You're the next contestants on Catch A Beat Down

125. Mos Def, Pharaohe Monch, and Nate Dogg - "Oh No" (Rawkus, 2000)

Mos Def is Mos Def here. No biggie. And Nate is Nate here, which is amazing as always. Can we please get him on more hooks in 2009 please?

But Pharaohe here, at least for a few bars, perfects that whole super-lyrical thing that he had been working on for the better part of a decade. The "halleluiah" bit is maybe the most exciting part of a rap song to sing along to ever and the consonance he follows it up with is bonkers as well. This didn't get a a huge reaction during Monch's (on the whole very well received) set at Pitchfork but I was obviously yelling the whole verse right in the homie Edgar's ear.

Dancing w/o gravity

129. Lindstrøm - "I Feel Space" (Feedelity, 2005)

What's your favorite song by any of the acts performing today at the Pitchfork Music Festival, you ask? Well that's easy, kids, it's Hans=Peter Lindstrøm's now classic space disco anthem "I Feel Space". It's all obvious sci-fi signifiers + obvious balearic signifiers (the hand percussion bit, I mean, mostly) and it's just so beautiful at putting those together that it's still probably the easiest thing to play for people to demonstrate what I like about this kind of music. So let me play it for you, dear reader.