The Arsonists |
 |
|
Tue. August 31.1999 3:04 AM EDT |
||
Best Of '99: Arsonists Bring Back Showmanship To Hip-HopRap crew celebrates release of debut album, As the World Burns. by Staff Writer Christopher O'Connor |
||||
|
||||
 |
The Arsonists (from left, Q-Unique, Swel, D-Stroy, Freestyle and Jise) started out as the Bushwick Bomb Squad. ( ) |
|
||
[Editor's note: Over the holiday season, SonicNet is looking back at 1999's top stories, chosen by our editors and writers. This story originally ran on Tuesday, Aug. 31.] NEW YORK — The Arsonists aren't your usual
The five-member crew from Brooklyn, N.Y. — which released its first album, As the World Burns, last week — is more like your typical sketch-performing, battle-rapping, funky-fresh-dancing act of a decade past. "A majority of the rap cats, they just get onstage and walk back and forth and rhyme. That's bullsh--, man," group member Q-Unique said after the Arsonists' album-release party Saturday at the Bowery Ballroom. "I can just sit at home and listen to your CD and get better sound, you know what I'm saying?" (RealAudio excerpt of interview), said Q-Unique, who is also a member of the famous b-boy collective the Rock Steady Crew. On Saturday the Arsonists presented a show that evoked memories of late-1980s girl-group J.J. Fad and dance-rap group Heavy D and the Boyz. One sketch, which drew the night's biggest laugh, found the group caught in a hip-hop time machine that took them back to the unsophisticated days of 1979 and the party-heavy days of 1988. "That's where you have to bless your fans," Q-Unique said. On As the World Turns, the Arsonists bend and twist beats in weird directions. The album begins with a studio outtake of the group members — Q-Unique, D-Stroy, Swel, Freestyle and Jise — discussing how to approach their rhymes on a song, then it segues into a breakbeat that samples the Beatles' "A Day in the Life." From there, the album runs through a series of keyboard loops that make the group seem angry on some tracks — a punching horn drives the beat on "Backdraft" — and amusing on others — "Pyromaniax" (RealAudio excerpt) reflects producer Q-Unique's love of cartoons. The latter song originally sampled music from a Warner Bros. cartoon, but the company balked, Q-Unique said. The finished product is kooky enough to pass for organ-grinder or ice-cream-truck music. "I'm a huge cartoon person," Q-Unique said. "I love Cartoon Network, straight up. And I do cartoon voices, straight up, the crew will tell you. For me, it was just bringing that out from being a cartoon fan and throwing [it] on track and also saying, 'Hey, yo, hip-hop: Have a sense of humor sometimes" (RealAudio excerpt of interview). Like all members of the Arsonists, Q-Unique refused to divulge either his given name or his age. The album's songs also have the energy of early party songs from such old-schoolers as Afrika Bambaataa and Whodini; on "Rhyme Time Travel," the Arsonists assume the personalities of a typical '80s rap crew over a rapid-fire beat. On another track, "Lunchroom Take-Out," Q-Unique plays a beat that sounds like he's pounding his fists on a table while the other Arsonists trade freestyle schoolboy insults about welfare, their hair and being "as cheesy as a Dorito." Each member of the group either produced, rapped or scratched on all of the album's tracks. "There's enough talent in the group that we don't need to work with outside producers — we can do everything ourselves," a tired but cordial D-Stroy said backstage after Saturday's performance. "We really love music, no matter what type of music it is." The group began in Brooklyn's Bushwick neighborhood as the Bushwick Bomb Squad. Jise said it was essentially a group of friends that hung out and did any number of things together — smoking, joking around, playing cards, rapping. The Arsonists arose in 1994 once several of the Bomb Squad members became serious about pursuing careers in hip-hop. Originally a 13-member crew, the group solidified its current lineup in 1996. The name "Arsonists" is an extrapolation of the hip-hop slang for masterpiece. If someone painted a nice piece of graffiti or produced a great beat, it was declared a "burner," Q-Unique said, explaining that the group took that concept and ran with it for its name. As the World Burns was released on Matador Records, best known as the home of such indie-rock acts as Pavement and Belle and Sebastian. The album collects the music the group has made since 1994. Several songs, including the laid-back "Session" (RealAudio excerpt), originally were released as underground singles in New York. The five Arsonists are so committed to reviving hip-hop tradition that they even wear uniforms. Each member wears a different-colored jumpsuit and a T-shirt depicting a different zoo animal. Jise, who wears the lion, said the uniforms have helped the group evolve into more of a performance troupe than a collection of rappers. "When we first started, you would see us as individual characters," he said. "Now when you see us, it's like we're tight. We've been doing this long enough now that we can feed off of each other." |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
  |
 |
 |
Receive Free Music News Daily Via Email |
|
Receive Free Artist Updates Via Email for The Arsonists |
|
All news for The Arsonists |
|
Breaking Music News |
 |
Add VH1 News to My Yahoo |
|
