DJ Krush - "Meiso" (Mo' Wax, 1996)
In the 1980s, a guy finds himself uninterested in school and
frustrated by his financial situation, so he drops out and soon finds himself
involved in a major gang. The violence in his life quickly escalates, claiming
the life of a close friend and threatening to doom him to an early death
himself. And then, some time after its initial release in 1983, he stops by his
local movie theater and catches a showing of Wild Style, and everything changes. He severs his ties with the
gang and resolves to become a DJ. This story or some variation of it has become
so common in hip hop history that it’s basically cliché at this point, but in
the case of DJ Krush, arguably the most important DJ in the history of Japanese
hip hop, this boilerplate backstory
was not simply a means of establishing street cred. Krush, born Hideaki Ishi in
Tokyo in 1962, was a member of the Yakuza, one of the most notoriously ruthless
gangs on the planet, so removing himself from gang life was not a simple
process. Also, when Wild Style
initially got limited release in Japan, hip hop and DJ culture were basically
unknown in that country, so getting the equipment necessary to follow his new
hero Grandmaster Flash took years. His initial trips to buy equipment were met
by store owners who were baffled as to why he would ever need two turntables. Turntables
with built-in crossfaders were impossible to acquire in Japan so he had to
build much of his own equipment. Krush, along with a small community of
likeminded musicians, basically built Japanese hip hop culture from scratch.
Unfortunately, Japanese musical pioneers tend to get minimal
attention at best in the United States, regardless of genre.[1]
The Source barely cared about the
Japanese rappers featured on De La Soul’s Buhloone
Mindstate, and any Japanese rap artist without a cosign as powerful as the
Native Tongues was deemed unworthy of the page space. Krush even struggled to
get a deal with an American record company. Thankfully, the United Kingdom, which
was in the midst of the most fertile periods for trip-hop, jungle, and drum and
bass music, was more than open to Japanese artists. Britain’s Mo’ Wax label,
which would be legendary even if they released Endtroducing…, Dr.
Octagonecologyst, Psyence Fiction,
and nothing else, was much more progressive than most US hip hop labels and saw
potential in Krush’s instrumental hip hop excursions. Thanks to Mo’ Wax’s
distribution and some favorable attention in the British press, Krush found
himself right behind DJ Shadow in defining the new subgenre of instrumental hip
hop.
Meiso, Krush’s
second album for Mo’ Wax (after 1994’s unremarkable Krush for Shadow Records and Strictly
Turntablized for Mo’ Wax) was released in 1995, and the title track
featuring Black Thought and Malik B. of the Roots was released as a 12” in the
UK in 1995.[2]
The b-side of the “Meiso” single is basically a wash, with a radio version of
DJ Shadow’s remix and an uninteresting remix by the Danish production duo the
Prunes, but the a-side is extremely interesting as it features both the album
version of the song as well as a remix by DJ Shadow, who was still defining his
sound in the year leading up to the release of Endtroducing… Krush’s album version of the song is the third and last
song on side A. The beat recalls DJ Premier’s work on Jeru the Damaja’s 1994
debut album The Sun Rises in the East,
with lots of piano dissonance and scratching, and long stretches of drums and
reverb-heavy bass with no other instrumental accompaniment. Both Roots MCs show
off their developing skills in between two of their band’s best albums, Do You Want More?!!!??! and Illadelph Halflife. The Roots got their
start in Europe, where they dealt with much less resistance to their live band
hip hop than they initially had in the States. That a Japanese artist on a
British label would be one of the first to get them for a guest feature makes a
lot of sense, and both rappers are audibly hungry, eager to prove to new
audiences that they aren’t just a gimmick.
DJ Shadow’s remix, which is featured in both vocal and
instrumental forms, is the primary reason that this 12” is worth picking up
(Krush’s version is readily available on the Meiso album, after all). While Krush’s beat doesn’t change too much
throughout the song, DJ Shadow had already developed the ability to move a song
along with just a beat. The song sounds out sounding pretty typically, all
downbeat bass and occasional keyboard and string accents over a great slowly
changing drum beat. When Black Thought finishes his verse, the beat transforms
completely with a fuller arrangement in an extended instrumental refrain. The original
beat comes back for Malik B.’s verse, but the drums are a little glitchier this
time around. The song ends with about a minute and a minute of the refrain beat
and a soul outro. The instrumental version works just as well as the vocal
version, and would not have been out of place on the b-side of one of the
singles from Endtroducing…
DJ Krush and DJ Shadow maintained their relationship through
one split 12” later in 1995, but their paths diverged when Shadow released Endtroducing… in 1996. Endtroducing… was rightfully heralded as
one of the greatest and most innovative records in hip hop and sampling
history, and the success enabled Shadow to explore all kinds of new artistic
avenues (and a few dead-ends, like 2007’s The
Outsider), while Krush quietly pursued his vision of instrumental hip hop
with minimal American exposure. He released one more album on Mo’ Wax, his 1997
masterpiece MiLight, before moving on
to other labels. He has remained active on the DJ scene in the eighteen years
since Meiso came out, although he
hasn’t released an album since 2004’s Jaku.
"Meiso"
"Meiso (DJ Shadow Klub Mix)"
[1] A
few metal bands (such as Boris) and psychedelic rock bands (such as Acid
Mothers Temple) get some much deserved attention in the States, but the
Japanese rock vanguard of the sixties and seventies, including Flower Traveling
Band, Speed, Glue & Shinki, Taj Mahal Travelers, and the Golden Cups, has
been all but ignored over here. Also, while many of Europe’s free jazz and free
improvisation pioneers have managed to rise in the canon among some American
circles, Kaoru Abe, who stands as one of the greatest free saxophonists ever,
is unknown to all but a few Americans. Japanese hip hop has suffered a similar
fate here.
[2]
Multiple versions of this single were released on both vinyl and CD, with
different remixes on each version. I’m focusing on the first and best version,
catalog number MW042.
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