Illustration by Ralph Steadman

With scenes of Jim Crow’s rural South fresh in my mind from a recent reading of Richard Wright’s autobiography, Blackboy, I finished up a painting and listened to music. Deep in thought, the music didn’t fully catch me until the lyrics of Dead Prez’s "Animal in Man" played. The rural setting of the song - a black militant hip hop rendition of Orwell’s Animal Farm - made it particularly poignant. It was a moment that brought to clarity this vague opinion that had been forming all these years. Although I’d heard it countless times, it was then that I decided:

It is one of the best hip hop songs of all time.

The first reason this argument needs to be taken seriously is the thoughtfulness of the subject matter. The duo tell their version of Animal Farm; where the animals revolt against their violent slave master only to be once again enslaved by one of their own. The biggest difference in the two forms is that Dead Prez have more faith in the oppressed. When the pigs start to become dictators, Orwell’s farm can’t be sure what’s happening. But in this version they are instantly aware.

The next reason is the quality of the song itself. Rhymes are never sacrificed for the sake of the story. Nor are any unnecessary words added to make a rhyme. The lyrics are uniformly consistent, never veering from their tale. The delivery is good enough to be listened to A capella, while the enunciation is clear at all times. And the beat, although not worthy of the title of the best on it’s own, completes the song’s overall deservedness. With it’s variety of live instruments, it is intricate yet not too busy, allowing the lyrics shine while adding to the dynamism.

Although I have a number of issues with Dead Prez on the whole, I wouldn’t hesitate to include "Animal in Man" on my limited list.

While the IHeartComix crew may be most renowned for their high quality electro disco house, this month they posted one of the best recent heavy bass mixes around on their blog. Curated by Kanji Kinetic for No Love Lost Records‘ mixtape project, this joint is well worth dealing with a zSHARE file download. It’s one hour of pure dance goodness.

Be forewarned, however, ‘cuz this ish is not for the faint of heart. It’s a caffeine-pill-washed-down-with-Redbull, insert-illicit-drug-here fueled journey. Dude hits Speed Racer tempos for most of the entire hour.

He hits enough of the appropriate notes (selection-wise, if not compositionally) to satisfy the majority of heavy bass fans. No specific genre could claim this mix. But it’s confined to UK style wobbly, electronic bass. While other forms of bass infused sounds exist, this mix is havin’ none of that.

For a British bass dweller, Kanji has got a healthy interest in the scene here in the States. Nearly a third of the names in this remix saturated, 23 cut mixtape hail from the East Coast. Mostly, this role is filled by Trouble & Bass, the bassline kings of New York, and dubstep overlord Starkey, who also reps T&B, but calls Philly home. Since NLLR is based in Brooklyn, this may come as no big surprise.

On a related note, Franki Chan, founder of IHeartComix, dropped a mix for NLLR as well. It’s also worth your expensive time.

Before we even get into this joint, Culture System would just like to apologize for posting a video with dancing iTunes characters and cats with monitors on… That said, today we present to you Wittyboy on production and the Doctor on the mic.

Wittyboy’s bassline mix of Doctor’s "Calm Down," is more than a dance mix - it can stand alone from the original, which was produced by the larger than life Cotti.

His beats shuffle through a variety of sounds and rhtyms, which keeps it interesting. Granted he stays within the comfortable confines of the bassline genre with a standard percussion and basic wonky bass. But it’s top of the game in this respect. And he adds a nice flute which really stands out. One could even make the argument that the flute makes the song remorseful - a fitting touch considering the lyrics - but that would break down once the wobbles kick in.

Doctor comes correct himself, with a smooth delivery and voice, consistent subject matter and a point to be made which he drives home with dense rhymes and numerous similes. It might even be called positive, which is what Cotti says he’s trying to encourage.

Given the quality of the rhymes, it was a good move on Wittyboy’s part to leave them untouched. Unfortunately, he leaves the hook to itself as well, which is dumb repetitive. And he drowns out the lyrics a bit, so if you want to understand them, you might want to listen to the original first. But you’ll be sure to come back to this version.

You gotta love this kind of thing: I just woke up and was still in my boxers at the computer. The first email I decide to check is some MySpace music friend request, and it slaps me in the face outta the box - I got an "undiscovered" gem in my lap while I still got my morning wood on! Shit is hotter than Mims, and I put no effort into finding it at all. Hotter than Mims!

Called "Dark Dancer," the song is made by a French group named Polymik. There’s really no need to go into a detailed review of the song - it’s your basic housey electro-disco revival joint in the vein of IHeartComix or Boys Noize. Granted, this has officially become a style now, but rather than just hopping on a bandwagon, these dudes come correct with it.

Their profile photo had me a little skeptical, though - a mummy face with a stitched-closed mouth - but I like a lot of that industrial stuff, so I gave it a shot. I mean, I’m not exactly carving 666 into my desk or anything, but yeah, give me some musical S&M and I’ll dance to it.

Steady taking advantage of the new world music has entered, Radiohead is throwing a remix competition for the release of their new single, "Naked." These are Culture System’s top choices.

These two selections were chosen from a review of nearly 200 entries out of the 650 entries currently submitted. (That number grew to 670 by the time CS was finished reviewing them.) Both deserve to make it to an actual "Naked" RMX release. After the jump, listen to some more notable mentions.

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Since I was one of the only people to actually write something about her, it’s no surprise that Terry Lynn had some words for me on her new blog. She doesn’t like me too much because I clowned on her for biting Daft Punk.

In her post, she backs up her manager’s claim that DP gave Lynn permission to bite "Technologic." And although there was no reference to DP on her website, like he claimed, DP’s manager did show some love for her in a blog post that I overlooked. Actually, I saw the post back then, but didn’t realize that the author was Daft Punk’s manager. As far as all that goes: my fault.

And although she resorts to name calling, and ragging me as an "eeediot," I still say that I like the cut, and would even prefer to listen to it over the DP original. But it still needs a more prominent reference to Daft Punk. Just because someone gives you permission to bite doesn’t make it all better. If somebody in a graffiti crew flips a style like someone else that’s down, they still lose a measure of respect. The fact that Lynn hasn’t put out much of anything else doesn’t help her either.

But in the sake of good faith communication, I’ve included the original review I wrote with a couple small edits. Read it after the jump.

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Everybody likes a throwback right? So why not get down with some real OG-ness? I recently came across this cut from 1962 by Gershon Kingsley called "Hey, Hey," and this ish really is just nasty. Off of his seminal album Music To Moog By, the song sits in the shadow of its more famous counterpart, "Popcorn," but really deserves more recognition. Kingsley rocks his Moog keyboard in an attempt to show the world that electronic music can be real music and flips his undulating melodies with his horror-like theme and "Hey… Hey, Hey!" vocal sample.

 As a testament to the influence this dude has had, listen to "The Horror," by RJD2, and you’ll probably recognize the "Hey, Hey," break in there. Or you could listen to the 79 versions of "Popcorn" that WMFU has posted on their blog, including one by Kraftwerk. Yeah, Kraftwerk remixed him. Or peep the covers to the right, where the Beastie Boys paid an undeniable tribute to my man with their benchmark downtempo joint that I’ve mentioned before, The In Sound From Way Out.

True, this song isn’t brand new, but it’s still fresh. It’s got preservatives, HomePiss!

It’s called "Thunderous Bumps" and is made by Back from Japan who takes a remix of Justice’s "Phantom Pt I" called the "Lite Ghost Remix" by Thunderous Olympian (which is pretty hot on its own) and mashes it up with some Spank Rock vocals from the song "Bump" and I found it on a mixtape made by Finger on the Pulse. (Okay, I added that last part just to make it seem more complex.)

Finding and spreading music hidden under the radar is a big reason Culture System exists. That’s probably why I was so excited to come across NozeBleed. If ever there were a sound that defined a genre, NozeBleed would do that for trip hop.

Homeboy’s album, Romantics of the Rhino, is probably equal to the overall body of work by RJD2, Shadow, or Prefuse - if not better. Problem is, it lacks any of the obvious hits or standout tracks that attributed to those artists. Not to be misunderstood: this album hits the spot, and I love to listen to it while I work. But it just never reaches that level of intricacy which would merit a long sit down where listening is the main activity.

Still, in a world where anybody can distribute their shit, and we’re not dependent on huge distribution systems, my man’s work should shine a little. When the dust from the digital revolution settles (as geeky as that sounds), hopefully dudes like this will be able to afford the entire alphabet for their soup. And maybe billion dollar, blockbusting, baby dropping Britneys wont exist either.

Anyway, I got a couple MP3’s here. These are two of the best songs off the Rhino joint.

Manhattan native Blockhead is about to drop a new instrumental album, and ya best ta check it. But first, I’ve got a little check list of things for you to do. Watch the video below to hear him talk a little about it, then listen to the unreleased "NYC Bounce" (maybe the best song on the album), and then read the full interview after the jump.

Read, watch, listen. That’s the theme of the day.