Pages tagged “cadence weapon”

On Cadence Weapon’s second album, Afterparty Babies, the 22-year-old Canadian rapper and producer (born Rollie Pemberton) mixes sharp, smart lyrics with nimble dance tracks. His vocals sound half-submerged amidst the pounding beats, like someone shouting over the din of a raging party. On “Do I Miss My Friends?” he raps over a beat built solely from Bobby McFerrin-like vocal percussion. Many of the cuts, such as “Limited Edition OJ Slammer,” use 8-bit video game sounds; others, like “House Music,” appropriate Baltimore booty bass.

Cadence’s unique production skills make for hip-hop songs that sound like no other. But unlike “club rap” contemporaries such as the Cool Kids and Kid Sister, he demonstrates a exudes a certain restless intelligence. For “Messages Matter,” he mocks hipster clichés, noting “I don’t respond to emoticons of emotion.” And on “Juliann Wilding,” he opens a portrait of a party girl by asking, “Have you ever done coke off a book?/ It ain’t the Bible, but it will have to do.”

As a knowing send-up of youth culture, Afterparty Babies can be both funny and obnoxious. The beats are so chaotic and loud that they take some getting used to. Don't wait for Cadence Weapon to slow down, though. As he says on "In Search of the Youth Crew," he's too busy sneaking into the club so he can both parody that lifestyle and enjoy it with his friends.

Apparently there is an entire subcategory of human existence that depends on rump-shakin’ boom bap in the way captive pandas require pornography. Canadian hip-hop artist Rollie Pemberton, a.k.a. Cadence Weapon, should probably receive some kind of scientific grant for discovering this classification, Afterparty Babies, also the name of his sophomore CD, set to drop March 4 on Anti-/Epitaph (Upper Class/EMI in Canada, Upper Class/Big Dada in the UK and Europe).

Pemberton, 21, “wanted to make music that afterparty babies are created to,” according to an official statement promulgating his commitment to the perpetuation of said group (a diverse, though scattershot category of person, many of whom are unknowingly half related to each other.). Anyway, Cadence didn’t actually expound on the matter, besides adding that the 14-track booty-rocker is for “all the accidents out there,” and we shouldn’t pretend to be experts on anything other than the music itself, so we’ll move on.

Since his Polaris award-nominated debut Breaking Kayfabe in 2005, Pemberton – a former Pitchfork contributor – has mingled with all manner of credible folks, including Jurassic 5, Lady Sovereign, New Pornographers, The Klaxons, Hot Chip and Final Fantasy – whom he lost the aforementioned Polaris Prize to, and just finished touring with. Good sport! From here on out he’s got a couple UK shows before returning to his northern North American homeland.

Here’s the track list – hopefully song four is a current-events relevant reference to Pogs.

Afterparty Babies tracklist:
1. - Do I Miss My Friends?
2. - In Search of the Youth Crew
3. - True Story
4. - Limited Edition OJ Slammer
5. - Juliann Wilding
6. - Real Estate
7. - Messages Matter
8 - Your Hair's Not Clothes!
9. - Tattoos (And What They Really Feel Like)
10. - The New Fashion
11. - Getting Dumb
12. - House Music
13. - Unsuccessful Club Nights
14. - We Move Away

Related links:
CadenceWeaponMusic.com
Cadence on MySpace
YouTube: Cadence Weapon - "Sharks"

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