MASTERMIND

Del rockin' Skull Candy



I read an article about Del the Funky Homosapien (born Teren Delvon James) in High Times last week, prompting me to include some of his tunes on my Pod. And so it was my new favorite song is born: "Mastermind" from the album Deltron 3030by Deltron Zero a side project of Del's, aside from his main thing, rap-group Hieroglyphics...a show I caught last year that introduced me to Del. The song starts out really slow with a simple beat, a catchy melody of course, and Del's visionary lyrics:
"Who fuses the music
With no illusions
Producing the blue prints
Clueless?
Automator - defy the laws of nature
Electronic monolith throw a jam upon the disc
The futuristic looper with the quickness
Hyper-producin' hydrogen fusion liquids keep your distance"

Del's lyrics are a good example of underground hip-hop and why it should be supported. Do you tink Lil Wayne is singing about hydrogen fusion creatively? No, because Lil Wayne's is rapping about this shit:
"I ain't got no loves for broads
I ducks and dodge
I grab 'em, on they butts and all
She fucks my dog
Slut sucks nuts and all
And nothin' small
This dick make 'em hit the floor and touch the wall
Call my hoes to get salami, 'cause they brush the balls"

Seriously? Seriously....I can guarantee you that Lil Wayne will make more money than Del ever will and I find that to be such an indisprepancy in the music industry. So many artists can make a huge profit off of very little talent. The act of rapping itself is not so hard, I can rap alongside most songs I listen to. What makes a good rapper is his lyrics...the creativity, ingenuity, and originality that influence his music. This is just another good examply of the value systems people attach to the music they listen to.

What I wanted to point out about this song, however, is the spoken word between 1:33 and 1:53. We hear a womans voice hauntingly reading the following slowly and dramatially, much like poetry, the background a collection of soft eerie voices. Her words read:
"The day the walls of the cities will crumble away
Uncovering our naked souls
All start singing
Shouting
Screaming
(loud, loud, loud, loud...)"

Initially I just liked the fact that there was a breakdown in the song, followed by the return of catchy and staccato-like lyrics of "psionically, bionically, forget how ya feel.." but the more I payed attention to what the words were, the more heavily affected I became. I ended up searching these lyrics and came up with a song they were sampled from, entitled "Loud, Loud, Loud" by Aphrodite's Child. Upon further research I learn that AC is a progressive Green rock band formed in the 1967. The 2-disc album that was their crowning acheivement included "Loud, Loud, Loud" and was eerily entitled 666, a musical adaptation of the Biblical Book of Revalations. On the album cover it says this above the title:
"Anyone who has intelligence
May interpret this number of the beast
It is a man's number
This number is..."

Creepy. I wonder how Del found this stuff.