Are you a famous musician who desperately wants your music mashed up and re-presented to the public? It's simple: just kick off a tabloid-baiting feud against another rapper or rockstar, and remixers will crawl out of the woodwork to put both of you into the same song as means of forcible reconciliation.
Witness OJayZis: Jay-Z vs. Oasis, a collection of mash-ups by three Spaniards who comprise the Cookin' Soul collective. The ten-song album capitalizes on the recent war of words between Jay-Z with Oasis. It's done well, although The Gray Album, which mashed Jay-Z's Black Album with The Beatles' White Album, remains the gold standard to these ears. Plus, these new Jay-Z/Oasis tracks are streaked with an annoying sample that stamps them as the work of Cookin' Soul.
Here's how we got here. First, Noel Gallagher claimed Jay-Z shouldn't have been tapped to headline the rock-oriented Glastonbury Festival. The rapper responded by mocking the band during his performance at that festival with an out-of-tune version of Oasis' "Wonderwall" in which he mimed playing the guitar, followed that up with his hit song "99 Problems."
The Cookin' Soul producers combined songs by both parties into tenindividual songs. The entire thing is now available for download from Cookin' Soul via 2DopeBoyz (.zip) for free, with select songs available on MySpace as well.
Ironically, one song, "Supernova Hello," includes with Jay-Z saying"I'd like to thank everybody for your purchase." Meanwhile,
"Wonderback" includes the memorable line,"Noel from Oasis said I couldn't play guitar, Somebody should have told him I'm a fucking rockstar."
Idolator rightly pointed out that this project really should have been called The Bloke Album.
Jay-Z pointed out that he wouldn't mind working with Oasis. Too late.
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