Could this be the hip-hop album of the year??

I'd certainly like a peek at Jeymes Samuel's contacts book. As a producer, he's worked with The Gorillaz, Ben Hudson and KT Tunstall. As a film-maker, he's cast Ian Brown and Mos Def in his upcoming project Buskers - The Movie. And, while he's finishing that off, he's put together an album with Tori Amos, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Roisin Murphy. The best celebrity number in my phone is Patrick Moore...

Samuel's musical project is called The Bullits and, as the name might suggest, it's inspired by classic movies and TV shows. They've done a tribute to Danny DeVito's 70s sitcom Taxi (amazing), while Roisin has re-imagined the theme tune to Roger Moore's pre-Bond spy show The Persuaders.


The Bullits feat Roisin Murphy - The Persuaders


As you can see, the feel is cinematic hip-hop. Gorgeous string samples with lashings of melodrama - the perfect backdrop for some down and dirty rap... Exactly the sort of thing Handsome Boy Modelling School have excelled at in the past, in fact.

The album will apparently be a concept record, starting Lucy Liu as Amelia Sparks, "a woman who's on death row, and she's being interviewed before she gets killed."

"I'm on the entire album," Liu told a US chat show, "it's like spoken word narrative. She's done the entire interview and basically he [Jeymes] cuts in and out of it. He's basically a genius."

There's only one track with Liu's vocals online right now - but it's a corker. If you locked Andre 3000 in a room with John Barry, Burt Bacharach, Marlene Dietrich and fed them litres and litres of fizzy pop, this is what the result would be.


The Bullits feat Jay Electronica & Lucy Liu - Close Your Eyes


I genuinely can't wait to see how this one pans out.

Tweet