Listening to the Mage of Stratford's Reel-to-Reel Garage compilation. Wiley is actually a pretty hot MC in his own right you know. Very angry. Obsessed with having his beats bitten. But what beats! He's really got some crazy heathen bug-eyed cyborg sound.
Thing is Wiley, while great, can't touch Dizzy. Dizzy's voice sounds like a less masculine more winsome more attractive version of Wiley's. All the faults one finds in Wiley's rapping, his sheer bludgeoning beliocosity, his inflexibility, are absent in Dizzy.
Which brought to mind the very similar relationship Lee Perry had with his vocalists. Particularly Junior Byles. Listen to Beat Down Babylon. Byles sounds just like Perry. Only his voice is sweeter and more yielding. Less a strained croon or a mad bark. Actually compared to Wiley Perry is a totally shit MC. Roast Fish and Cornbread (the album Island famously, and I think justly, didnt want to issue) is totally ruined by Perry's idiot ramblings.
And of course the conclusion is that these megalomaniac producers use their alumni to replace their own voices, shape them in their image. Like instruments.
Posted by Woebot at July 4, 2003 01:54 PM