Many artists have tried to move from the turntablism of the battle circuit to the studio, only to struggle with adapting their abilities on the decks to the new format. Canadian deejay Kid Koala made the transition look so easy, and has been doing it for so long, he almost makes you wonder why others failed. On his latest album, Kid Koala focuses his attention on the blues. On paper, it would seem like the blues, a natural forebear to hip hop, would make for great source material, much in the same way that jazz is used. However, for a myriad of reasons, most forays into blues/hip-hop have ended up sounding extremely cheesy. There have been exceptions, though. The work of R.L. Burnside towards the end of his life are some of my favorite records, and Nas’s “Bridging the Gap,” is one of his best songs. On the flip side, to see how quickly the music can become terrible, just listen to “Evolution of a Man,” by Q-Tip with Al Kapone from the Cadillac Records soundtrack. This is all to say that Kid Koala has taken on two aspects of making a hip hop album mostly associated with failure with 12 Bit Blues. Not only does he make it work, he succeeds with flying colors.

One of the main aspects that allows Kid Koala to succeed on 12 Bit Blues is that instead of taking blues samples and forcing them to fit into some sort of boom bap hip hop pattern or mold, he makes the hip hop fit to the blues. This means that he’s often scratching and manipulating sounds in more of a shuffle pattern than anything else. Another aspect that makes the record work is that there isn’t an obvious attempt to “update” the blues on this record. Instead, he merely highlights the raw grit and soul found on old blues records. It works so well here, you might wonder why so many artists have failed to combine the blues with hip hop successfully. It makes me wonder as well, just as I wonder why Alligator Records felt the need to make their blues records sound so slick and over-produced in the ‘80s. One key piece here that needs to be acknowledged here is that for all of Koala’s technical abilities on the turntables, he’s very comfortable with his skills to the point that he doesn’t need to be flashy all the time. This allows him to work in much subtler ways that allows these great blues grooves to shine, and his manipulation and recontextualization can take the back seat to the source material. If you’ve ever had the privilege of watching him perform “Moon River,” you know exactly what I’m talking about. The term “turntablism” doesn’t always conjure up the idea of subtlety, but I think Koala is making the case that it should. The last aspect that I should mention that leads to this album’s success is that Koala is clearly a passionate and knowledgeable fan of the blues, as evident by the records he’s sampling. They mostly fall in the range of the late forties through the fifties, touching on some jump blues, a little bit of barrelhouse piano blues, some Delta slide, and some good old Chicago blues. It all comes together as a fantastic record that both works as a tribute to the blues and as a record that stands up on it’s own merits.

Kid Koala is one of the most unique talents working in hip hop today, and he proves this once again with 12 Bit Blues. It’s hard enough to reach the top ranks of turntablism and to then have a successful recording career. To then drop an album over ten years into your recording career that is so subtly brilliant, and succeeds where so many other artists just end up sounding corny is just ridiculous. To say I enjoyed this album would be an understatement.