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Shuffled! is a weekly column appearing every Thursday here on BPRLive. Each week, we welcome a person from the APA community to share some thoughts about the music they listen to. Check out the Shuffled! archive for past articles.

Today’s Shuffler: Theresa Vu of Magnetic North

Theresa Vu is a female emcee with no need for the “female” qualifier. Known for her sharp delivery and no-nonsense rhymes, Tvu has performed nationwide and turned heads from rap superstar Nelly to renowned civil rights activist Yuri Kochiyama. She is one half of highly-touted Magnetic North, a duo who consistently ranks among MySpace’s top 10 unsigned hip hop bands in New York. She is also a nerd who was sorely tempted to hack the shuffle algorithm in order to ensure that no embarrassing songs crept into her playlist.

Get more info at magnetichiphop.com and myspace.com/magnetichiphop.

And now we shuffle…

“Brandy”
O’Jay’s
So judge me all you want, but most of the American music I know pre-80’s I learned via hip hop samples. “Brandy”, for instance, I picked up from Master P’s “I Miss My Homies”. I’m not a big fan of P in general, but what can I say, I have a soft spot for missing homies.

I love “Brandy” because it’s a brilliantly nostalgic song. It would make a 4 year old want to reminisce on the good ol’ days. What with Walter Williams talking bout sippin on cherry soda pops and rocking his favorite dungarees…

My absolute favorite part of the song is that smooth break in the 2nd verse when William sings: “like a little child with a fantasy… just a - fraction - of - a - man.”

(BTW, if you don’t know bout the-breaks.com you better get to knowing it. It’s a library of hip hop songs and their respective samples. Great for expanding your musical rolodex.)

“Meditation”
Tasha
As an asian female emcee I hold other asian female emcees to a very critical eye. (It’s not haterism, it’s more like research.) Anyway, Tasha is a beast. Her lyrics are decent, her flow is decent, but her mic presence is phenomenal. Check how she commands your attention from the beginning of the first verse and doesn’t let up until “there’s got to be more to life than just trying to live it right, but if i knew the answer to that then I wouldn’t have to write.” Bam. And then the chorus kicks in with her silky singing voice floating over the strings, and oh did I forget to mention that she can sing too? In addition to being completely fierce on the mic? Let me stop now before my thinly veiled jealousy is no longer thinly veiled, haha.

“Yesterday”
Atmosphere
I got a soft spot in my heart for acoustic hip hop beats. There’s something about a stripped down instrumental that makes an emcee extra sincere. Maybe cuz he/she knows there’s no fancy drum kit and synthesizers to distract the listeners from the lyrics. Whatever the case, Slug comes realer on this song than he has on his past 5 albums. He rides the 4-bar piano riff perfectly, his voice rising and falling with the downward scalar motion of the melody. Lyrically, he keeps it straightforward and simple when laying out his relationship with his dad. “you disappeared but the history is still here, its why I try not to cry over spilt beer”. This non-angry, accepting Slug is a good look, imo.

My favorite line:
and I would be a top notch good listener/
if you could block off a little time just to give it here

It looks boring in text form but if you heard it, you’d feel me. It takes a lot of charisma to spit two lines that don’t rhyme at all (without sounding awkward).

“Watch How It Go Down”
Termanology
Termanalogy is nasty. “Watch How It Go Down” is a frenetic ode to street survival, and though some may hate on his content, you can’t hate on his flow. Can’t do it. His delivery is pristine. Considering how many bars he rhymes without taking a breath it’s amazing how every syllable comes out as crystal clear as it does. The most interesting thing about his verses on this song is how they ebb and flow. One section he’ll hit you with rapid fire multi syllable rhymes ( “From Rykers to Middleton, life as a middleman/ Spendin life illegitimate livin life in imprisonment/”) and the next he’ll slow it down. He’ll drop the internal rhymes, he’ll drag out the words, he’ll spit something familiar. Basically he’s giving you time to catch up before he blows your mind again.

My fav lines:
I listen to Pac’s best, and try to be not stressed/
But how can I not stress, the fact that I’m not rich/
I’m living in poverty, plus/ I’m a minority, plus/
all my priorities, fucked, in this economy/
Rap music is probably not the best career you can choose…

Word to that last line man.

“Recessional”
Vienna Teng
Vienna Teng is my hero. She got a degree in computer science at Stanford, and afterwards a cushy job at Cisco Systems as a software engineer. And then (this is the part where my parents cover their ears and go “lalala”) she gave it all up to pursue her music career. And look at her now, she’s been on Letterman, topped the bestseller charts at Amazon, and even collaborated with Magnetic North! (Ok, so that last one is not as special, whatever, hate me suckas!)

Seriously though, I love the hell out of this song. Especially the part where she builds into a crescendo with the horns and the electric guitar and the damper pedal… and right at the peak… drops half the instruments and just lets you fall. Whereupon she catches you with the best lyrics of the piece. Crafty crafty Vienna.

Last 5 posts by shuffled

• Shuffled! Delia - August 14th, 2008
• Shuffled! Giles Li - August 7th, 2008
• Shuffled! Alexander Chee - July 31st, 2008
• Shuffled! Terry Park - July 24th, 2008
• Shuffled! Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha - July 10th, 2008

Tags: Shuffled!.