Let’s get the typical review of any given album of bass music out of the way first. “This album contains wall-to-wall bass for your woofers and with it’s frantic scratching and rapping, this is sure to get your toes-a-tappin’.” With that having been said (over 1,000 times by “professional” reviewers), here is an actual evaluation of “The Bass that Ate Miami”.
1988 was such a pivotal point in the evolution of most sub-genres of rap music, and Bass music was no exception. It seems the cause of the jolting change in sound was due to the invention and release of one piece of studio gear…E-mu’s SP1200. Not that a drum machine that allows you to sample drum sounds to program was all that new of a concept, it’s just that this one just allowed the programmer a handful more seconds to do so. This altered rap music by disposing of the former drum machine/keyboard combination that dominated rap music history since the era of Run DMC & Electro. Though many may argue that the music lost some of it’s musicianship as a result, it did allow the utilization of space to a fuller extent. This, combined with my naiveté due to my age that year, built certain expectations of what bass music SHOULD sound. When the word came my way that “The Bass that Ate Miami” was something I absolutely must have, I, of course, got a copy. Unfortunately, I was unimpressed. The drum machine/keyboard combination was the predominate mode of production, and in a time when vocoder style electro robotic vocals were nearing it’s lowest point of usage in the rap world, I was baffled how a release could sound this way in 1988. I quickly came to the understanding that the man behind the production on all of the tracks included was an artist by the name of DXJ, and I deemed him to be a weak imitator of Miami Bass. It took close to a decade to realize how off base I was.
Within the next four years, bass music crossed its creative peak, which is when the mainstream of rap/dance music got a hold of the genre. “Whoop There it is”, “Daisy Dukes”, and “Dunkie Butt” became radio hits, and the standards that could be found by reading between the lines in the genre were quickly disappearing. It was only a short amount of time that the bass music genre morphed beyond recognition to cater to it’s current audience of strippers and “car show guys”, and in doing so, the music obtained it’s lowbrow reputation. During this era, Electro began undergoing a revival. Revaluating the relationship between Hip-Hop and Techno not only produced new tracks, but also caused some ignored classics to surface. I began going through my collection to check out the material I’d ignored when I ‘discovered’ “The Bass that Ate Miami”. Most notably, DXJ using the alias “Maggozulu Too” produced a track entitled “Mix it Up” which plays like a megamix of Electro classics, which caught my initial attention. “Lookout Weekend” and “Electric Kingdom” flowed in and out of the mix simulating a live DJ, while DXJ’s vocoder laden vocals played the role of “caller” in the traditional “call & response” format also simulating a live experience. Eventually, most of the album’s other tracks began to stand out, notably, “Street Wars” and the title track were exceptionally strong. I realized a complete reevaluation of DXJ’s discography was in order.
I began my quest to obtain all of his work under various aliases, and a few extremely notable things came to fruition. First off, narrowing the ‘invention’ of the genre proved him to be active in Miami’s Electro scene as early as 1983, which after doing the math, shows him producing electro tracks a matter of months after the genres creation. In addition, the genre of bass can be seen developing in 1985 with the combination of Luke Skyywalker bringing The 2 Live Crew to Miami and M.C. A.D.E.’s work at 4-Sight records. In 1986, M.C.A.D.E. released a track known as “Bass Mechanic”, which featured drum programming by DXJ. This alludes to DXJ possibly being present for the creation of the genre of bass itself as 4-Sight records released “Radio Mars” shortly before “Bass Mechanic”, by DXJ using the alias Maggotronics. The other thing that becomes apparent about DXJ’s collected discography is the constant wit. Samples of various statements become strung together to form new witty statements, he takes on aliases to produce “battle raps” against himself, and reworks themes of prior songs to reward the collectors of his discography. In studying his released works, I also discovered that his compilations, including “The Bass that Ate Miami”, are a collection of works from several different years, which proved the songs within to have yet even more relevancy when placed in the context of the year it was originally released. The largest thing to say about DXJ’s production that separates itself from other Miami Bass acts is the ominous references to George Clinton’s P-Funk. In addition to the use of a full set of percussion featuring timbales and whistles, he will often include Funkadelic style guitar solos. His primary alias, “Maggotron”, is a take on P-Funk’s “Maggot Brain” combined with the electro element referred to as “tron”.
As time goes on, critics could say that DXJ’s methods have undergone nearly no change, but there’s no doubt that for every X-rated track and car accessory track that came from the genre only to be forgotten, DXJ’s cult status continues to grow and his discography remains firmly rooted and maintains it’s relevancy.
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