Imagine if Timbaland were kidnapped and held hostage in a
council flat in Tottenham. Imagine then, that elite robot
agents aligned to the New World Order were sent into rescue
him with laser cannons little knowing that the kidnappers were
in fact an underground cell of benefit-cheat Jedi. Imagine hip
hop recapturing the sheer brutality of classic-era Public
Enemy without it becoming a retread. Imagine if "urban" music
was made not for the charts but the heart. Imagine "Two
Fingers".
Two Fingers are Brazilian beat-adventurer Amon Tobin and Joe
"Doubleclick" Chapman. The pair met when Tobin lived in
Brighton and bonded over an interest in music that ran way
beyond the boundaries of "electronica". In Montreal they
applied production techniques associated with UK styles like
drum & bass to the template of hip hop. It was an experiment
with explosive results. MOBO-winner Sway (now signed to Akon's
Konvict label in the US) heard what was brewing he was so
taken with it, he flew straight out to Montreal and recorded
seven tracks with them, showing a harsher, more serious side
to his personality whilst offering wry social commentary on
everything from the way young Black men are treated ("What You
Know") to crazy girls who do too many pills ("That Girl"). The
remaining rhythms were voiced by sometime Missy protÚgÚ Ms
Jade and dancehall legend Ce'Cile. A couple of instrumental
rhythms were added and this, first stage of a continuing
project, was complete.
"Two Fingers" is a project unlike anything that any of the
three main players has ever made before, a unique, utterly
uncompromising, brutal and beautiful record that could only
have grown out of the UK and the internationalism of those
involved. If it's not hip hop as we know it, then nor is it
drum & bass or grime. Like all the best music it transcends
genre to stand on its own û icy, transcendent, brilliant.