Felt (Slug & MURS)

We haven't done much on rap or hip hop lately here, so that's where I'm headed with my post today on the group Felt. Once again this isn't anything new, but rather a group I only just discovered within the last few months. What makes this kind of odd is Felt is made up of artists I already knew of, just never knew they worked together. So what is felt? Its a collaboration between Minneapolis based MC Slug of the renowned group Atmosphere and LA MC MURS. I've known both of these artists separately for a long time, but was surprised and also impressed when I found their 2005 collaboration Vol 2: A Tribute to Lisa Bonet.

A little background - Felt started as a collaboration between Slug and MURS after arguing about who could hook up with Christina Ricci first. That argument spawned 2002's release A Tribute To Christina Ricci, which I haven't listened to as of yet (mostly out of laziness to go and download it). Anyways, a subsequent argument involving Lisa Bonet of The Cosby Show fame led to their latest album. The difference from their first album was that Ant, the DJ and other half of Atmosphere, signed on as producer. This in effect made the album an Atmosphere release plus the addition of MURS.

Atmosphere is good. MURS is good. Put them together and you get something really good right? Well, in a way - yeah. I wouldn't say that this stuff is a lot better than anything either artist has done separately, but I think its on par with their other stuff. One of the things I've never loved about Atmosphere is that its just one MC, Slug, and they rarely use guest MCs. People make fun of rappers for having a ton of guest artists on their albums, but there's a reason (besides just trying to make more money) behind it. I think that it has to do with the way a single rapper on a song can become monotonous, so it helps to have that second or third voice. In this case, MURS provides the perfect foil to Slug. His laid back west coast style contrasts really well with Slug's aggressive midwest delivery, a staple of Minneapolis hip hop style he helped craft.

There's a couple weaker trackers on the album that I find myself skipping occasionally, but overall its a really good album. I had some trouble deciding which tracks to actually post. Both artists stay true to their identities; MURS constantly chasing women, and Slug with his self destructive behavior. The beats laid down by Ant are pretty similar to his Atmosphere stuff, and does a nice job of varying up the songs. To be honest, if these guys decided to make this collaboration their priority rather than their separate groups I would be all for it. I doubt that will happen, but at least they've managed to put out some quality music, and hopefully they'll get together for another album in the near future.

Felt - The Biggest Lie


Felt - Marvin Gaye


Felt - Dirty Girl


With that I leave you in hands of my trusted assistant Kyle. I'm off to dance Tangos and eat cheap steaks in the beautiful country of Argentina for 2 weeks.

- Alec

ps - the new Atmosphere cd comes out April 22nd.