For Friday’s trip down memory lane, a great Biggie cover by “a skinny white Englishman”.
Take a listen to Dan Black’s “HYPNTZ,” in which Black sings Biggie’s lyrics from “Hypnotize” over the beat from Rihanna’s ubiquitous “Umbrella” and bits of audio from Jack Nitzsche’s score for the movie Starman. His heartfelt presentation evades the usual ironic “indie guy covers rap hit” shtick by seeming actually to care about what he’s singing. You can hear the homage, but also the sound of something new and potentially “hott” in the parlance of our times.
Hott indeed.
