Rhymin' & Stealin'

Let’s be straight. I’m well aware that the mash-up concept reached it’s apex a few years back, with DangerMouse’s “Grey Album” and almost anything by Z-Trip motivating countless heads to come-up with their own “unique” combos. Now you can find Jay-Z rapping over anything. So the style is quite played. But the video mash-up is a much more stunning and cerebral version, and it is now being incorporated in the live shows of visionaries like DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist, Mike Relm and more.

Check the Eclectic Method for example. Their Temptations video (embedded above), which was commisioned by Motown Records themselves to help commemorate the labels 50th anniversary, hits you not just on a sonic level but on a visual level as well, allowing for a more complete musical experience. If you didn’t get that experience from watching the Temptations vid, check this out. It is the Eclectic Method’s tribute to one of my dopplegangers, Quentin Tarantino.

You can watch it with no video and be impressed by the audio. Or you can go vice versa, and also be impressed. But watching AND listening makes it one of the most creative forms of musical art around. I highly recommend checking out more from the Eclectic Method by perusing their website. They have tonnes of amazing videos, with the king being Lock Up Your Videos, a 45 min+ collection of music videos mashed up for maximum enjoyment. Download it for free (or pay what you’d like a la Radiohead), kick back and enjoy.

I’ve sang the praises of the video mash-up before on this blog, primarily with an earlier post on the Israeli wunder-nerd Kutiman and his amazing ThruYou YouTube project. Advocates for this most creative art form are sprouting up everywhere, and this advocacy is most apparent in a new movie entitled Rip: A Remix Manifesto (trailer below).

In Rip, filmmaker Brett Gaylor explores the mash-up and its increasing relevance on modern music and popular culture. He looks at the art form itself, the inherent copyright issues and argues for the validity and viability of this truly new medium. It’s a great movie and can be viewed for free or downloaded using the pay what you want model (US only). If you appreciate Eclectic Method, DJ Shadow, Kutiman, Girl Talk, Z-Trip or any other artist that is experimenting with video this way, do yourself a favor and check out the movie.