Rapper P.O.S. Covers Pearl Jam

Pearl Jam just released the deluxe reissue of their debut album, TEN a little less than a week ago. As part of the hype for the new album, MTV2 rounded up a bunch of more current artists to cover their favorite Pearl Jam tracks.

Minneapolis hip-hopper POS lands in the line up covering “Why Go,” and actualy stands out as potentially the only redeeming cover in a list full of boring acoustic renditions by artists like Staind and The Academy Is. He does a solid job at not messing with the arrangement or progression, not trying to imitate Vedder, and yet making the song completely current and styled to his own genre; a great balance of the original track with new flavors, which is what every good cover should be.

Extra super bonus points for being a rapper that didn’t pull the Auto-Tune card too, even though he had to actually sing the song. He holds his own pretty well and what his vox lack, he makes up for in spades with his keyboard riffs.

We’ve all heard more than enough about Lil Wayne and how his biggest influence is Nirvana, mostly because he keeps reminding us of how original and out-of-the-box he is with his musical tastes. POS, while not as well known, cites Minor Threat as a key influence in his music, and I’m actually more inclined to believe him. As a skateboarding, midwestern, black punk youth in the 90s, POS claims that the angst and alienation represented by Minor Threat and other punk outfits struck a strong chord with him, even listing his genre as “hip hop/indie/punk”. A quick listen to the tracks like “Half-Cocked Concepts” and the guitar and drum driven “Drumroll” lend credibility to his claims and help fill in the gaps as to whether or not he belongs on the notoriously punk rock warped tour.

We’ve been seeing a cross-pollination of genres lately, and I’m digging it.

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 30th, 2009 at 10:54 am. It is filed under wax and tagged with cover, dj, hip hop, MC, remix. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.