N.A.S.A. explores unity in all people through music
Clay Adamczyk and Elizabeth Mullen, The Suffolk Journal, 18 February 2009 [Link]

When it comes to analyzing North America South America's (NASA) debut, "Spirit of Apollo" (Anti, 2009), the only hard part is where to begin. DJ Zegon and Squeak E. Clean have gathered every big name in the music game from David Byrne to KRS One, from Tom Waits to Chuck D, and from George Clinton to MIA, who all come together to illustrate how all aspects of the art community can merge harmoniously. NASA's goal of pairing artists whose music styles might conflict actually work together and flow naturally, much more so than the Jonas Brothers/Stevie Wonder collaboration performance.

"The Spirit of Apollo's" track list initially feels like a compilation album with hip-hop MCs and music legends appearing for a song or two, but its motif and Brazilian funk influence tightly brings the album together. The end result is so strong, that no one artist outshines another. It's intro features vocal clips of the artists together voicing tha, "music and art has the tremendous power of bringing people together, and this is our goal, to show through these mediums, we are all one race."

"The People Tree" kicks off the music, accentuating this point of all being one race - human. Chali 2na of Jurassic 5, Gift of Gab, a Z-Trip alternate versus questioning why we are all here while David Byrne of the legendary Talking Heads vocalizes this notion and is accompanied by children singing "People growing/ in my back yard/ in my garden/ in my heart/ like my body/ not like me/ underneath the people tree." Byrne and Z-Trip are featured directly following on "Money," a song about the evils of money, also featuring Seu Jorge, Ras Congo and Chuck D of Public Enemy.

No track represents this unity of art and people than when Chali 2na reappears with "There's a Party," accompanied by funk/soul pioneer, George Clinton. "Everybody's all together now," is the songs welcoming first line setting the tone. It shortly reviews its chorus "there's a party/ and we're all invited/ not just some of us/ each and every one of us." Un-credited backup vocals and cheering/laughing build with the song, and can only presumably be friends of collaborators joining in the fun.

Kanye West is the sole voice that strays from the one-for-all element by bragging about himself on 'Gifted," a 90's pop throw-back, also featuring Santogold and Swedish pop singer, Lykke Li. Even though West comes across as arrogant (what else is new?), this is his strongest rapping to date.

NASA has been putting together "The Spirit of Apollo" over the last five years, long enough that this album has the last song Ol' Dirty Bastard of Wu-Tang Clan as ever recorded before his untimely death. ODB appears with Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Fatlip formerly of the Pharcyde on "Strange Enough." The songs beat features a heavy guitar crunch that obviously fits the style that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were experimenting with while recording "Show Your Bones" (Interscope, 2006), which was produced by Squeak E. Clean. The upbeat synth melody is more reminiscing of the ODB/Mariah Carey 'Fantasy Remix," and the hip-hop that was up-and-coming while Fatlip was just beginning.

Squeaky E. Clean notes the artist pairings beginnings on their Myspace saying, "we never said, 'let's make a track for this person.' We'd usually make something we liked, and then as we were starting to write the song, it would tend to go in a direction that we'd be like, 'this sounds like George Clinton,' or 'this sounds like Method Man.' We would start to feel the song out, and feel the artist through the song as we did it. Basically, we'd sit around as we were making these tracks and say the nuttiest combination of names, like our dream of who we could get on the song. It's crazy, a lot of times they actually happened."

The most shocking and pleasant dream-come-true is that of the gravely-voiced marvel Tom Waits, who appears with Kool Keith on "Spacious Thoughts." The beat kicks in with the piano chunk and subtle turntable swipe matching the eerie chill Waits' specializes in, most prominently in "Real Gone" (Anti, 2004). Kool Keith and Waits both share vocals equally, unlike most hip-hop incarnations which generally only have guest vocalists sing hooks.

This album has something for everybody, and captures the spirit of the people. With to many greats to fully analyse, some other artists that came together to make "The Spirit of Apollo" possible are the RZA, Ghost Face Killah, Slim Kid Tre, Spank Rock, Scarface, Del tha Funkee Homosapian, DJ Qbert, Amanda Blank and the Cool Kids amongst others.