Posted on: November 23, 2007 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

Through the years, Parisian-based Mike Ladd has fused a combination of genres, from hip hop to poetry to rock to electronic music, to form his own incredible incarnation of afro punk. Whether spitting searing freestyle polemics, rocking punked out jams or teaching at universities, this is an artist who knows very few bounds. And we’d have it no other way. Ladd’s music is equally fearless yet sensitive, raw yet sophisticated, just like the man himself. With Nostalgialator (Definitive Jux), co-produced and engineered by Brooklyn’s own Scotty Hard (Wu-Tang Clan, De La Soul, Jungle Brothers, Vernon Reid, Stereo MCs, Einstürzende Neubauten, Lisa Stansfield, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and more), Ladd’s genre-smashing, thought provoking and irreverant musical stylings are on full display.

Classic cuts like “Troubleshot” experiment with live instrumentation and muffed vocals that are reminiscent of Check Your Head era Beastie Boys. “Housewives at Play” employs the groovy space funk sound honed by Parliament Funkadelic, while the bombastic “Wild Out Day” defies comparison, with Ladd rhyming at hyper speed over a drumbeat that could have been pulled from a Bad Brains song.

Mike Ladd, who now lives in France actually hails from Boston. The virtuoso has practically done it all, being published in literary magazines such as Long Shot Review and Bostonia and has written for several anthologies. A collaboration with pianist Vijay Iyer led to a work commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music, not to mention his many degrees and fellowships. Through all this Ladd has even found the time to write and produce ten critically acclaimed albums. Nostalgialator, originally released internationally on legendary European label K7, is now available for the first time in North America, on Definitive Jux.

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