Playground magazine    Breakfast | PlayGround | Music Albums
Chiddy Bang    Artist: Chiddy Bang  Record Label: Regal
Recording  Genre: hip-hop, rap, indie-pop, Pop Rap   Chiddy
Bang's debut album, after an acclaimed mixtape and a somewhat
less well-received EP, “The Preview”, arrives with the complex
mission of abandoning precisely what made this Philadelphia duo
the flavour of the week a few years ago: a sound based on
bright, explicit samples from indie-rock bands, from MGMT to
Passion Pit and Sufjan Stevens, put in a musical context
somewhere between hipster rap and post-Kanye West hip-hop. It
sounded fresh and surprising at first, but it was a formula
doomed to self-destruct, not only for legal reasons (the
licenses would cost zillions) but also because of the creative
aspect: the first time it's funny, the second time it becomes a
bit stale, and the third time around, war committees are formed.
So it is a major challenge: to get rid of the one thing that
brought you fame and start over again almost from