The occasion of the reissue of a remix album by one of the few rap acts to do so was hailed to be among one of history's greatest accomplishments. P. Diddy, in typical hubris, claimed that his Bad Boy crew invented the remix. Sure you did, Mr. Combs...
More unassumingly, Grits drop their remix debut, The Art of Transformation, with an almost perplexing lack of hoopla. It's not as if the duo who is one of holy hip-hop's biggest-selling, most critically-lauded entities deserves to make a little fuss, but Bonafide and Coffee aren't having it.
That may be because Transformation's re-rubs originate from tracks on their 2002 release, The Art Of Translation, which seems like nigh an eternity ago now that they dropped Dichotomy A and Dichotomy B in '04. No matter; thanks to sympathetic post-production treatments, Transformation continues the twosome's streak of (re)invention.
Sometimes the new rendition emphasizes elements the tune already had. The more intensely salsa'fied "Here We Go" and a "Tennessee Bwoys" that ups the track's latent old-school booty bass music bounce qualify to pitch tents in that camp.
Elsewhere, as on reconfigurations of "Get It" and "Make Room," the remixers' intentions sound to be the creation of commercially off-kilter joints with the kind of Hotlanta syncopation that would give Ludacris an itch to get himself to a microphone ASAP.
As for other general market M.C.'s., it's too bad Audiogoat (which looks to be an imprint of Gotee for its hip-hop stable) didn't see fit to include the little-heard remix of Grits' MTV breakthrough, "All Fall Down," featuring Common. For a little compensation, there are duets with Gotee label chief TobyMac, the sadly MIA Jennifer Knapp, vocal combo V3 and newcomer Antion Phelon. Oh, and dig the Jay Mumbles Mega Mix, too.
Grits may not have invented anything, but they have pioneered an approach to righteous rhyming that's both verbally dizzying as it explores the juncture connecting the sacred to the mundane. No Transformation was necessary, but it makes for another artistic triumph all the same.
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