Black Lips Cultivate Unlikely Friendship With GZA

Posted on Aug 4th 2009 3:00PM by Linda Laban
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Atlanta garage rock ingénues the Black Lips recently issued a remix of their haunting hip-hop cut 'Drop I Hold,' which sees the quartet united with GZA of the Wu-Tang Clan. The song was originally released last winter on the Lips' fifth album, '200 Million Thousand,' and GZA produced his poignant version after hooking up with the band at this year's SXSW festival. "We're friends with his manager," Black Lips bassist Jared Swilley tells Spinner. "We like Wu-Tang a lot. GZA started coming to our shows and he just liked our songs."

'200 Million Thousand' actually contains a homage to late Wu-Tang legend Ol' Dirty Bastard. "It's like we have this song 'Big Black Baby Jesus of Today,'" Swilley explains. "People think it's religious and get annoyed about it. But it was originally about Ol' Dirty Bastard." Despite their love of Wu, the Lips didn't solicit the recording hook-up with GZA. "He ended up rapping over one of our songs and sending it to us," Swilley says. "We liked it a lot. Hopefully, we'll do some more with him in the future."

The Lips and GZA version of 'Drop I Hold' has also been further remixed by Chicago-based mash-up artists the Hood Internet. The production combo replaced GZA's rap with vocal passages from New York hip-hop artist Pharoahe Monch's 'The Mayor.'

Fans with a ideas for a Lips remix can enter a current Filter magazine competition, which offers all-comers the chance to re-do 'Drop I Hold.' Swilley has some advice for anyone trying their hand: keep it simple. "It can be easy," he shrugs. "It should be easy. People always make it difficult." The deadline for submissions is this Friday, August 7.