Now that my desktop is back in my possession, I decided to scour my often overlooked music folder. I don’t have a huge music collection, but it does stretch back to my highschool days in some places. With my MP3 player now being 16 gigs instead of 4gb, it was time to update the music on it. (When I first got it a couple months ago I just transfered everything from the old one to the new one).
One little treasure that I rediscovered buried deep in the music folder was the Black and Blue album. Not just any Black and Blue album though, a very specific one. One that wasn’t released in stores. Let me give some backstory.
Back in 2003 when Jay-Z released his Black Album, he also released a vocals-only version of it, to encourage mixes and mashups with his lyrics. One of the more popular mashups to come out of this movement was The Grey Album, which put Jay Z rapping over The Beatles. MTV would later “mash up” Jay Z and Linkin Park, but both bands had a hand in that one, while most of the others were done independently of either of the utilized talent.
The Black and Blue album combined Jay Z’s “The Black Album” with Weezer’s Self-Titled CD, often called “The Blue Album”. Most wouldn’t think that either of these artists would make a good collaboration, and indeed some of the songs don’t fit together very well. But when they do, which ends up being a majority of the songs, then it’s just audible awesomeness.
My personal favorite is the track “Encore for Wayne”. When I first discovered this, I used to play it over and over to drive my buddy Cliff batshit insane, because he was such a huge Weezer fan and hated to hear it “ruined by Jay-Z”. Bah I say! It sounds awesome and I don’t care!
If you are a fan of either Jay-Z or Weezer, and even better both, then go check it out! The “band” who makes the album is called Jay-Zeezer, and you can find the album, which was made by the “DJ” who goes by Mike, and by the DJ name “Uh…Mike”, over at http://www.jay-zeezer.com/ It really is awesome, and Mike goes into what went behind creating the album (or as he puts it, “The Story of How an Indie Rocker Learned to Love Like Rap Music”).
I’m sure as I dig deeper into this collection I’ll find more and more gems from the way-back machine. Until next time!
-Zeke