mixtape maestro (2.0)

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)

Dallas producer/ rap duo Play-N-Skillz have already nabbed one Grammy thanks to their work on Chamillionaire’s star-making “Ridin’” and could score another trophy next year with the Album of The Year-nod they recently garnered for Lil’ Wayne’s The Carter III (they helmed his “Got Money”). But as we’ve seen numerous times in and out the past fifteen years, it’s rarely enough to just score props for playing the backburner role, so PNS aim to strike up their own spotlight with new track, “Checkin’ My Fresh”.

Crafting it’s Jigga-”featured” hook from a looped “Swagger Like Us” line, “Fresh” finds Play-N-Skillz sounding heavily Swizz-influenced with it’s bombastic, spaced out musical display, screwed vocals and swag-based (read: depth-free) lyricism (“I can do the Coogi shirt/ I can do the Roc-A-Wear/ Only problem that I got is which rocks I’m-a wear”). As far as today’s hip hop scene goes, it serves it’s purpose well, bearing plenty of collar-popping one-liners that could end up on T-shirts or as someone’s on-line/ text message signature, but beyond that temporary trend-ish appeal, there’s little here to elevate them anywhere near the level of their star clients.

DL: “Checkin’ My Fresh” (alt)

In which Jones “swagger”-jacks TI (who had, in turn, “swagger”-jacked M.I.A., who had ultimately swagger-jacked The Clash) all for the sole purpose of re-polishing his tireless complaint against the swag-lite emcee, especially ones who blasphemously mix Gucci belts and Louis Vuitton scarves (Jay, how dare you!!!).

But it’s Jim who clearly needs to be stopped after hearing this inferior take on Tip’s star-studded posse cut. Beyond a mildly appreciable re-manufactured beat (Bye-bye, bouncy shuffle; Hello, ominous street grind) and a typically killer (albeit a bid misplaced) Twista sixteen, “Swagger From Us” offers little justification as to why we should want to hear that sole M.I.A. line looped three hundred more times:

-Original “SLU” feature Lil’ Wayne pops up again here for the jump-off verse (what is he, like some hip hop double agent?) which, while thankfully doing away with his painful Auto-Tune obsession, ends up being another file in his increasingly bulging “fine, but needless, cameo” folder.

-Jones might kick off his portion with a quasi-SNAP!-worthy schoolyard sniff (“I don’t know what corner they from/ We from them corners that do it/ On my corners we make swag/ And we sell it to y’all…”); but, alas, it still holds that he doesn’t hail from the corners that teaches cats how to rap good.

-Then, there’s the much-talked about Byrdgang/ Dipset signee NOE, a quite promising Baltimore up-and-comer who delivers some good lyrical stuff here, yet remains hampered by the hard-to-ignore fact that he SOUNDS JUST LIKE JAY!! That unfortunate aspect of his mic presence takes even more wind out of Jones’ “SFU” sail, as it only re-presents the question of who’s actually swag-jacking who here?

Some advice for Jim? Give up this losing battle once and for all and stick to focusing on something that’s actually working in your favor.

DL: “Swagger From Us” (alt)

TI. Kanye West. Jay Z. Lil’ Wayne. Together on the same track!!??!! Atop a M.I.A. “Paper Planes” sample!!??!! We know we’re a bit late on this, but it still seems just too damn good to be true. Alas this box office blockbuster of 2008′s hip hop hierarchs is real, and to bite a bit off the voice modified words of Kanye: “It’s the shit and the urine”.

Of course, if you want be nit-picky, you can moan over West and Weezy’s waaaaay past tiresome T-Pain-isms, how annoying the MIA loop gets after awhile, or the fact that until TI pops up for his rightfully track-owning final verse, the rhymes previously dropped feel a little anemic. But come on, don’t act like hearing this pow-wow of adored tastemakers doesn’t give you a knot in your jeans; and we’re not talking about the kinds of “knots” that “jockin’ jockin’” Jay Z is referring to either.