I’ve had my break for the holiday’s extended by a day today. Two reasons really. One, it’s going to snow hard today through central Utah. Two, my mom and sister are asking to stay until Friday. So why not. Although, I do enjoy driving in snow. It makes driving more fun.
Obviously I don’t do a lot of hip hop here on Single of the Day. Mostly because it’s not a staple of the my own music library, but also because there hasn’t been a lot of hip hop artists contacting me. I’ll admit at first I wasn’t immediately taken with the name of Clean Guns. I really don’t know how to interpret that as a name for a band.
One harsh reality for hip hop in 2006 is that sales from it’s biggest stars were nothing short of dismal. If I’m not mistaken only Jay-Z has sold a respectable amount of albums. I was told that P-Diddy, or Diddy, or the guy trying to act like Prince in hip hop, underperformed in spectacular fashion. Even producers that are big in the genre have realized it’s not the powerhouse it’s been. Thus it’s a tough road now for the genre.
I listened to cuts off of Clean Guns CD and the only one that really jumped out at me was the song you’re hearing now. Partially because of the title, but also because it was the least violent to me. I’m not a huge fan of violent music. The great thing that I do hear in their song here is the potential to where they can go. I bet they’re going to draw a lot of comparisons to OutKast. Not always a bad thing to get compared to a large act like that. It’s immediately apparent here.
I will say that for Clean Guns to truly break out, they’ll need to step beyond that comparison. I don’t know the genre well enough to know if they’re in a good niche with the mostly rough lyrics. So if you’re into that sort of thing, then I do suggest that you check out the rest of the disc. As you’ll get a rougher version of Outkast. Here’s to supporting the lighter side of them. Support and enjoy.