{"id":15168,"date":"2018-09-12T05:30:16","date_gmt":"2018-09-12T09:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=15168"},"modified":"2022-07-08T07:30:16","modified_gmt":"2022-07-08T11:30:16","slug":"album-review-iceberg-slim-reflections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2018\/09\/12\/album-review-iceberg-slim-reflections\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Iceberg Slim — Reflections"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"If I told you that a key inspiration for the slice-of-street hip-hop of Ice-T was an earlier recording artist going by the name of Iceberg Slim, you’d likely develop some immediate preconceptions as to what the earlier iceman sounded like. But I’m here to tell you that you’d probably be way off base.<\/p>\n

Iceberg Slim released Reflections<\/i> in 1976; like Ice-T, he came by his street cred honestly: he was a pimp, a hustler, a dealer. But the recording he made \u2013 which, to be fair, predates gangsta rap by some years \u2013 sounds nothing like the later hip-hop recordings.<\/p>\n

First off, there’s Iceberg Slim’s delivery. He’s erudite and measured; his style is equal parts cool hustler and hip Ken Nordine-style wordsmith. His subject matter \u2013 prostitutes, drug deals \u2013 is drawn from real life, not fiction.<\/p>\n

And there’s the music. Recording in an age long before samples and breakbeats, Iceberg Slim instead employs a real instrumental ensemble. So while he speaks of tricks and p***y, the players lay down a slinky, slightly sinister but always cool vibe. The music is mostly in a souljazz\/blues style, which is a little unnerving, set against Iceberg’s NSFW tales. \u201cThe bitch has to go \/ to be a real good ho’,\u201d he tells us, while a smoky barroom piano melody vamps. He\u2019s equal parts eloquence and malevolence. Biographer Justin Gifford pens an excellent liner note essay, providing context about the life of Iceberg Slim (born Robert Beck), from his 1962 prison release to his death 30 years later, right around the time of Los Angeles’ Rodney King riots.<\/p>\n

Iceberg Slim is the missing link between Nordine’s word-jazz and the gangsta rap of the 1980s. You’re forgiven if \u2013 like me \u2013 you had no idea such a link even existed. It does, and this clear vinyl reissue is the proof.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If I told you that a key inspiration for the slice-of-street hip-hop of Ice-T was an earlier recording artist going by the name of Iceberg Slim, you’d likely develop some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15161,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,42,64,65,71,73],"tags":[3556,2973],"class_list":["post-15168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hip-hop","category-jazz","category-reissue","category-review","category-spoken-word","category-vinyl","tag-iceberg-slim","tag-modern-harmonic","cat-36-id","cat-42-id","cat-64-id","cat-65-id","cat-71-id","cat-73-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15168"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23327,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15168\/revisions\/23327"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}