Team Teamwork

As video game music has become more mainstream, or at least more popular thanks to outlets like OverClocked Remix, I think it's safe to say that, as a genre, geek beat is closer to hip-hop than anything else - and that's before cats like Dan the Automator started doing full soundtracks.

Whereas a lot of critics loathe the simplicity in gamer funk, I've always dug them. In particular, two dope bit-inspired cuts that come to mind are Big Shug and Statik Selektah's "Punch-Out," and U-N-I's "Castlevania".



This here Team Teamwork joint is competently mixed, which isn't always easy when you're tweaking one-dimensional sound effects. The Lupe track is especially dope, and even a little bit hilarious for some reason.

Being an amateur gamer and a hip-hop snob, I can appreciate the MC selections, but only get the comfort food willies from about half of the game backdrops. Nonetheless, hella wired rap fanatics are sure to have a good squirt over more than a few of these.

Ludacris - Roll Out (Street Fighter 2)
Biggie, Craig Mack, Rampage, LL Cool J & P. Daddy Combs - Flava In Ya Ear (Donkey Kong Country 2)
Childish Gambino - Let Me Dope You (Streets of Rage)
Big Boi & Cutty - Shutterbugg (Super Metroid)
Lupe Fiasco - I Gotcha (Sonic 3)
Dr. Octagon - Blue Flowers (Yoshi’s Island)
Ghostface Killah - The Champ (Ristar)
Gang Starr - The Squeeze (Super Mario RPG)
Kanye West - Touch The Sky (Mortal Kombat)
Bonecrusher, Killer Mike & T.I. - Never Scared (A Link To The Past)
E-40 & Busta Rhymes - One Night Stand (X-Men 2: Clone Wars)
Talib Kweli & Mos Def - Bright As The Stars (Earthbound)
DOWNLOAD Super Nintendo Sega Genesis HERE

Filed Under: hip-hop, Biggie, Ludacris, Overclocked Remix, Video Game Music - Boston Phoenix

Team Teamwork is on deck, a mix of mash-ups, hip-hop and a jam between halves. The beat, a brap, brap, brap and a switch it up is dirty south, a two-carat gem of Miami. Dude, however its still technically summer is a free styled grove street party, featuring quick-lipped hip-hop artists, breathy vocals and mad sax. Rep it, rep it, don’t stop reppin’ it.

SEPTEMBER 17, 20XX aka DUDE HOWEVER IT’S STILL TECHNICALLY SUMMER by teamteamworkthedj

Track listing:

1. Zomby – U Are My Fantasy (Street Fighter II Theme Remix)
2. Main Attrakionz – On Deck Remix (Prod. By Squadda B + Sea Things)
3. Cosmic Revenge – Late Nights (Kastle Remix)
4. Emalkay – Heroics // The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time – Lost Woods
5. Gucci Mane – Boi (Zomby Remix)
6. Guido – Mad Sax
7. Death Grips – Known For It
8. Lil Wayne ‘n’ Lil B - Grove St Party (Freestyle)
9. NBA JAM Between Halves
10. Kris Menace & Emil – Walkin’ On The Moon
11. Das Racist – Happy Rappy
12. Zapp And Roger – I Heard It Through The Grapevine
13. Jaylib – The Official
14. Lunice ft. Troy Dunnit – The Name Dunnit
15. Ray J – Sexy Can I (Team Teamwork Hazy Hazy Remix)

Team Teamwork is spinning at the Good Life on Wednesday, joining DJs El Amado and Thaddeus Jefferies. Sponsored by Dig Boston, the event features a free Sapporo Sampling party and Original Street Fighter 2 tournament! - Dig Boston

Classic video game fans with a love for hip-hop music should check out this clever remix album from DJs Team Teamwork called The Ocarina of Rhyme.

The album, named after the Nintendo 64 game The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, takes current rap songs from artists such as Jay-Z and Common and remixes them with music from Nintendo's classic The Legend of Zelda franchise. Each song listed also names the Zelda song used in the remix, in case you need to refresh your memory.

A warning to readers: Some of the lyrics are explicit.

Readers, what do you think of the songs?

By Brett Molina
Hat tip to Kotaku
Photo: Link from 'The Legend of Zelda' (Nintendo) - USA Today

Children of the ‘80s tend to carry a torch for classic game systems, even those of us (like me) who didn’t play. Just because I never got past the first level in Super Mario Brothers doesn’t mean I don’t have fond memories of watching friends play or hearing the MIDI music emanate from my brother’s Game Boy. If you’re a fan of both classic games and rap, then Team Teamwork has an album for you.
Super Nintendo Sega Genesis is no misnomer for a mash-up album that combines rap with the music from classic game titles. Like many a mash-up, the musical features are mainly from the originals, which, for the most part, run unaltered. Team Teamwork’s contribution is the layering of the game themes behind the rap, and initially this seems like not so much work. This is all Kanye West, one is inclined to think. That’s until you catch a strain of Mortal Kombat running almost imperceptibly behind West’s lyrics. The subtlety of the mash-ups speaks to Team Teamwork’s talent; it takes a careful hand to mix like this.

Highlights include the West mash-up, “Touch the Sky (Mortal Kombat)”, and Ludacris’s “Roll Out (Street Fighter 2)”. The latter is fun simply because of the iconic nature of the original; whether or not you’ve ever played Street Fighter, the resulting combination is awfully delightful. Lupe Fiasco’s “I Gotcha (Sonic 3)” has the ultimate classic video game sound, which lightens the original considerably. The theme from Zelda title A Link to the Past lends an even more ominous air to Bonecrusher, Killer Mike, and T.I.’s track “Never Scared”.

Overall, this album is an amicable listen. It makes rap more palatable to non-rap fans and will gratify anyone with a dusty Nintendo in their closet. If you’re a fan of both mash-ups and classic video games, then you should enjoy Team Teamwork’s efforts. - Consequence of Sound

A new mash-up record from Team Teamwork combines the soundtrack from Final Fantasy VII with rhymes from rappers such as Jay-Z and Ghostface Killah.

Vinyl Fantasy 7, available as a name-your-price download via Bandcamp, spans thirteen tracks and transforms the memorable soundtrack tunes of Nobuo Uematsu into bumping hip-hop tracks. Standouts include the matching of Brooklyn stalwarts M.O.P. with the rousing Final Fantasy VII battle anthem and a tune that lays the searing coke rap of Clipse over the portentous gloom of Sephiroth’s theme.

This isn’t the first game-themed mash-up record from Team Teamwork. Last year’s Ocarina of Rhyme gave the Zelda series the remix treatment.

Neither is this the first time hip-hop musicians have looked to Square Enix games for samples: DJ Green Lantern flipped the same Final Fantasy VII battle music for the track “We G’s” with Kool G Rap from his Alive on Arrival mixtape. - Wired

Team Teamwork's reimagining of Nobuo Uematsu's historic soundtrack to the 1997 PlayStation role-playing game Final Fantasy VII was a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment of inspired brilliance. Teamwork, a.k.a. Boston-based graphic designer Tim Jacques, infused Uematsu's fanciful MIDI compositions with vocal samples from a glut of hip-hop's most celebrated wordsmiths: Raekwon, MF Doom, OutKast, Slum Village, Jay-Z, and Ghostface Killah. But after pressure from copyright holders of the tracks he had sampled, Jacques has pulled the cleverly titled Vinyl Fantasy 7 from his page on music publishing platform Bandcamp. Of course, as the mash-up artist explains, "It's impossible to remove something from the Internet. So, even if I'm not distributing it, somebody out there probably is." Yes, indeed, somebody "probably" is, and we've managed to track down the notorious RPG-rap pioneer for a few questions, as he walks us through his most coveted release to date.
Vinyl Fantasy 7 works as far more than indulgent nostalgia, which is a testament to the game's original score, Jacques's mixing ability, and the stars that have been sampled. Fans of the game will, of course, be interested in hearing mash-ups of the soundtrack's most memorable numbers (the first Mako reactor, the Battle sequences, and the haunting City of the Ancients), and though this has been pertinently satisfied, Jacques insists, "I didn't feel pressure to incorporate anything...I just used what felt right and sounded the most appropriate."
Such explains his strong selections, varying the tempo and timbre of tracks that work wonderfully as hip-hop instrumentals. For "Air (Barrett's Theme)," arguably the strongest mash-up of the 12 on offer, the original's measured walking hook is accelerated umpteen gears and enforced with finger snapping and marching drums. It's a brisk and breezy ditty, seemingly tailor-made for MF Doom's silver-tongued flow: "The beat is sicker than the blood in your stool/The way it repeats to trick you like a stuttering fool." When asked how this particular marriage came about, Jacques explained, "After picking [the track] and syncing it up to samples, I thought Barrett's theme fit Doom's flow perfectly in tone and cadence."
On which areas of Vinyl Fantasy 7 he was especially pleased with, Jacques said that he's proud of all the songs: "My favorites are the Ghostface track, the OutKast/Raekwon track, and the Doom track." Ghostface Killah appears on the compilation's curtain call, where his "Save Me Dear" from The Pretty Toney Album is paired with an ethereal sample from the videogame's "City of the Ancients." "With Ghostface, the original beat is really sunny and positive, but lyrically, it could go either way," Jacques told me. "So I thought it would be a nice change of pace to hear what it would be like on a slower beat." The results are astonishing, banishing the original's bubbly piano and horn section in favor of distorted synths and shrill violin plucking. This provides the track with a dark and brooding backcloth, breathing new life into Ghostface's intense lyrics.
Similarly, "Get Dis Money (One-Winged Angel)," puts a completely different spin on its source material. Where Slum Village's original verses from Fantastic Vol. 2 were crooned over J. Dilla's leisurely beat, Jacques throws them atop a frenzied thumper with synthesisers channelled through a distorted flange pedal. Vinyl Fantasy 7 is at its most impressive when these chalk and cheese samples are mixed so sinuously, offering complete overhauls of both the instrumental and a cappella sections. Jacques affirms, "I don't really think of it that way, like that there's a challenge to [make] dramatic changes. It's just a by-product of my process, syncing up samples and seeing what sounds most interesting. The real challenge is just trying to make a song sound good."
For those who were lucky enough to download it before Team Teamwork received a cease and desist order, or those cunning enough to find it elsewhere, Vinyl Fantasy 7 is a unique and accomplished compilation. It will certainly satisfy wistful fans of the landmark videogame, putting ultramodern spins on a sublime soundtrack, but it also works as a standalone hip-hop record. It's a shame, then, that sample-clearing issues have robbed the release of widespread availability. The hip-hop industry is built on borrowing beats, and the market is awash with mixtapes and mash-ups that take the same liberties as Team Teamwork has here. Jacques himself remains upbeat amid the commotion: "Maybe people will think I'm a badass for having been served a legal notice? I dunno...Next is starting work on The Good Ass Remixes Vol. 2."
I urge hip-hop fans, especially those who've played Final Fantasy VII, to hunt down Vinyl Fantasy 7 from whatever deplorable depths of the worldwide web deal in piracy. Go on, be naughty. - Slant Magazine

He's already turned the respective soundtracks to Final Fantasy VII and Ocarina of Time into sweeping, hip-hop masterpieces -- now video game mash-up specialist Team Teamwork has set his sights on more aged fare. Last night, he launched his latest album, the aptly titled "Super Nintendo Sega Genesis," which interested parties can now acquire on a Pay-What-You-Want basis.

The album manages to take singles from artists like Kanye West, Ludacris, Childish Gambino and Ghostface Killah, and wraps them in a delicious layer of nostalgia-inducing themes from Mortal Kombat, Donkey Kong Country 2, Ristar and A Link to the Past. It may sound kitschy, but it's no joke -- the mash-up of "Shutterbug" and the theme to Super Metroid was so unbelievably fresh, we nearly fainted. - Joystiq