{"product_id":"tenniscoats-hip-hop-tennis-cs","title":"Tenniscoats – Hip Hop Tennis [CS]","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"Oh man, quite possibly the oddest, cutest thing we’ve heard this year - cult Japanese underground duo Tenniscoats sing and play over a bunch of iconic hip-hop and r'n'b instrumentals on an hour-long tape for A Colourful Storm’s choice Fleetway Tapes sublabel; a concept that’s so brilliantly wtf that we were sold before they even droped a beat.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSaya and Takashi Ueno have never confined themselves to a single genre over the years, bending softer-than-soft whimsical folk, indie pop and psych rock into their own unique shapes - but we still could never have imagined them produce anything like this. We can't tell you how Moopie managed to convince them to yank it from the archives, but it's a total joy - the most eccentric record in Tenniscoats' already distinctive catalogue. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere's a level of warm fuzz that emphasises the mix was beamed in from another decade - the tape crackles to life with melodica wails that hang remarkably well over the sturdy, bass-heavy instrumental from Mobb Deep's 'Quiet Storm', the lead single from the foundational duo's misunderstood fourth album 'Murda Muzik'. It isn't an obvious track ('Temperature's Rising' or 'Shook Ones, Pt. II' would have been the casual's choice), but it's a stone-cold killer, boasting some of Havoc's dirtiest bass and a snare that could cut glass. Saya does her best to ad-lib her own rap at first, eventually settling into a sort of soft-hued spoken word that floats Havoc's beat from the Queensbridge projects all the way to Tokyo. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTheir take on TLC's 'No Scrubs' is even weirder, with Saya's fragile vocal turn and Takashi's fittingly flamenco-inspired acoustic guitar pushing the overfamiliar beat gently into new territory. You could say 'Hip Hop Tennis' is a karaoke mixtape of sorts, the kind of selection of hastily-made reworks and versions that used to litter the streets outside Brooklyn's Broadway Junction or down on the Lower East Side before the coffeeshops and Cronut stores moved in. But Saya and Takashi's impromptu jams elevate this into the sublime, as if they'd put together a mix of East Coast favourites in the early '00s and spontaneously added their own ingredients on top. Just check the duo's dubbed-out rhymes over Brand Nubian's 'Word Is Bond' or Saya's loungey turn on the underrated Neptunes-produced banger 'Light Your Ass on Fire' and you’ll know exactly what we’re saying.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt's a session that's brimming with a palpable affection for its influences; the first side ends with a lengthy half-speed Nuyorican love-in, and then the second bursts open with an uncharacteristically nursery rhyme-like flip of The Inc's low-key Ashanti-starrer 'No One Does It Better'. Saya's blustery, saturated wails even transform Eve's enduringly popular Dre-produced 'Let Me Blow Ya Mind', while Takeshi attempts to sand down the edges of DMX's 'X Gon' Give It To Ya'. But the best moment comes when Takeshi plays in a minor key over Jeru the Damaja's 'Come Clean' - probably the best East Coast hip-hop track of the '90s - completely re-contextualising it, and trust when we say we thought we'd heard every which way that track could be flipped. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEven if you've been following Tenniscoats since 2000's 'The Theme of Tenniscoats' - you ain't ever heard them like this.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFleetway Tapes, 2026\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"naturestripstore","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48372213580017,"sku":null,"price":29.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0634\/8859\/0065\/files\/tenniscoats_hiphoptennis.jpg?v=1783130822","url":"https:\/\/naturestripstore.myshopify.com\/products\/tenniscoats-hip-hop-tennis-cs","provider":"naturestripstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}