The bit that you skip #57: Lucas – Lucas with the lid off

OR: Day two of the unofficial pentalogy of great 90s sample-based tracks.

Never been shy to say I love rap. Once the genre expanded to other countries, a few acts grabbed my attention. US3, Jovanotti, and today’s pick, Lucas, from Denmark.

Lucas with the lid off is an off-kilter track. A sample from Benny Goodman’s When Buddha Smiles is the foundation of this electroswing track, perhaps one of the first of its kind to get some love from the charts and us latchkey teens hooked on MTV (latino or from anywhere). Certainly it was my gateway.

I never bought the album because…you couldn’t find it anywhere and perhaps I outgrew the track for a while. It took me sometime to truly appreciate the dynamics of the song.

Michel Gondry’s video, though, that one I taped on VHS, and later bought on the Michel Gondry collection. A good find at a charity shop in Sheffield. Got Spike Jonze’s collection at CEX that very day too.

Lucas with the lid off is a one take video that encapsulates the wonderful madness of Gondry: weird camera angles, backscreen projection, sleight of hand tricks, forced perspective, and lots of miniatures. Lucas Secon’s playful delivery is the perfect match to the visual spectacle. And you gotta love the quick re-using of Pharcyde’s Drop video as a reflection on a window.

I can’t remember the song making much of an impression in Mexico. Rap was still very niche in ’94, as the rappers most Mexican knew were Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer, and the mexican act Caló. The genre didn’t get much love back then, and it feels that the genre was superseded by reggaeton and trap. Guess some trains can’t be stopped.

-Sam J. Valdés López

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