Apparently the Black Lips are reading my mind. Can we get the rest of the Wu on this song?
[Above: Photo by Hatnim Lee from the GZA/Black Lips performance at SXSW.]
200 Million Thousand is an adventure through sub-genres for the Black Lips, but the most surprising effort is easily “The Drop I Hold” in which the Lips outdid themselves by mimicking RZA's signature grimey soul sampling. Whether the Lips played the song or it was heavily based on samples makes no difference to me, that shit is gutter gold.
We weren't that surprised that the initial GZA/Black Lips collaboration left something to be desired: it was live and raw, after all. Alas, I am dumbstruck by this sloppy follow up remix.
Black Lips, “The Drop I Hold” feat. GZA
Really? You're just going to lower the volume and paste in a GZA verse? Really? You're not trying to match the vocal levels? I've never been so let down. Maybe this was some weird attempt to self-hijack any attempt at “serious” collaboration. Jared Swilley told the website that both aired the track originally and showed syntactical signs that they didn't know “The Drop I Hold” was initially a Lips song off the last album:
[Rock/rap combos have] led to some of the worst music of all-time. It can be done tastefully, but there is a very fine line to be tread.
A line, perhaps, they tread on quite lightly. Somebody re-remix this song with some throwback Ol' Dirty Bastard vocals ASAP — lend some justice to this squandered opportunity.
