"One good thing about music..."

Artist: Adrian Champion

Album: Stars & Stripes: The White Stripes Reimagined

This album is a music project by the DJ Adrian Champion who wanted to mix two different genres of music and create a hybrid of hip hop and The White Stripes. If you want to read his take on the album check out the website and read about the project and download the album for free (its where I got it from). http://www.starsandstripesproject.com/

The album combines White Stripes songs from multiple albums with the likes of Outkast, Kanye West, Mos Def, Biggie, 2Pac, Eminem, Busta Rhymes, and a few others. Each track being an original mix of music to create a unique sound. To quote the artist himself, “hip hop fans meet The White Stripes. Fans of The White Stripes meet hip hop.” And he couldn’t have put it any better. The album is the crossing of two genres that have almost nothing to do with each other. Most listeners would listen to either The White Stripes or hip hop exclusively, making this combination even more impressive. The project is a great idea and created 13 new mixes for me to appreciate. If you like mixes and mash-ups of any sort give it a shot, I promise that you will not be dissapointed. 

Champion did a good job of not letting the hip hop or the rock be the main showcase of any song. The two genres share the songs equally to the point where the mix sounds natural, and more impressively he was able to do this by keeping true to one band throughout the whole album. Though most of the music isn’t party music and dance worthy, it absolutely doesn’t take away from the level of difficulty of the mixing. The songs show the the artist has a keen ear and a natural talent for creating music. The only criticism is that often throughout the album he reminds you who mixed it and self-advertises for something that you’ve most likely already downloaded from him for free.

The song I chose to sample in this post is Bombs Over Orchids which is a combination of Blue Orchids by The White Stripes and B.O.B. by Outkast. (B.O.B. stands for Bombs over Baghdad and if you don’t know that song, listen to it and make sure you get the lyrics.) The mix is the first on the album and since I liked most of these songs equally I figured I would showcase the first on the album to get you started and hopefully get you to listen to the rest of the album. The song has its melody from the White Stripes song while mainly using the lyrics of the Outkast song, giving this song the feel of rock with the pulse and rhythm of a well made and well versed hip hop song. 

I won’t lie, until someone posted one of these songs on Facebook, I didn’t even know the album existed. I figured I’d give the song a shot and after listening and liking it I went and downloaded the entire album. Reach out and take a shot at new music, and if you learn your own taste you can learn to only discover music that you like, it just takes time and practice.

Don’t forget you can download the whole album for free, legally, on the website I posted above. If you don’t want to take that opportunity at least look up some of it on YouTube. (like the mix with Nas or Biggie and 2Pac.)

“I think music in itself is healing. It’s an explosive expression of humanity. It’s something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we’re from, everyone loves music.” - Billy Joel

Give new music a chance and happy listening.

14 years gone. 

This remix includes an Eminem verse at the end.

Enjoy.

One sweet house track.