cRap.

Speaking of rap, since Josh started adding Grime to our in-car playlists a few months back after having been into Kano for over a year it made a massive change to what we listened to in the hours of driving we were doing at that time. Before I started listening to a lot of the music I listen to now I used to swap tapes with friends that mostly consisted of rap and hip-hop and I have been re-finding those songs on the internet a bit recently. It's been an eye opener - I'm not sure I can profess to having the best hip-hop collection of all time at all, a lot of what I used to listen to a lot was a bit shitty and it's no massive surprise I got tired of it. But some of it is awesome and it's been cool listening to some of those songs again, songs I got burnt-out on years ago, but feel fresh again now.

Talking to PJ about rap has been interesting too, as his tastes are pretty diverse and yet he is no big fan of most rappers and I struggled to see why at first. I think part of the problem for a lot of people with rap is that it carries a lot of negative baggage, images of idiots in MTV cribs episodes, semi-naked girls draped over Ferrari's, terrible lyrics, Snoop Dawg and unnecessary violence. It can be hard to look through all of that and find the good stuff. Its the same in every genre though, for every good punk band there's a million Good Charlottes and Confides. For every Elton John there is a James Blunt. I don't really have a point, other than if you look hard enough, there's some awesome rap out there I think everyone can relate to and enjoy. I tend to like artists who use bands at least some of the time. This one by Sage Francis is a particular favourite of mine and the use of the band in this version has a really interesting effect on the tone of this song, which lyrically, I wish I had written myself.