For those of you who don’t know, diesel engines get better gas mileage than octane burning engines. This is because diesel engines have a higher compression ratio than a conventional octane engines. Higher compression ratios mean better engine efficiency (more power per drops of fuel) and therefore better gas mileage. (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_engine#Power_and_fuel_economy)
So Why Haven’t Diesel Cars Been Pushed As An Alternative To Gas Guzzlers?
Since gas mileage and global warming go hand in hand, conventional diesel is a fossil fuel just like octane. It turns out that they way diesel is refined, it tends to produce more pollutants when combusted compared to octane. Therefore states like California have been harsh on new diesel cars, to the point where Mercedes can’t sell them in California (see: http://blog.wired.com/cars/2006/09/mercedes_diesel.html).
Diesel Has Been Dubbed “Dirty”
Ironically, Biodiesel is cleaner than octane by leaps and bounds. Biodiesel produces almost no nasty smog pollutants and is almost entirely produced within the United States. I’m not saying that if we all switched to diesel engine automobiles and biodiesel fuel, we wouldn’t be entirely independent from foreign fuel. Chances are we will still need to buy biodiesel from foreign countries - but at least there is no way it would come from the Middle East. You can’t grow soy or corn there! (Well maybe in Iraq and Iran you can, but not in Saudi, Oman, Dubai or Kuwait).
Back To The Diesel Hybrid
As I have discussed, the advantage of diesel are 1) Better efficiency and mileage 2) Cleaner Emission (if you buy biofuel) 3) No dollars spent towards spark plugs.
So if you wanted to design the most eco-friendly automobile, you would obviously go with a diesel engine. Not only would a hybrid get better mileage than they are getting now (50mpg - 65pmg?), you would be putting less pollutants in the air.
This is the coolest music group that ever assembled. Just look at these guys. If I could of been a part of any band at any time in history it would of been in this band.
These guys are from Britain - circa 1980. A lot of good music came from Britain during this era.
I have to be extremely careful when I write about Kool Keith. People who are Keith fans tend to be hip hop elitists. See - I’ve already pissed someone off.
Ahhh. Why do I like this guy? Well - simply because THERE IS NOTHING ELSE LIKE HIM. He is his own genre. Also, he’s a weirdo and I’m a weirdo - so it’s one of those “it takes one to know one” kind of thing.
The biggest problem with trying to expose the genius of Kool Keith to people is that if they just randomly listen to one of his tracks - they won’t get it. They will think it’s terrible. I really takes time and understanding to appreciate his genius. If it helps, Rolling Stone has labelled him a genius - so there.
Where should one begin with their Keith experience? I’m going to have to say Dr. Octagon (I’m sorry Keith - seriously sorry). That’s the album that will get you primed for him. That is where you will get to understand and love his style. Now he is an extremely prolific album creator. It seems like he is pumping an album out every year these days. You can go buy the first album you find of his, but again you might not get it. So here are my recommendations: Diesel Truckers, Black Elvis and Dr. Doom.
From what I have heard, Kool Keith has some issues with the Dr. Octagon album. I guess Dr. Doom is a “retaliation” to Dr. Octagon. He even executes Dr. Octagon in the first track of Dr. Doom. However, Dr. Doom seems to explain his personal feeling towards the music industry and how he sees industry employees perceive him.
Finally, the one thing you should appreciate about this guy is his duration. Apparently he started his musical career in 1984. What other rapper do you know of that has been in the game this long?
I feel like a poser for putting Johnny Cash up here. I don’t think I knew much about him until he became a big deal the past few years. I know a
lot of people who say they can’t stand country music. I never took that approach but from the country that I heard, nothing really did it for me.
However, my music exploring philosphy states that I should dive into this genre because most likely, I will find stuff I like - like Johnny Cash.
Fela is my hero. He made his own country inside of Nigeria which he called “The Shrine”. It was probably about the size of one acre. He slept all day, partied and played music all night inside his own country. He continuously fought the oppresive Nigerian government. He got the shit kicked out of him all the time by Nigerian soliders. Nigerian soldiers threw his mom out a 2 story window.
This video is from a documentary about Fela. I recommend you watch the entire documentary on Youtube.com.
There is some fucked up footage in this video of Nigerian soldiers executing people. It totally reminds of how the third world has ruthless, opressive governments - some of which are fully supported by the United States. On one hand I’m glad I live in America, where I am allowed to speak out against my government and not get killed for it. On the other hand, American corporations and the United State government are responsible for creating some third world atrocities. For example, in the 1970s and 1980s the United States had a military base in Georgia called the “School of the Americas”. Here they would train soldiers and officers from Central American amries to torture, kidnap family members and falsely imprison people. All the things you would want going on in your neighborhood - right? These soliders would go back to their home country and end up killing children, thousands (maybe millions) of innocent people, rape and kill nuns; all of which devastated a large part of Central America. Guetamala had a civil war that lasted 30 years! In my opinion, anyone who wants to immigrate from any Central American country that the United States actively supported during a civil war, should be granted refugee status in the United States. We did it for Vietnam and Iran - I think El Salvador, Guetamala and Nicaragua are acceptable cases.
This is an example of an album that I call an epic. From start to finish the album is a journey and nothing inbetween lacks. You don’t skip any tracks. You usually listen to the whole album all the way through. Anyway, this album is a weird look into the life of Dr. Octagon - a demented surgeon that does all kinds of crazy shit to his patients etc. This is another extremely vivid album with amazing lyrics and excellent musical production. In my opinion, another classic, required hip hop album that deserves top notoriety in the hip hop hall of fame.
The essential ingredient in this particular album is Dan the Automator. He produced most of the album (DJ Shadow did the track waiting list). And the one thing I notice about Dan the Automator is that he tends to bring out the best in rappers. He is an extremely synergistic component of my favorite hip hop albums. For example, Deltron 3030 is another album that Automator produced and I think it’s some of Del’s best work.
This is a remix of the original “Where I’m From” track. The original track was on their Grammy Award winning album Reachin’ (A New Refutation Of Time And Space). Hint: This is a great song to listen to with headphones on.
This group is my number one favorite hip hop group of all time. Hands down. They only created two albums. The first one, won a grammy, and was generally a pretty good album. The second album, Blowout Comb, recieved little to no attention - which is insane! Blowout Comb is fucking amazing. To this day, no album I have ever heard of in any genre of music paints so much color, imagery and sensation as Blowout Comb. The only albums that I can think of that comes close are The Cure - Disintegration or Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon. This just proves to me that the music world (especially hip hop) is controlled by media giants and what is considered popular is determined before anything hits the airwaves.
Blowout Comb came out in 1994 which is right when the hip hop industry had stuck with their money making recipe: Sex and Violence. Digable Planets doesn’t really touch on either of these themes and thus is not promoted to the masses. No radio play and no attention. I thought we lived in a Democracy? Isn’t weird how what gets to be on the airwaves is not determined by listeners but rather by media corporations? No one would even know if they liked Digable Planets unless they found it by accident.
He he heh. That’s exactly how I found out about them. I was at the “CD Listening Bar” in Irvine CA, 1997. I grabbed Blowout Comb thinking it was something else, and gave it a listening to. And I was fucking blown away by the album. And the funny thing was, I thought that I was missing out on all this great hip hop. At the time I was listening to mostly punk rock. I was like, “whoa - this shit is great. I must be sooo behind in my hip hop listening library - there is probably a shit load of great hip hop albums out there I know nothing about”. That was partially true. What really happened is that I had stumbled upon my favorite album of all time.
Anyway, back to the album. What to expect: These guys made a deep dive into Black-Pantherism. It’s very revolutionary. The previous album touched on a lot of social issues. This album is kind of like the solution to those issues. But it’s very artfully done. The DJ-ing and sampling are exquisite. The rhyming is nothing like anything I heard in the past or present. It also features some of Guru’s best lyrics (in my opinion). This album is truely a unique masterpiece.
I just started getting into this guy. As I have said before, I’m on a musical journey - I keep seeking out new music to find. This journey started in 1989 and here I am in 2008 still finding “new” music that I enjoy.
I was watching a VBS.tv show on the pro skater John Cardiel. Apparently, Barrington Levy is his favorite musician. So I figured I would give him a try. This song Here I Come seems to be one of his most popular joints. I find it pretty catchy too. Been listening to it all week. One this is for sure - this guy can wail.
Tribe was the first hip hop group that did it for me. It was the song “Check The Rhyme”. I was flipping through the t.v. back in 1991 and for a split second I heard a measure of that song. It
caught my ear. I flipped back to MTV and was glued to the video. Not because of the of the video content, but because of the music. I was hooked. I don’t know what it was about that song, but
it made me a convert. Thank God that happened. Years later. Like six years later, I got a hair up my ass to buy ALL the tribe albums. I really think that Low End Theory was THE ALBUM that transformed Hip Hop and gave it a big push into the 1990s. The style, the production, the clean flowing rhyming was a triumphant feat for hip hop in that era.
Tribe got me through my toughest days on this planet. There is something so fucking real about that group - it really gets you grounded. It’s fucking medicine for the soul. If they ever make a “classic hip hop” station, A Tribe Called Quest is going to be equivalent to Zepplin. Anyway it’s too bad I can’t find videos for all my favorite Tribe songs, but here are some of em.
