Blak Twang
Travellin'Tony Rotten's first single from The Rotten Club was the cringe-inducing <em>G.C.S.E (Ghetto Children Sex Education)</em>
Tony Rotten's first single from The Rotten Club was the cringe-inducing G.C.S.E (Ghetto Children Sex Education). Twang's inclination to let songs' concepts drive their lyrics can let the latter suffer, very much the case with this pedagogic nonsense. Add a dance-unfriendly tune, and it charts low in the STD top 20, well beneath Flava Flav's Burnin' and A Tribe Called Quest's Pubic Enemy.
Travellin' is a marked improvement, much more the sort of thing you'd expect from the man who brought us So Rotten. While this "globetrottin" geography lesson is unlikely to achieve its predecessor's anthem status, it shares its hip hop reggae sensibilities. The album version does the "London and Jamaica" thing pretty well, but it's the Upstate remix that really delivers. Along with J*star and Punchline, the bootlegs from Upstate have been essential listening for some time, the 3rd release featuring a "Never Let Go" mix of So Rotten. The Travellin' relick is some of his best work, Taipanic's vocals complemented by skanking rockers guitar, bound to induce involuntary grinning and dancing in anyone with a pulse.
First man, the duo responsible for the other remix, have worked on the UK rap scene with both Skinnyman and Fallacy, but this R'n'B rehash has more in common with their production for pop idol Lemar. Replacing reggae with a weedy instrumental, and putting an unenthusiastic tali on the chorus, they get just about everything wrong.
It's a mystery why Position, which shares Kik Off's rowdy attitude, or the articulate aggression of Beef Stop, didn't get picked in place of the woeful first single, but Travellin' should remind fans that "Rotten can't spoil", and persuade the uninitiated to check out the album.
Travellin' is a marked improvement, much more the sort of thing you'd expect from the man who brought us So Rotten. While this "globetrottin" geography lesson is unlikely to achieve its predecessor's anthem status, it shares its hip hop reggae sensibilities. The album version does the "London and Jamaica" thing pretty well, but it's the Upstate remix that really delivers. Along with J*star and Punchline, the bootlegs from Upstate have been essential listening for some time, the 3rd release featuring a "Never Let Go" mix of So Rotten. The Travellin' relick is some of his best work, Taipanic's vocals complemented by skanking rockers guitar, bound to induce involuntary grinning and dancing in anyone with a pulse.
First man, the duo responsible for the other remix, have worked on the UK rap scene with both Skinnyman and Fallacy, but this R'n'B rehash has more in common with their production for pop idol Lemar. Replacing reggae with a weedy instrumental, and putting an unenthusiastic tali on the chorus, they get just about everything wrong.
It's a mystery why Position, which shares Kik Off's rowdy attitude, or the articulate aggression of Beef Stop, didn't get picked in place of the woeful first single, but Travellin' should remind fans that "Rotten can't spoil", and persuade the uninitiated to check out the album.
