The Perceptionists: not big Bush fans…

Here’s a CD playlist I did for a mate of mine. It’s hip hop I love from the last three years, a CDR hand-crafted for car-rattling pleasure:

AKIR – Politricks
Cyne – Automaton
Sweatshop Union – US
Danger Doom – A.T.H.F.
Skinnyman – No Big Ting
Ghostface – R.A.G.U.
Pipi Skid– WMD
Murs – Murray’s Law
Lone Catalysts – By My Damn Self Pt. I
Lupe Fiasco – Kick Push
Rodney P – We Don’t Like Coppers
Roots Manuva – No Love
Substance Abuse – Fake Contacts
Mars ILL – Stand Back And Watch
Braintax – Syriana Style
Raks One – Knoe Dat ver. 2.0
Wordsworth – What We Gon’ Do
Rodney P, Farma G, Mystro, Braintax – You Know Who You Are
Promoe – These Walls Don’t Lie
Outer Space – Top Shelf (Featuring Sadat X)
Sage Francis – Gunz Yo
The Perceptionists – Memorial Day

If there’s any big theme running through this comp, it’s an antiwar one. Hip hop is, as usual, addressing life as we live it, whether it’s the everyday bullshit or the biggest issue of this century so far.

It’s this breadth and depth that keeps me hooked on hip hop. Take any of the writers from the above comp and you have a lyricist and a poet of greater flair and nuance than any of the over-hyped "singer-songwriters" mewling their way around the tasteful gig circuit. Fiddling while Iraq burns.

Now, if I tried to make an antiwar comp featuring indie bands… forget it. The days of McCarthy and The Redskins are long gone.

Contemporary indie kids are all de-facto Tories now, either politically ignorant (and proud of that lack) or unconscious Thatcherites.

And the bands? The most important thing for them nowadays is where they get their fucking hair cut.