Mostly we do death tributes to legendary artists who are ancient and have earned their rep. The loss makes us go back and re-appreciate them which is something we really ought to be doing anyway. Maybe we ignore some of the younger ones because we think we remember them (for good or bad). But the news that Phife Dawg passed earlier in the year moved us as we are all ATCQ crazy at CA HQ.

We couldn’t say that at all about PM Dawn. In fact their “Set Adrift ..” seemed an obvious effort to cash in on The Daisy Age thing the Native Tongues Posse had started up and it was tempting not to go back and take a listen because it seemed fresh in the memory (even if it was 25 years ago in fact) as a jam we didn’t love.

But just as Shabazz Palaces made us recheck Digable Planets (another group easy to dismiss) and find we liked it more than we remembered, so the sad news of the passing of Prince Be made us check out some of the PM Dawn thing again... And you know what? Even though it samples Spandau Ballet (a lot), and sometimes the sample feels a tad forced, and we could never work out if the cheeky reference to Bonita Applebum was cool or wack (??) “Set Adrift on Memory Bliss’ is still a bit of a guilty pleasure, especially in its 12” version -

That very distinctive “soft rapping style” has an  appeal that is all its own. Like the sounds of summer past. One to file next to Arrested Development and rarely admit you like! But for every 'soft hop' joint he produced, Prince B managed to turn out some underground hip hop gold, this joint complete with a lil' Joni Mitchell & Charles Mingus sample in particular is dope -

-TH

[whilst we are it the loss of UK rapper Tenor Fly will be much less recognised but this was a jam worth remembering from the day when “Breaks” was all the rage. Respect to the man, and accept that us choosing this tune isn’t disrespecting his own jams. We just like this one!]