Five Deez

i heart fat jon but some of his best stuff isn't on streaming!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14YYpfqX5A8

"rain" (2005)

and this one is def personal classic status-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m_5ztWBPdI

"sexual for elizabeth" feat shing02 (2001)

koolmotor is definitely due a revival.

guys, i don't mean to sound bossy and condescending but everyone needs to fuck with fat jon's turn of the century shit a lot more heavy. imo he's a crucial progenitor figure to the lofi scene—
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Nq8W6p4rXY
five deez — "time is night" (2001)

this was the b-side for "sexual for elizabeth" —which i posted above and which i still argue is one of the best hiphop songs oat— and i'm convinced that that 12" single is one of the most definitive and forward-thinking pieces of vinyl released in my lifetime. and fat jon was just out there in ohio doing his own thing; one of the rare folks who was evolving and developing his sound outside of the realm of dilla's influence.

like idk...
his stuff just has this completely nocturnal personality. folks on the old davey d hiphop forums used to talk about "nightbeats" a lot. cuz back then, we thought about the different styles within hiphop really rigidly- you had club shit, mixtape freestyle shit that was just completely about the lyrics a/k/a "underground hiphop" (known as backpacker "lyrical miracle" shit in retrospect) , and then you had like pharcyde/native tongues/gang starr type stuff - usually referred to as jeepbeats, ofc. mellow, feel good, 90bpm jazz loops and tight mpc drums, you know the deal. so we talked about "nightbeats" a lot. the rough definition was nightbeats were jeepbeats that sounded depressed.
and then five deez came out.
again: i have not the proper language to properly say what's in my heart; fat jon's beats were just completely... different. it's not a depressive or melancholic mood in his music, but his are unmistakably nightbeats. and i never thought hiphop could successfully be ethereal, and here we are.