2/29/2024 0 Comments Simon says pharoahe monch sample![]() Drenched with horns and gospel-tinged choruses, the arrangements suggest that he’s been in a cave for the better part of a decade. Of course, the beats throughout Desire belie just how out of step Monch is with the times. But Desire is the Super Mario 3 of classically trained MCing: “I’m the poetical pastor/Slave to a label but I own my masters,” he rhymes in “Desire.” “Still get it poppin’ without artists and repertoire/’Cause Monch is the monarch only minus the A&R.” Elsewhere, he plays with the names of phone companies (“Cingular, not plural”) and other artists (“pop shit, make you feel the Clipse like Pharrell”) and manages to make rapping from the perspective of a bullet fresh on “Gun Draws.” It’s hard to figure how an MC this skilled could be out of the game for so long. It’s like watching a blacksmith hammer away, or playing an original Nintendo. Monch, who joins the Wu-Tang Clan, Cypress Hill, Talib Kweli, and others on the “Rock the Bells” tour that lands at the Tweeter Center next Thursday, deploys cleverly twisted wordplay and skillful manipulations of rhythm that seem almost anachronistic and outdated. It’s shocking to hear an album like this in 2007. The 13 songs on Desire are packed with the kind of personality and bravery that are too often lacking in commercial hip-hop climate. Yet Monch, who finally released his long-awaited, much-delayed second album, Desire (Universal), on June 26, doesn’t seem the least bit concerned with trying to recapture that fleeting moment in the spotlight. That Godzilla sample, initially uncleared, has kept his solo debut, Internal Affairs (Priority), out of print to this day. But almost as quickly as he arrived, Monch was swept away in the wake of label politics and copyright law. All it took was a Godzilla sample and a simple, forceful “Simon says get the fuck up” for hyper-technical New York MC Pharoahe Monch to leave his mark on hip-hop history with “Simon Says (Get the Fuck Up)” eight years ago.
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