Youngblood Brass Band: My gateway rad-killing unicorn motorcycle to hip-hop

[Gregness]

I first got interested in these guys because of their jazz background. My high school percussion instructor let me listen to this track which features their sousaphonist 'bout halfway through (3:40, or thereabouts). What you're hearing is called multiphonics. He's playing one note, and singing another note on top of it. Also, he's mimicing DJ effects by playing high and double tonguing.

Yeah, that guy alone has more talent than most entire bands.(And yes, he IS that good live)

From there I got into some of their more "out there" jazz stuff, what with the spoken word poetry and all that.

I was impressed enough with the lyrics that I checked out some of their more "mainstream" rap stuff (for a very loose definition of mainstream).

And then there's the tracks where they fuse them together.

And when they're done, they take some time out to get back to their new orleans style parade band roots.

If it's not obvious, I'm kind of a fan.

Their website a bunch of other stuff on it that I couldn't find on Youtube as well as a few tracks to download.

I think the thing that blows me away the most about this group is the ridiculous level of talent these guys all have. I already gushed about the sousaphonist a bit ago, but their lyricist also gets special mention from me. He's clever, literate, articulate, and kind of a nerd (did you catch the verse that was an extended dune metaphor?). Also, I'm not stupid by any stretch but I'm not good enough at poetry to completely decode some of these tracks. Seriously, someone go to their website and listen to Bone Refinery and tell me what exactly he's saying because I've only got a vague idea.

[Fenris]

Their Trombonist is pretty juicy. I like. Have you ever heard of Wycliffe Gordon? He's a trombonist with Wynton's troupe and he's been known to do some pretty sick multiphonic work as well as crazy overtone manipulation.