ReMix:Super Mario Sunshine "Tutti I Frutti: The Ballad of Piantee Joe" 5:19

Awwwwwww yeahhhh!

So it took a surprisingly long time for us to get our first Super Mario Sunshine ReMix on the site, but it's here, and it's a humdinger. MC Final Sigma & W!SE the all.E (a.k.a. Sir Jordanius) collaborated on the legendary, mind-blowing trilogy of Super Smash Bros. ReMixes back in January, and now they return for a little GameCube Sunshine with a similarly narrative & comparably badass hip-hop ReMix. Creds:

• MC Final Sigma: rap vocals, main concept
• W!SE the all.E: singing vocals, beat

Concept/Goal:

"MC Final Sigma envisioned portraying one of the Piantas of Delfino Plaza as a suave salesman who's trying to convince Mario into purchasing some of his wares. The salesman, Pianta Joe, is a bit on the shady side, but he has a lot of finesse and charisma. I chose to take Sigma's idea and go full-on G-funk with the beat to give it a "gangster" feel. :D"

MC Final Sigma (Brian McPhee) writes:

"I'm a huuuuuge Mario fan(atic) - hopefully that comes through in the many references to different parts of the series sprinkled throughout the lyrics, especially in verse 2 (and, as an added bonus, a nod to the Kirby franchise as well!). Sunshine is a pretty terrific game in its own right, and I was disappointed to see OCR had no coverage of it yet when I first found the site. I was listening to the soundtrack one day and started imitating the way Piantas talk (which is what the "Oh ho HO ho-ho-ho" thing is supposed to represent) when I had the idea for a Pianta rap. I like doing different voices and characters and also like unusual premises for my raps, plus I wanted to keep it lighthearted and fun, in keeping with the Mario/Nintendo spirit; Pianta Joe was born at the crossroads of all of that. After that, rapping with that character and vibe in mind was pretty fun and easy. Now I would be crossing my fingers for some sort of Pianta Joe's Smoothie & Juice Bar when they finally open up an IRL Nintendo Land someday, but I've already got too many fingers on crossing duty in hopes of an IRL Nintendo theme park in the first place... A man can dream, though. :/

By the way, this song is a testament to the awesome power of the Recruit & Collaborate board on the forums. I'd been listening to OCR for a few months when I had the idea for this track; then I made an account and posted an a capella draft of verse 1 and asked if anyone would be interested in collaborating for the beat. Now, it's also a testament to Jordan's generosity/greatness, 'cuz he responded with interest to my pitiful little draft, a capella'd on my crappy old mic, and he proceeded to both do an *incredible* job on the beat AND all of the sound editing, my vocals included. This guy leaks sick nastiness like the chill perspiration on a tall glass of cool, cool drank."

Never were truer words penned; also glad to see Brian droppin' a nod to the R&C forum - we don't always know which mixes it played a part in facilitating, and it's nice to hear when it's the case. Jordanius took a momentary break from leaking his nastiness to inform us of the following:

"*In a Walter Sobchak voice* Am I the only one around here who actively browses the Workshop Forums and actually clicks on the links in my fellow members' sigs to see what projects they're up to outside of OCR?! ;P

Yeah, I don't always have great constructive feedback to give to everybody (is it bad that I truly like just about any kind of music in any shape or form and can usually only think of good things to say?), so I usually prefer to just PM the artists how much I appreciated a particular song, or I go to check out any of their websites to see if they have more tunes that interest me. With Brian, I stumbled upon his free-flowing Piantee Joe a capella and then proceeded to check out his other stuff on SoundCloud, and I immediately said to myself "Noooo waaaay! This guy is a lyrical MONSTER and I can't allow people to just sleep on his potential creativity." So I instantly hit up Brian to let him know that I was planning on working with him for this song, yet as I stated in other recent submissions of mine, 2012-2013 was not the best year for me due to IRL difficulties, so I had to go ghost for several months before getting back to Brian with a basic WIP; surprisingly, he was very cool with what I created and he understood how life was pretty whack for me at the time, but I was willing to put in the effort and the enthusiasm to make such a charismatic arrangement.

I interpreted Brian's concept of Piantee Joe as a sly yet charming black market-esque dealer with lots of finesse, so I opted for the trippy G-funk hybrid approach (with obvious nods to Nate Dogg grooves and Kid Cudi ambient stuff) to hammer home the notion of how suave and crafty this character is and how his products are so exotic and risqué. To reiterate what MC Final Sigma stated about the awesomeness of the Workshop, this collab instantly resonated between the both of us and we quickly realized that this shouldn't be the last MC Final Sigma x W!SE the all.E collab; so if you like what you hear, keep this under your hat, but we've got much, much more out back. ;P

*Shout out to the OverClocked Hip Hop Collective! Woop Woop!

Peace"

The man is a force of nature; nothing but respect, forever & ever. Just like with dubstep, there are some folks who can't get into VGM hip-hop/rap arrangements, and I just feel sorry that they might not be feeling this, because it's something special. Beatdrop loves ordered lists almost as much as I do; I've already done a lot of quoting, but I'm afraid I gotta crib his vote in its entirety because it's better than anything I'm gonna write:

1. "Production is slick. Very very slick. Clean. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
2. No question about source usage, like others have mentioned, while it might be hard to pick out at times, it's because of how radically it's been adapted here. A prime example I could provide would be what happens at 2:19 with the melody from the original at 1:14. Besides changing the instrument, the reinterpretation of the melody itself seats it perfectly into the style, and the backdrop it's set against completely changes the character of that particular melody. There's a lot of really creative stuff happening all over this with the arrangement, and if you're intimately familiar with the originals, I think you can really geek out.
3. The vocals/lyrics? I mean, "Chili could mean cool but it also means pepper"? I fucking love the vocals and lyrics. I think a really great job was done in editing and processing them. I love the performances, too. My compliments to Final Sigma and W!SE the all.E. Lyrics this sharp should be kept out of reach of children and infants.
4. No, seriously, I love this."

Yes to all four points. Such a funky cadence, such a natural progression from rapping to singing, you got your svelte synths, your funky brass, & your dynamic duo is large and in charge, steering the whole thing. Fantastic.