Hip-Hop Credentials: Thom Yorke

A couple of days ago, maybe even weeks, I had spoke to my man DJCH on regards on doing a small recurring piece on this blog where I would introduce artists, celebrities, politicians, public figures, athletes, etc... from all walks of life and induct them into Hip-Hop. The main idea is to well justify them to a Hip-Hop crowd, to basically say they're cool, they're Hip-Hop... sort of. Of course I encourage you the reader to either nominate your own, or complain and object any of the inductees… hate if you want, love if you want is all the same… but please respect the credentials…
Many names come to mind and I will try my best to name as many as I can… and in order to start I just HAD to go to one of my personal favorites… Thom Yorke.
Skipping the usual bio info, I’ll fast forward to what he is famous for… Leader, singer and lead songwriter for Rock band Radiohead. Released his first album The Eraser on 2006, and set world news with his band when their last album “In Rainbows” was released through the internet giving the fans the choice to either pay for the album or just downloading it for free… much to the Record execs surprise the album was a complete success and according to sources: "most people [paid] a normal retail price with very few trying to buy [the download version] for a penny", the album was later released as a CD and Warner Chappell Music Publishing revealed that the album had sold three million copies (including digital and physical format sales) since the album's physical release in January… That’s Weezy numbers, bidges!
HIP-HOP CREDENTIALS:
Radiohead might be labeled by some as an Emo band, but all around in Rock they are respected as one of the most consistent bands of this generation, their work has been acclaimed by fans, critics and their peers. The admiration for their music has spawned over to other unlikely genres such as Hip-Hop, Jazz, Classical, and Reggae. As far as Hip-Hop goes the admiration is reciprocal… in many occasions Yorke has expressed his admiration for Hip-Hop artists and some of the lyrics of his songs had a bit of urban subtle under texts that he claims have been inspired by hip-hop artists (see Idioteque on Radiohead’s album Kid A and Wolf at The Door, a song that Yorke himself has been quoted saying it was an attempt to rap)… Hip-Hop acts like The Roots, Chino XL, CRS (Lupe Fiasco,Kanye West and Pharell), Sa-Ra, Blueprint, Amp Live have either remixed, sampled, quoted or covered his music. His solo album contains one song called "Black Bird" that has a beat that sound very much like a Hip-Hop song... Just recently there was a bit buzz on the internet claiming that Yorke himself had produced a Jay Electronica song called “My Uzi Weighs a Ton” which, to much of this writer's disappointment wasn’t true. Recently it was announced that Yorke WILL remix a song by underground artist DOOM (formerly known as MF Doom, from Madvillain, Dangerdoom, an upcoming album with Ghostface and possible collabos with Nas) called Gazzillion Ear from Doom’s next album called “Born Like this”. No word if he will/would produce a track for Jay Electronica, though… this writter crosses his fingers.
To add to further reference he, allegedly, snubbed Kanye West at the recent Grammy Awards… West recently spoke to fans during a VH1 special about the incident. According to Yeezy, he approached Yorke at an award show.

“Hi, my name is Kanye. I’m a musician. I’m a fan of yours,” he told Yorke, who only replied by walking away. (Frankly… my personal opinion is in this type of matters and knowing the spoiled brat, prima donna that he is, I call bullshit, and frankly I think it was time someone had put Kanye on his place… To Kanye’s defense, Radiohead also snubbed Miley Cyrus at the Grammys)

Anyway... to solidify his Hip-Hop credential, Amp Live a DJ/Producer remixed Radiohead's "In Raibows" album and released it for free download [GET IT HERE] Yorke admitted to have liked it very much...

Til next time bloggers (I know this might have been a bit long post),
I'll be back to award some one else their Hip-Hop credentials...