Baker's Dozen

Artists discuss the 13 records that shaped their lives

6. Ol’ Dirty BastardN***a Please

I think this record is so much the precursor to all of the insane, screamed, over-the-top, Soundcloud, super-hyper-aggressive trap that we see now. He is absolutely going off on a lot of these songs, to the point where you couldn’t even categorise a lot of the tracks as being lyrical, he has just cut it down to a couple of lines or a mantra and is just screaming it as fast as he possibly can. And the singing is really out of tune and totally insane and it’s a whirlwind of mayhem. It’s funny to hear him over this super clean and well put together production. Everybody is trying to keep their composure while he is just melting down. I understand that personally he was going through a lot at this time, too, I’m sure his personal problems and demons were being baked into the cake of this record, and not to simply glorify that in and of itself, but that’s certainly part of the experience of this album, which in my opinion is a very unique experience. I think if it weren’t for artists like ODB planting that seed of acceptability of artistic insanity in artists like Danny Brown and many others too, I think potentially we wouldn’t be where we are at the moment.

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