01. "Mystery"
02. "The Doo Bop Song" (Ft. Easy Mo Bee, J.R. & AB-Money)
03. "Chocolate Chip"
04. "High Speed Chase"
05. "Blow" (Ft. Easy Mo Bee)
06. "Sonya"
07. Fantasy" (Ft. Easy Mo Bee)
08. "Duke Booty"
09. "Mystery" [Reprise]
Similiar to his experiments in the mid-'70s, the late '80s saw him becoming more and more intrigued by the expanding hip-hop movement that was now the new big thing on the streets. With Davis' love for African music and heavy rhythm there was only a question of time before he had to fully embrace this new black movement. Between 1988 and '89 his friend Quincy Jones put together an album titled "Back On The Block" which gave the opportunity for Miles to work with Big Daddy Kane and Kool Moe Dee. on the song "Jazz Corners Of The World". This was only a small taste of what was to come though. The great musician passed away in late 1991 but before that he recorded one last project which happened to be a full-length collaboration with up-and-coming hip-hop producer Easy Mo Bee. One story goes that Davis was sitting in his apartment with the windows open, hearing the sounds of rap music blasting on the streets below his home and he instinctively know that it was the direction he wanted to take for his next project. When calling up his friend Russel Simmons and requesting him to hook Davis up with some young musicians able to create that sound he was introduced to Easy Mo Bee whom he instantly foun a connection with. Another story goes that Miles had heard Mo Bee's work on The Genius' "The Words From the Genius" and was so impressed that he had to work with him.
Whatever the circumstanses leading up to this collaboration was, the resulting music was incredible and released in early 1992 as "Doo Bop". The LP was made up of typical early '90s hip-hop beats based around chopped up samples and heavy on bass and rhythm allowing Miles to absolutely blow his ass off and proving to any naysayer that he was still just as fierce on the trumpet as ever. Besides Mo Bee and Davis, about half of the tracks also features uncredited live keyboards by Deron Johnson and three of the eight songs had Easy Mo Bee and his original crew Rappin' is Fundamental spitting a few verses. This was the only real flaw of the LP if you ask me; not that it's not a good idea to put emcee tracks on there but the producer and his friends J.R. and AB-Soul are just not good or entertaining rappers and each of those three songs had been a lot more interesting as instrumentals (compare the title track's instrumental in the link below to the one you can hear in the video to get my point).
The fourty minutes LP features 8 songs and a reprise of the slick opening joint; six of which Davis worked on in the studio with the young producer and two additional tracks that Easy Mo Bee composed around previously unreleased trumpet solos following Miles passing. Even those two remixes are very much in the same key as the other music and I would imagine Davis would've been very pleased with them both. "Doo Bop" won the award for Best R&B Instrumental Album at the 1993 Grammy awards and sold close to gold (it was around 300,000 copies a year after its original release but it could very well be a lot higher now). If you're into '90s hip-hop and not-so-traditional jazz this is defnitely an album for you and I also believe that it would be a good starting point for hip-hop fans that want to get a glimpse into the music of one of the greatest artists of our time.
BONUS TRACKS:
Miles Davis - "Doo Bop" (Instrumental)
Quincy Jones Ft. Miles Davis, Big Daddy Kane & Kool Moe Dee - "Jazz Corners of the World"[/img]
