Rui-Long Monico - Geneva // USA Conexion

DJ Cappel & Smitty - Blue Eyes Meets Bed Stuy (2005)
Label: Dirty A-Rabs
Genre: Sinatra vs. Biggie

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Tracklist :
1. Juicy/New York, New York
2. Everyday Struggle/A Day in the Life of a Fool
3. Nasty Boy/For Every Man there is a Woman
4. Come On/My Way of Life
5. Interlude/The World we Know (Over & Over)
6. Dead Wrong/In My Room (Nancy Sinatra)
7. Let's Get In On (ft 2Pac)/Rain in my Heart
8. Hypnotize/Little Green Apples
9. Interlude
10. 10 Crack Commandments/Fools Rush In
11. Runnin'-Victory 2004/A Long Night
12. Unfoolish (ft Ashanti)/Out Beyond the Window

The other day I was chillin' in a Manhattan upscale club when some black dude walked up to me. He introduced himself as Sean "P. Diddy" Combs and told me he was a business man. He wanted me to review on my website a CD he was producing and gave me this Blue Eyes meets Bed Stuy stuff. I told him I didn't know who the fuck he was and that I had never heard of anyone mixing Frank Sinatra's music with The Notorious B.I.G.'s vocals... Anyway, it was a cool concept and he gave the CD for free so why not?

I was awaiting some sort of crappy like Dangermouse's The Grey Album (That sampled the beats from The Beatles with the rap of Jay-Z) but surprisingly DJ Cappel & Smitty made an incredible job at matchmaking the unlikely kings of music. You gotta listen this CD just to have the feel of how cool that is.

In my opinion, The Notorious B.I.G. is, among Nas & Rakim, one of the greatest MC that New York has ever witness. Unfortunately, the quality of the music used on his cds varied greatly from badass to plain horrible, depending on who P. Diddy chose to plagiarize. DJ Cappel & Smitty were probably tired of this bullshit and decided to give a second youth to the late Biggie. Using the beautiful melodies produced by Frank Sinatra and using his voice for the chorus, they remastered the classic gems drop by Biggie. The DJs did a great job at matching Biggie's voice with Sinatra's melodies, making it flows so naturally. And let me tell you what, it works and it's way better than the original version!

I don't know what else to tell you other than that it's a great album. It's great that sometimes original concepts don't end up crashing into the trash can and I warmly advise you to get a copy of this one.

Bonus: Check out DJ Cappel & Smitty's website. They have mp3s and snippets from this CD.