julianne escobedo shepherd

THREE CUTS is RA’s new video series having artists walk through their careers via three tracks. The debut is with one of my favorite producers ever, Scratcha DVA—he chats up his LIFE CLASSIC “The End” (Machinedrum was like WTHell Scratcha & Scratcha was like “That tune’s nearly 10 years old bruv”), soul/broke/garage “Just Vybe,” and a forthcoming remix that sounds like the end of days. Also, is wearing ill Cazals. 

“Find me a condo somewhere. Hundred mill and up.” OKAY, CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW CAM’RON IS SING-RAPPING IN A VERY SENSITACHO FASHION ON THIS SONG ABOUT HIS LONGTIME GIRLFRIEND, and that Uptown’s most impetuous is making his electronic-music comeback/debut-ish on a song about loneliness created by Parisians. “I usually tell my girl to blow this/ then disappear in the air like hocus/pocus.” THIS IS HIS BEST VERSE IN YEARS. I was thinking about “trap-rave,” and how I wish it were more conceptual than literal, because the idea of future-minded electronic artists and hardass rappers collaborating like this, in an organic way, is way more interesting than the Cinderella’s stepsister shoehorning of triple time beats with Dutch house squerks that often make me want to kill myself. I was tweeting with Teki Latex about this earlier and he noted that of course, because his crew has been exploring rap/electronic since the early ’00s (with TTC), and yes, all of this makes sense. I also think it’s interesting that Teki & Para One are uniting rap/electronic on A$AP Rocky’s album, as well (the Skrillex collabo was basically a remix of Skrillex’s remix of Birdy Nam Nam featuring Teki Latex and produced by Para One: “Goin’ In.” It was a moebius strip of remixing.) Anyway Teki is the man. I have been writing about him since about 2003-2004.  Here is the time I wrote about his lookbook.nu, haha. EXCELLENT STYLE, VIBSKOV ALL DAY.

Best video of 2013. This is my New York. No one is fucking with us right now.