Check out this dope release from Mico Simonde from Liverpool, UK. How can ya not like this Marvin Gaye, soul inspired Hip Hop, coupled with Mico’s ability at storytelling, combing with conscious lyricism and flow.
Here is an extract written by Mico Simonde about the Inner Blues of Me & Marvin…….
That you, listener, should wonder how this project – which bashfully, I entitled The Inner Blues of Me and Marvin, came to be made, fills me with a need to share some few words with you. Forgive me if my title seems bold. In no way is it an attempt to glorify, me, the artist. It is a title I myself felt which, if surely not suggestively, would describe my vision. Marvin Gaye has lived his life. His work endures where I unashamedly must say that mine has just begun. A couple of years ago I was at the house of a friend of mine. He played one of ‘Marvin’s’ records that afternoon. We usually went through many of the records he had on vinyl. Even now I still remember saying, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to do a whole project with Marvin Gaye!’
At the time it seemed only what a proud and conservative person would call, if given the spare of a moment, ‘sacrilegious’ – better yet, ‘irrational’. By ‘conservative’ I speak not of the political stance, but rather a refusal to allow anything new to come of the works of ‘old’. Marvin’s music is not ‘old’ in the strict sense. It is nonetheless considered by many as music we may label ‘classic’. There are those men who no matter how much skill is shown them will refuse hope towards signs of artistic innovation. I neither say this is what ultimately I have attained.
I think the artist in his way is to seek; as if on a journey, going from strength to strength, towards the ‘original’ and ‘new’. As C.S. Lewis once said it,
No man who bothers about originality will ever be original:
whereas if you simply try to tell the truth, you will nine times
out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.
I mean by ‘original’ and ‘new’ a work which is ‘differently new’. The ability to join together things, or in my case music, which may not necessarily and previously been married together. There is nothing purely original. Originality consists in part on making a person ‘see’ the familiar anew. If an artist can achieve this, he deserves praise of the highest order. When C.S. Lewis talks of telling the truth, there is a sense that it is a truth based from how, he – the artist, god of his work, sees the world. The truth as he sees it, not as he should do. As the martial artist Bruce Lee once expressed, there is a need the artist has to ‘express himself’. This is what I try to achieve in my work, and particularly, with this new project. Marvin’s music gave me the inspiration needed to say what I felt I could say in this particular context.
Unlike other talented artists who have skilfully sampled Marvin’s music into Hip-hop, I decided I was going to approach it slightly differently. I have kept Marvin’s original music. I made the decision also to keep as best as I could to the moods, themes, and direction of the original songs and recordings. I included Marvin’s vocals, too. He is very much a presence on this project. I selected the music from I think, three –three of Marvin’s albums. They included Trouble Man (1972), What’s Going On (1971), and I Want You (1976). It took a while making the selection. A lot of time was spent going through a lot of Marvin’s recordings, nearly all his albums. The tracks which made the final project were ones I felt best suited this fusion of Hip-hop (lyrics, and by which I mean my particular style of writing) and Soul.
I began this project around the autumn of 2009. I recorded a draft version at the time which I hoped was the final. It wasn’t. A couple of years went buy and I began to lose confidence in the work. Time has ways of making what seems once certain, unsure. I felt it was maybe a bit too ‘different’. I come from the underground music Hip-hop scene, making a project such as this was a leap of some kind at the time. From the batch of songs I recorded in 2009, I kept only two which I re-recorded. The rest of the songs are new, recorded this very year. With that said, I hope you will take the time to listen and perhaps decide if truly this project was worth the making. It is available for free download. Hope you find any, even a single delight in my work.
Thanks.
Mico
You can stream or download this dopeness for FREE here….
http://micocommission.bandcamp.com/
Mico – What’s Goin On (Official Music Video)
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