"You say my name like there could be an us." - Mick Boogie & Adele, Melt My Heart to Stone (Kickdrums Remix f/ Big Pooh)
Melt My Heart to Stone (Kickdrums Remix f/ Big Pooh) --I can't tell if there's a sample here but this track is bangin'. The snare drum kicks in conjunction with this hot bass guitar lick and even though this mixtape is called 1988, this is the song that transitions my music library from 2008 to 2009.
Mick Boogie takes songs from 19, my 2008 album of the year, and turns it into a 1988 hip hop release. At first I didn't think it worked. Daydreams (nVMe Remix) places Adele's Daydreamer over a Slick Rick/Dana Dane style beat and it isn't a match. Adele's vocal sits on top of the track slightly unsyncopated and the marriage is weak. I'd rather hear the original song from 19 or hear some classic Slick Rick stand alone then this mashup.
But the rest of the experiment is golden -- highlighted by Cold Shoulder (Garbs Infinite Remix) and this Melt My Heart to Stone re-imagining. The original is plaintive and tinged with melancholy. Adele is trapped in an unrequited love situation with a boy who flirts with her but is never going to be her man. Yet, she's unable to walk away. This version focuses on this flirtation as dance. Adele's helplessness becomes resolve. Sadness fades away. It isn't she who is losing out, it's him that's missing what's good. Big Pooh's brief rap suggests as much. It is he who is pursuing, flossing, stressing to impress. The tables have turned. It reminds me of Junior High School dances. Of pegged jeans and British Knights. Checkerboard laces and girls with glittery, shiny glossed lips.
I just might be doing the cabbage patch right now. And not ironically. Now, we're doing the troop.
Yes, yes, y'all.
To the beat, y'all.
Mick Boogie!
