N.A.S.A.

North America South America. That's the magic behind the acronym of N.A.S.A., the dj collaborative effort of Squek E. Clean and DJ Zegon. Their 2009 release The Spirit Of Apollo is similar to Mark Ronson's Here Comes The Fuzz in that its a album of songs created by a dj (two in this case) with guest vocals on each track from a variety of stars. N.A.S.A.'s value proposition is the brining together of artists from both North America (US) and South America (Brazil).

Overall, the album comes off as more of a hip-hop album than anything else, and the North American influence seems to easily dominate the South American side, but there are rhythmic and stylistic flavors that give the album a fresh sound. On top of that there's a decent amount of good beats and song writing so that it stands on its musical merits as well. Taking a notorious page from North American hip hop, the album has a few dude tracks, and could easily be pared down from 17 tracks to about 12 or 13.

My favorite tracks are "Money", which has a great hip hop/latin beat and catchy chorus ("money is the root of all evil"). Also on the album is "Gifted" featuring Kanye West and Santigold. This track with an electronic touch has a beat that sounds like it was created from a Justice track (not sure how that fits in with the South America part but whatever its still a good song). Finally there's "There's A Party" featuring George Clinton and Chali 2na (Jurassic 5), a fun party song over a nice hip hop/funk beat.

Check out N.A.S.A. Its Carneval!

N.A.S.A. - Money

N.A.S.A. - Gifted

N.A.S.A. - There's A Party


-Alec