The Notorious xx

wait what has been making some nice mashups for a while now and has just released their magnum opus: the xx's debut album 2.0 cut up with The Notorious B.I.G. The end result, The Notorious xx, is greater than the sum of its parts. Biggie's expert lyrics ranging from his familiar topics such as getting his dick sucked to contemplating suicide are oddly coherent with the xx's subtle, soft spoken, half eerie half uplifting instrumentals to the point that you find yourself taken aback that nobody had put this together yet.

Mo stars mo problems, the last song in the album, is the best representation of the theme of the work as a whole. It takes Mo Money Mo Problems, one of Big's songs he made with Puff Daddy (shit, back when he was Puff Daddy) and Ma$e and arguably one of his most upbeat/happy songs and removes the Diana Ross "i'm coming out" chorus, replacing it with the xx's original chorus from Stars describing someone's complete desire to just be loved back. The fire spit from the respective mouths of Ma$e, Puff Daddy and Big boasts of being rising stars, never stopping, "bigger than the city lights down in Times Square." The song ends with Biggie lamenting "If you don't know, now you know." The result is a stark look at the inner torment of one of rap's (and modern music in general) most influential voices. Its a forced view because its a mashup, but I don't think that makes it any less legitimate of a piece of work.

Accompanying the album is a full set of liner notes from wait what, explaining each song's origins and parts. The final page of the notes has the author explaining the record to be suitable for several situations:

1) rainy days in your apartment after you've overslept but aren't going to let the asymmetry of your day disrupt your mood

2) driving during that time between when the bars close and the newspaper routes haven't started when no one's out and the city looks abandoned

3) walking alone and thinking about everyone you know and imagining what they might be doing right then.

This album marks a return to the much-neglected artistic side of mashups not seen since Dangermouse's Grey Album in which you can take two seemingly unrelated artists and blur the lines between them. You can download the album for free from wait what's website or via Megaupload.