Band of the Week: Blakroc

If anyone out there has ever fretted over acting on an impulse and then backed out at the last minute, justifying your trepidation with a feeble excuse and covering up your cowardice with feigned indifference, then perhaps you may empathize with me today, because right now you are supposed to reading a few hundred words on The XX.

However you will find that the next few paragraphs are not dedicated to 2010's Mercury Music Prize Winners as I chickened out of writing about them. I should have written about them a few months ago, and now, well it seems a waste of both our time. If you haven't heard of them already then, to quote Tyler Durden, This. Conversation. Is. Over.

Instead I present to you a band, that is still, in terms of the lifespan of a band, barely embryonic. You may be familiar with its parentage, but this baby has yet to be (officially) born. The Black Keys could very well leave me a voicemail detailing what they had for dinner and it would still clock 100 plays on my iTunes, and combine then with Mos Def, Q-Tip, RZA, Raekwon, Ludacris, Pharoahe Monch.... As the great Clay Davism said, "Sheeeeeeetttttttt!!!!!!" It's pretty much the hottest New York rappers and the coolest New York rockers, all mixed up in a glorious project that will no doubt spawn a host of imitators.

What's so good about this while effort is that there's very little to build an opinion on, all you can go on is the sum of the parts and your gut knowledge that it'll be ace - though if you need convincing, check out  Blackroc's Hoochie Coo or The Black Keys Vs. Jay-Z's Psychotic Girl Say Hello.

All that's left after that is to wait for November 27th, and buy the album. Alternatively you can pre-order it on CD from Amazon US for $11.99 here.

www.blakroc.com