I heard Royce Da 5’9’s new, leaked track “Shake This” from his upcoming album due to be released in 2009.  The song is produced by DJ Premier who sampled, “Holy Thursday”, my favorite David Axelrod song, in making the beat.  And I love the new track.  Like a lot of new music, it sounds like it could have been released 10-15 years ago- but it wasn’t, it’s brand new- and I love the track.

I used to think it was disappointing when new music sounded like it could have come out 10-15 years ago.  I thought that kind of music wasn’t as valuable or enjoyable as more original, evolved music.  But there are a bunch of songs like “Shake This” that I enjoy as much as, if not more than, newer and more up-to-date, even more creative music.

Dela is a Montreal based hip hop producer who is clearly a product of 1990’s hip hop.  I first learned about him in October when I came across a Talib Kweli collab called “Long Life”.  And I’ve been a fan of his style of jazzy, somewhat abstract hip hop since before he was nearly perfecting it.  And I just recently came across his mixtape Atmosphere Airlines Vol. 2. His album is called Changes of Atmosphere and the tracks are pure ‘90’s hip hop.  His beats are heavily influenced by jazzy hip hop producers like Shaheed-Muhammed with ATCQ, Large Professor for Nas and Main Source, and Pete Rock with CL Smooth.  Not only do the songs sound like they could have been released 10-15 years ago but they also sound a lot like 90’s underground hip hop because the beats are so jazzy and abstract.  So even with this is new music sounding like underground hip hop from the 90’s- something that might not seem appealing to those of us who actually loved underground hip hop back in the 90s and don’t think producers could go any further with the style- the music is still great, very enjoyable, and definitely worth more than just a listen or two.