Tairrie B has released a new video for her solo rap track “Down As Dirt.”
The song features on Tairrie’s trailblazing old-school hip hop album Vintage Curses, a return to her rap roots that was released in August of last year.
“A dark and witchy feminist journey back to my hip hop roots with a classic old school West Coast influence, ‘Down As Dirt’ is the third official video from my new album Vintage Curses,” says Tairrie of the new clip. “I had so much fun directing & editing and want to give special thanks to my amazing team and good friends Jill and Gary Bandfield from TourBusLive.com who helped me film this latest bewitching offering.”
Tairrie B has released the self-directed official video for her solo rap track “BTCHCRVFT”, coinciding with last night’s frosty full moon.
The song features on Tairrie’s trailblazing old-school hip hop album Vintage Curses, a return to her rap roots that was released in August of this year.
Says Tairrie of her vision for the video: “BTCHCRVFT is one of my favorite tracks on the new album. It pays homage to the rage and beauty of Mother Nature while conjuring imagery of the storm deep within a person which is what I wanted to convey visually. I am very drawn to the power of the elements and much like my previous offering, it has a film noir Hollywood villain vibe. As I said before, I didn’t want to mimic what so many other women in hip hop seem to be doing at the moment. I’m not a fan of brightly colored imagery or over-the-top sexuality. I wanted the video for BTCHCRVFT to have a strong and empowering feminist stance, yet stylized with a distinct, dark visceral sensibility and DIY ethic which I am known for as an artist.”
“I filmed many of the scenes within the hidden beauty of Los Angeles,” she adds, “and worked once again with rock photographers Jill and Gary Bandfield from Tour Bus Live, a talented husband and wife team who are good friends and have continued to collaborate with me on ideas surrounding my new album.
“My husband/guitarist Mick Murphy (My Ruin, Teenage Time Killers, The Birds Of Satan) and I edited the video together. When I decided to take a break from screaming in My Ruin to revisit my roots, he encouraged me to be creative and not limit myself musically because he knows hip hop has always held a special place in my heart. It’s been great to work with him artistically outside of our metal band in both the music and video realms. Like myself, he is a fan of classic rap and understands the origins, so we have fun bringing my visions to life. He’s not only an incredible guitarist but also a rad drummer. He played the drums on the track while recording and makes another cameo appearance in the new video!”
Tairrie B, trailblazing rap artist and erstwhile vocalist of LA metal band My Ruin, has released a remix of her recent solo rap single “Beware The Crone”, the first track taken from her new solo hip hop album, Vintage Curses, released worldwide on the 14th of August.
Named in honor of Hecate – the powerful goddess of magic, crossroads, fire, light, the moon and the underworld – the new remix was created by producer, beat maker and MC, Kid Vibe from St Louis’ original underground Hip Hop group, PaleFace Junkies.
Says Kid Vibe of the collaboration: “I have been a huge fan of Tairrie B since her debut album The Power Of A Woman dropped on Eazy E’s Comptown Records label back in 1990, which is also when I first got into the hip hop scene. We connected on Twitter and after hearing her new album I asked if she would be down for me to remix one of her songs.
“We chose her first single ‘Beware The Crone’ which I think was the perfect track as a reintroduction for her. The dark and witchy theme is very much representative of who she has been as an artist in underground rock for the past 20 years while staying true to her roots. Vintage Curses is by far one of the best hip hop albums to drop this year. Much like TAIRRIE, I too am a fan of the Golden Era and her latest recordings give a nod to this while remaining fresh and relevant in 2015. I really dig what she has done with the original and wanted to give her a bit of evil East Coast flavour to compliment her West Coast style without changing the overall mood or feel of the song.”
Adds Tairrie B: “I remember hearing this really cool track called “Livin’ In The City” which Kid Vibe produced and also rapped on along with Danny Diablo a.k.a. Lord Ezec and Joey Knuckles of the Suicide Kings. It also featured DJ Lethal who was an old friend of mine. The hook was a homage to the classic punk rock song by FEAR recorded in 1982 and I thought it was really clever and cool. Kid Vibe has worked with Madchild, Liquor Store Bandits, Swiss Precise, 3KNGZ and Samplecentric to name a few. He has been a vocal supporter of my return to hip hop and I really enjoyed having him remix this first track for me. He’s currently working on a new remix to drop in November.”
Check out the Hecate Remix of “Beware The Crone” by PaleFace Junkies below:
Vintage Curses was co-produced by Tairrie B and husband Mick Murphy, the master of heaviosity behind My Ruin, Teenage Time Killers, The Birds of Satan and Neanderthal who also played live drums, bass and guitar on the album. You can download the album for free via tairrieb.bandcamp.com
Check out Tairrie’s self-directed official video for the original mix of “Beware The Crone” below:
Artist: Tairrie B Album: Vintage Curses Our Verdict: 10/10 Release date: 14th August Find it at:Bandcamp Review by: Graeme Blackwell
“Tairrie B is back with killer, innovative, old-school West Coast influenced hip hop album Vintage Curses.”
Let’s get the bullshit out of the way so that we can get to the good stuff, shall we? Right?
Right.
Tairrie B is 50. Get over it.
Tairrie B is white. Don’t like it? Go home, asshole.
Tairrie B is – gasp – a woman. Holy shit. What do you want for spotting that? A medal?
Newflash, bozos. Tairrie B knows who she is. It’s the skin she has lived in, loved in, laughed in and had beaten, battered and bruised on life’s journey. She’s still here. She’s still standing. She’s still fighting for her art and her truth. She owns it, and you won’t be able to hold that against her.
You got nothing good to say? Then shut the hell up and don’t say anything at all.
Okay. Glad that’s out of the way.
Photo: Tour Bus Live
The good news for the rest of us is that Tairrie B is back with new solo rap album Vintage Curses and making killer, innovative, old-school West Coast influenced hip hop; music that is expertly realised with originality, depth and nuance; music that pays respect to those who have come before and lays the ground for those who will follow; music that is fiercely her own and true to both Tairrie and itself.
Once signed to N.W.A. lynchpin Eazy E’s Ruthless Records imprint Comptown Records, Tairrie B released her debut rap album The Power Of A Woman in 1990, a trailblazing slab of sedition containing plenty of skill, vim and vigor and one that paved the way for many female artists to follow.
Ultimately a move into the rap-metal hybrid band Manhole followed (later becoming Tura Satana), before the fully fledged metal behemoth of My Ruin emerged from the ashes at the turn of the new millennium. A 20 year, highly-acclaimed career as a screaming metal potentate was the result, fueled by the heavy riffs of the man who would later become her husband, Mick Murphy (who also co-produced and provided the live instrumentation found on Vintage Curses.)
But rather than fighting against each other, Tairrie’s experiences in both the hip hop and metal worlds work together to highlight the elements of their shared DNA, weaving together like a musical double-helix and knitting with her long-standing interest in the arcane and occult to create a whole new breed of sound; an as yet unidentified new species of rap.
Witness the mind-melting mesh of old-school beats with The Temptations’ “Papa Was A Rolling Stone” in lead single “Beware The Crone”, The Eagles’ “Witchy Woman” in the relentless throb of “Wicked Witch Of The West Coast”, Frankie Valli’s “Grease” in the LA hymn “Sky Above, City Below” and – yes – even Cliff Richard’s “Devil Woman” in closing track “Devil May Care.” Sugarloaf, Dave Lee Roth and Pentagram make appearances elsewhere, and all of them could probably have learned a thing or two from Tairrie about re-inventing yourself with grace, credibility and a healthy dose of “fuck you” attitude.
Photo: Samantha Davis, Rose & Rainbow Photography
But it’s not just the samples that delight. Lyrically, Tairrie is on excoriating form too, tackling her early career history (“Check your discs you’ll find me, but if ya don’t betta check your history. First dropped in nineteen ninety, one of a kind when Eazy signed me”), her time fronting some of metal’s finest bands (“The hair got blacker, the voice got deeper, I got stronger while they got weaker”), paying respect to the architects of the West Coast sound and name-checking female pioneers from music, art, poetry and the spirit realm. Sylvia Plath and Hecate are both very welcome here.
There’s equally deft wordplay on the themes of the “Witch” and the “Bitch” too, Tairrie reclaiming the maligned language of heavy magick and re-framing it as an empowering and positive force (she reworks “witch” as “Women In The Coven of Hip Hop”, just as she did the word “bitch” back in 1990, re-defining it as “Being In Total Control of Herself.”) Not for this woman the empty self-agrandising so apparent in much modern mainstream hip hop; rather the ownership of all that is thrown at her, both good and bad, and the ability to transform it in to something strong and powerful, both for herself and those who listen.
That’s not to say that Vintage Curses is relentlessly serious, dour or heavy-handed, though. The dynamics of the rhythm and flow of the album are infections in themselves, and anyone with a love of the old-school will likely find themselves unable resist either head or – for the more athletically minded – body popping to the carefully curated big beats, as well as smiling wryly at the electrifying original hooks and instrumentation (there’s genuine fun to be had listening to Mick Murphy, the Birds Of Satan’s Wiley Hodgden and Studio 606’s chief-engineer and Teenage Time Killers alumnus John Lousteau intoning “Beware the crone, just like Medusa she will turn you to stone!”, like harbingers of doom from some Olde English Hammer horror, during the chorus of the album’s first single.)
For all her extraordinary and accomplished work in the world of metal, Vintage Curses makes it hard to shake the feeling that Tairrie B’s heart-of-hearts still lies deeply in the world of rap and hip hop. The collection of songs has an otherworldly energy that is spellbinding in its intensity, and a close and careful listen to the work shows a depth of craft and skill that only comes with the kind of raw, passionate hard work and experience that flows from the belief that this is what you were born to do.
Tairrie B, wordslinger, truth-bringer, multi-faceted and mercurial maven bringing the heart back to hip hop, it’s fucking great to have you back.
Download Vintage Curses now on a ‘pay what you want’ basis from tairrieb.bandcamp.com
Tairrie B, trailblazing rap artist and Wicked Witch of the West Coast, is back with her first new solo hip hop album in over 20 years.
Vintage Curses is released today and available to download for free as a gift to friends and fans.
“Fans of my band have asked me to do this for years and although I have thought about it a lot, I never felt the timing was right until now,” says Tairrie. “Writing and recording Vintage Curses not only helped to invoke many memories for me as an author but it has also re-birthed me as an artist.”
Says Tairrie of the new LP: “I had a very clear vision of what I wanted Vintage Curses to sound like. I did not want to make a modern hip hop album. I wanted it to have heavy beats with an old school vibe and sensibility to it, which is something you really don’t hear much of in music today. I came from the golden era of hip hop and I am a fan of the classics, especially West Coast gangster rap. I was raised on seventies classic rock and soul so I also wanted to incorporate a bit of that into my music in terms of samples. I took my time creating the album and was very thoughtful about every nuance. I wanted to make something timeless that I could look back on in 10 years and feel proud about without any regrets.”
The full track list for “Vintage Curses” is:
01. “Beware The Crone”
02. “Wicked Witch of the West Coast”
03. “BTCHCRVFT”
04. “Ad Nauseam”
05. “Spirit Queen”
06. “Down As Dirt”
07. “Sky Above, City Below”
08. “Old School Gospel”
09. “Carpe Noctem”
10. “Devil May Care”
Watch the stunning self-directed video for lead single “Beware The Crone” below and downloadVintage Curses for free now!
Be sure and check out our in-depth interview with Tairrie herself here!
Skin Back Alley 