Okay, half the reason I started this thread is because I wanted to use the term “grass-hop”.
Anyway, a couple months ago I heard a segment on NPR about the old-timey band Carolina Chocolate Drops, and I was excited because I don’t often hear bluegrass or old-timey music. And they were good, but their best number was their cover of hit em up style, which is different from their other, straight-ahead bluegrassy stuff.
So my question is, are there any bands out there with more of a focus on this type of music, specifically blending bluegrass or old-timey music* with somewhat of a hip-hop beat? I am not looking for bands that only sample this sort of music, such as Beck, because the blending of actual performers with beat-oriented music is what uniqeu to me about the song I linked.
or classic country, if you want to stretch it, although if it doesn’t emphasize musical virtuosity it could wind up sounding too much like Dust-Brothers era Beck to properly stretch my musical horizons.
My link was on the grassy side, but that was what I was aiming for more than the gangsta rap of gangstagrass. I basically agree with you except that even if you take out the beatbox, the rhythm and style was still modern soul/hop influenced.
Not sure if there are other samples on the gangstagrass site but the samples on Amazon do give a good flavor of the album. On the down side, the tracks all seem similar to me (maybe because I’m not a connoisseur of gangsta rap), but they will be a good break when they show up in my MP-3 player. I just don’t see me playing the whole album at once.