Talk about bloody cheeky!
LUDACRIS' new single "Number One Spot" - taken from the US #1 album "The Red Light District" - is based upon a sample taken from Quincy Jones's "Soul Bossa Nova" that most of you will probably know better from the 'Austin Powers' movies. In Luda's words, he's "stealing it back" (hmm...didn't Bono say as much about "Helter Skelter"?) and has forged "Number One Spot" from the loop.
So you've gottta admire his nerve, not least when the whole thing comes packaged in an amusing Dr.Evil/ Mini-Me pastiche sleeve as well. So that's all chuckleworthy enough, but the track itself is a bit of a let down. It's all standard, chest-beating hip-hop fare, with neo-junglist beats, rhymes flying thick, fast'n'phonky and the backing track reminding of the atmospheric'n'abrasive kinda thing Beans was doing with his last album "Shock City Maverick."
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But it's inspired compared with "Get Back", which also comes gift-wrapped for inspection. Admittedly, because he doesn't live in Compton or Harlem, this reviewer has often found it hard to relate to the Homies and B-Boys schtick, but there's something faintly peurile about Ludacris puffing out his chest and going into testosterone overdrive with the chorus "I came, I saw, I hit him right there in the jaw." Yeah, we get the message, now put it away can't you?
There again, it's still preferable to letting those clowns Sum 41 in to give the thing a (please God no!) 'rock' makeover. Do you really need me to tell you how bad their 'renovation work' sounds? Surely you have some mercy, don't you?
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