.

Telephoned’s self-titled debut EP arrives January 19th on Fool’s Gold.

DL: “Rockin’ That Thang (The-Dream Cover)” (alt)

Uncategorized cover song, disco, house, maggie horn, new york, sammy bananas, telephoned, the-dream

DJ/ producer Sammy Bananas and singer Maggie Horn make up Telephoned, a duo out of New York whose sole gig apparently is to flip inescapable rap hits of recent memory into wicked, almost-unrecognizable clubby confections. But don’t dare label their efforts as “covers” or “remixes”, because, as their MySpace states, what the dual force are truly accomplishing is “(fashioning) a postmodern take on both”.

In their hands, Soulja Boy’s goofy anthem “Turn My Swag On” is transformed into a genre-blurring blob of cutesy pop, Southern rap spoofery and dubstep grime, with Horn committing the most precocious “Hopped up out of beeeeed…” wail we’ll probably ever hear and featured emcee, Ninjasonik’s Telli Federline, dishing out battle raps in support of “the average Joe who gotta work a job”.

Meanwhile, their excellent riff off of T-Pain’s ‘08 slow jam “Can’t Believe It” simply consists of key elements of the original (that twinkly-eyed melody, that elongated “yeeee-ahh” hook/ ad-lib) sparsely sprinkled over one of those endlessly revolving 90’s-era party grooves.

Stay tuned to their MySpace, cause they plan to drop even more of these fantastic “non-cover” re-works in the future.

DL: “Turn My Swag On” (alt)

DL: “Can’t Believe It” (alt)

Uncategorized cover song, dance remix, maggie horn, new york, sammy bananas, soulja boy, swagger, t-pain, telephoned, telli federline