video #19: El-P - Flyentology

After my last entry, this is as good a time as any to post this, I guess. Without turning this into a long journal entry full of pitiful agnostic angst, I'll just say that this video is relevant to my interests.

I don't watch any of the programs on Adult Swim nearly as much as I used to (the free cable connection I inherited in this apartment only works when it wants to, anyway) and I was never as devoted to it as a lot of people apparently were/still are. So I still don't really understand what "Williams Street" is or what they do, aside from producing those mildly amusing/annoying bumper cards that are always getting people on the internet so fired up and angry. Apparently they also had a hand in this video, too. Looking over some of the other work that their animators/producers have done, it's not hard to see why Definitive Jux would want to team up with them, and vice versa. After all, surely a few years of instrumental hip-hop music in their promo spots has (hopefully) primed viewers for something new and different. That is, assuming these viewers are who Adult Swim and Def Jux still think they are (college students) and not who I suspect they've largely become (preteens with inattentive parents).

So on the heels of last year's partnership/collaboration with the Stones Throw label, Adult Swim is offering a free compilation of Definitive Jux music on their website. I don't know how long "Definitive Swim" will be available for download, but it's worth checking out. Unless you're one of those "indie rap sucks/T-Pain rules" dudes. I know you're out there. Hopefully people will actually download this. I know this is some questionable, broken window parable-logic that I'm about to use, but I'd like to think that at least some good could come out of the return of Family Guy or the popularity of Robot Chicken. As awful and unforgivable as they are, they're indirectly paying for projects like this.

I'll Sleep When You're Dead is still one of the best albums of the year, and definitely worth the wait, even though it should have come out last year. Lord knows we needed it, though this year hasn't been much better for hip-hop, either.