I Got The Blu(es)

I Got The Blu(es)

My contemporary Aneesah (Le Chat Noir) told me about Los Angeles based rapper Blu(e). I've heard good hip-hop in the last few years but nearly all of it has been from artists I discovered long ago, like Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Grayskul, Jay-Z, Kool Keith, etc. Forgive me for being skeptical of anything new.

Blu's new mixtape HerFavoriteColo(u)r is absolutely brilliant. The production is filled with flips of vintage swing jazz (most notably Billie Holiday on "Amnesia"), a no-brainer that is usually bypassed by most producers in favor of sampling tired 1970s soul records. The combination actually works quite flawlessly. It's not hard to imagine an alternate dimension of the 1930s, where rappers are as popular as trumpet players and where Blu is the most popular rapper in America.

Download the mixtape for yourself.