Curren$y is one of those artists whose prolificacy can exhaust a listener. You look up and, in a 12-month span, the Nola-rapper has dropped like 12 albums. So it’s not like I’m even regularly checking for his music these days, even if he remains one of my favorite rappers, in a peculiar way. When word hit the street that Spitta and Wiz Khalifa were finally releasing Live In Concert, I was fully prepared to ignore it for months. That was until my man Trav described it as Curren$y and Khalifa doing the old-soul thing like Ghostface’s recent linkup with Adrian Younge.
To my surprise, Live In Concert was far doper than Twelve Reasons to Die. With all due respect to Younge – a gifted auteur in his own right – you can’t beat a classic. And, Fancy Dancer, the 1975 funk/jazz/soul landmark from Bobbi Humphrey and the Mizells (Harvey Mason on drums) is where Curren$y and Wiz drew most of their samples and sonic inspiration, in general.
Via XXLmag.com :
Let’s think about what Ron Burgundy’s jazz flute did to Mrs. Corningstone. Ron Burgundy mastered that flute and it made him able to bring her to Pleasure Town on animated horses and they were f****n’ out in the solar system and all of that. So how could we not employ the talents of Ron Burgundy and his jazz flute on as many cuts as possible for Live in Concert. Nah, man. Honestly, that is the genius that is Bobby Humphrey and his album that was put together long before me and my brother Wiz ever thought about rapping. [Laughs] I think at one point there’s maybe like two minutes of flute and nothing else. It’s for everybody’s soul, man. Some people don’t understand it immediately, but after they give it a second and third listen, they understand the music.
Shout out to Alex Wurman for that groovy Anchorman film score. This Live In Concert though, has done a good job with giving Fancy Dancer a worthy update – and we’re not just talking about the weedhead/hedonistic lyrics. The whole vibe is somehow contemporary, yet nostalgic. Bravo, fellas. This will almost surely end up on hip-hop year-end lists.
