OCR01134 - Sonic Adventure 2 "Knuckles' Unknown from M.C."

[General ELL]

Excelent!!! I didnt liked the original tune, but this one is awesome, congratulations bronx rican.

[fetusboy]

I think this is a bad remix of the orginial. I give the guy props for making it but in my mind it does not compare to the orginial. I am also not saying this becasue i am a sonic fan. I have many remixes of the sonic songs which I like and many from this site. Other then that on to why I hate it. First this song sounds boring, it puts me to sleep and I lost intrest in it very fast. Second it sounds monotone which is why it puts me to sleep and it doesnt sound that intresting. This song just doesnt make me feel alive like the orginal does. The orginal sounds more up beat and alive. I am not alone with my view point. Since i got in an argument with my roomate over this song i sent out both versions of the song to people and 90% of them like the orginial much better then the remix. I am just voicing my opinion of this song.

Well, yeah, true Jose's voice is a little too soft sounding as a rapper, but instrumentally, the mix's very moviing even though it's slightly repetitive.

I don't know what to say regarding your opinion, but from what I can see, mainstream rap is not the primary genre that you listen to daily. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[A-RoN]

fetus, can you please edit your post? I've got a new account now.

I still stand my ground when I say this is the OC Rap Remix of the Year. Niggaz was decent (except for the profane language), but this song beats everything here. Perfect execution, flow is tight, and the east coast beatz are exactly as they should be. I'm also a huge fan of John Reuben's Primo/Wu Tang-type sound from Are We There Yet, so the bassline totally hooked me in.

You are the man, Mr. Rican. I'll colab with you any day for you next rap remix.

[RandomFerret]

Hey, you changed it! I d/led this one as soon as it was posted, and it's been on my mp3 player pretty regularly since. I came back to the OC entry just now while recommending it to a few friends.

This and Little Mac's Confession are probably the only vocal mixes on this whole site that manage to keep the cheese reigned in while still being relavent to the game(although the inherant cheese in metal and old school rhymes probably helps).

And since I missed it the first time... could you put that instrumental track back up?

Maybe send it to my gmail?

[José the Bronx Rican]

...gmail?

Done. When I get my homepage running (seriously), the instrumental will be available to others again.

Double A, I just might take you up on that in future.

Now, I've just noticed lyrics are available on the remix pages; how and who can I talk to to get mine put up?

[CC Ricers]

This remix is pure class. It's one of the few 'bling-bling' raps that I approve of.

Can't wait to hear what you have in store next.

[hmbtnguy]

I absolutely love this remix! Infact I liked it so much, that I registered to this forum just to praise your work. The quality rivals that of the original, the music is perfect, and represents Knuckles. The remix is a masterpiece, and I can't wait for other songs you have cooking. If you aren't that busy do you think you could send me the instrumental version of the song? Thanks in advance.

[Nineko]

first of all:

1) I hate every rap/black/hiphop and so on kind of song

2) I do not own SA1 or SA2 and I never listened to the original

but...

that's GREAT! I love so much listening to this song... Josè you did a wonderful job.

I cannot evalutate how much you improoved from the original because I never listened to it... but I can say that my overall rank is 28.5/30

great job - sure

[John]

I registered just so I could review this ReMix.

Lyric-based mixes have a tendency to make me cringe, and I'd have never dl'ed this if it weren't my goal to listen to every mp3 on the site, but this one really took me by surprise. The flow is almost perfect and the lyrics are clever. The ability to write rhymes that so heavily reference to the source material but keep from becoming cheesy is too rare.

The only problem, which is common in a lot of rap, is that the intro and outro seem to drag a little bit compared to the fast-paced middle/heart of the piece.

This is definitely one of the very top ReMixes on the site.

[Skyz]

You got it forreal Jose. We all know Knuckles is the man. That's why his theme is hip-hop, cuz he's the shit and so is the song. Good job man. You can spit for real.

[Salluz]

Ay,this is DA' MIX!!!

I do think the percussion could've

been less repititous,but this kills

most OCR tracks,because of the groove.

In fact,I wanted to remix the same song,

but at first,it was too complicated,but now

that I have remixes waitin' to get in at some

point,and I've become better at music,it won't

be so hard.I'll make the attempt,and I know what

Knux song I'll remix...

[SilentKnight]

maybe it's just me, but i tend to demand punchlines in every rap song that i listen to.

i think your mic presence and recording could use some improvement as I had to kinda listen closely to actually understand what you were saying.

the beat is semi-catchy, though to an extent a little repetitive.

you had punchlines, just not very strong ones (or not the ones im looking for). maybe im just being picky or whatever but i felt that you could've put some more effort into crafting your punchlines. your lyrics dont lack creativity, it just sounds to me that there was a lot of untapped potential in terms of lyrical content.

from the looks of things id say your flow is a little off at some parts, kinda like you rushed the last few syllables of a line.

overall, not bad, and good work

[Dionyseus]

I hate rap though there are a few exceptions (particularly Wyclef's 'Gone Till November') , but I must say that this is definitely the best rap remix I've heard yet from OCR. The voice sounds professional, and definitely reminded me of Sonic Adventure 2.

I just finished giving out the scores for the 7th field (there's a total of 17 fields, each field has about 20 5/5 star songs) of my OCR 00001 - 01250 Tournament, and this one made the cut into my list of Elite OCR (top 5 of each field make the cut), with a score of 94.8/100, so once again congrats for this fine remix.

[The Orichalcon]

Just heard this on shuffle for the first time. Not a fan of rap, but this was gooooooood. Nice work.

[Goten X]

Well done. I smiled through this whole review, and this is definitely one of my favorite remixes. Only because Knuckles is so badass.

|GX

[Bummer]

Holy deep gutwrenching barbequechicken woofer sandwich, THIS IS SUPERB. Rap and Hiphop isn't something that I like to listen to, due to the content in the lyrics mostly I guess. However, this may be rap but this ain't the same kind of rap I'm familiar of.

This is a specialized, improviced, solid, funky, spunky, agressive, depressive, cheerful and rapping masterpiece customized for the sole purpose to give knuckles a kickass theme. The overall content in the lyrics was both witty but mostly very skillfully written. This might bethe only time that i don't really bother much about the music, the human voice is the star instrument in this creation, and it's so awesome i'm gunna git this right now.

This is gold. With emeralds embraced in it.

[TheWestWind]

When I saw this ReMix I thought it would be interesting to say the least. Like how could you do a song like Knuckle's theme?

Well you did it amazingly~ I love how you brought in lyrics from so many of his level themes and his SA1 theme. I normally can't put up with rap/hip-hop that well, but I love listening to this song.

And if it makes any difference, I got my friend, who refuses to listen to any OC ReMixes, to listen and say this song 'isn't bad'. Yeah, he says he likes all original tracks better and no ReMix is original. I get in an argument with him over it like once a week.. >>

[Liontamer]

Back in 2004 when I first heard this, DarkeSword passed me the track to play on VG Frequency because it extremely impressed djpretzel and the judges panel, and I was the radio host connected with most of the OCR staff back when I was still on the outside. And it's still the only track I ever encored on the same show; I just liked it that much, and so did the listeners.

Since I'm now gotten to meet and hang with José, I hope he doesn't take it the wrong way as me now being demystified or anything like that. But at the time, José came off to me like a somewhat mythical figure, because IMO this track was just light years ahead of anything else on OC ReMix.

I'm a real sucker for the details of this track. The production was crisp, I loved the fusion of lyrics and arrangement ideas from both versions of "Unknown from M.E.", Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, the original portions of the lyrics that were relevant to the character lyrics, as well as the seamless usage of sampled sounds from the Sonic series on the Sega Genesis. All that, and it was a hip-hop mix, something that OCR had nothing remotely like at the time.

A lot of great ideas came together here. At a site where the artists pride themselves on creating the unique, this one's always going to be one of the pieces that simply stands out from the rest as one of the most unique of the unique.

[Salluz]

This happens to be one of my faves. I'll spit the details later, but yeah, just saying so after four years.

[OceansAndrew]

Ridiculously good. OCR's hip hop pinnacle, IMO.

A must-listen.

[Bendario]

Wow, man. I'm normally wary of remixes with lyrics, but DAMN this is good. The wordplay is perfect and the melody itself is done right in every way. A++. Love all the references, by the way.

[Salluz]

I showed this song to Hunnid P aka Knuckles, the guy who raps for Knuckles; song in Sonic Adventure 2, and he LOVED this shit. And funny, they're both New Yorkers. Hunnid P lives in Brooklyn, Jose stays in the Bronx.

Salluz:

HELL YEAH

Matter of fact, you ever heard of the Bronx-Rican?

Hunnid P:

das whas up i like dat

na but da bx is all luv

Salluz:

http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01134/

You inspired this nigga (well, he's Puerto-Rican, so technically he's not a nigga but whatevaa)

Hunnid P:

word i gotta hear him man i luv hearin how i inspired peeps man its been a long ride but im still here better than ever!!!

He's going to be doing some more stuff with Sega soon.

[Silver Knuckles]

Let me start off by saying that I absolutely detest most rap and hip hop, mainly because of the language they usually resort to, and because I see the former as mostly poetry with music in the background.

That being said,  this is by far one of the best songs I've ever come across on OCRemix.  Instinctually like I do with most songs of this genre, I really wanted to stop it because of the type of song it was.  However, the more the song progressed, the more eager I was to hear it until its end.

And I'm really glad I did.  The music itself was exceptional, the rapping was beyond amazing, and overall the entire song was just phenomenal.

I detest most rap and hip hop out there, but this is easily one of my top favorite video game/remix tracks ever.

Very well done Jose, this was truly some exceptional work, and I can easily say that I'm eager to hear both more of the stuff you've worked on on here, as well as potentially future material from you.