Production Breakdown: Kidz in the Hall’s “The Grizzly Man” (Listen & Download)

Have you ever had two circles of friends that you yourself get along with equally well, but seem to have absolutely nothing in common with one another? Who, if they were to meet, it would just be kind of... weird? As a listener with one foot (I would say 'ear,' but that would be a pretty strange image) on either side of the gap between urban music and that ill-defined genre I can only call “stuff hipsters like,” I occasionally get that feeling. It's with great interest and a tiny bit of trepidation that I've watched those two worlds flirt with one another over the past couple years and, to be honest, I'm still not sure what to think of the growing convergence.

If you haven't already guessed, the track that got me thinking about this topic is “The Grizzly Man”, the latest single from Chi-town duo Kidz in the Hall (download and player is at the bottom of the page). Featuring a beat sampled from indie rock group Grizzly Bear's “Two Weeks,” it's a fascinating (and, in my opinion, well-done) example of this phenomenon.

Where collaborations like Kid CuDi's “The Pursuit of Happiness,” which found the popular but relatively outre hitmaker joining forces with beat-driven indie buzzmakers Ratatat and MGMT are, in a way, intuitive, how a group like Grizzly Bear start building buzz on the urban-music side of the aisle is a little less obvious. There's nothing particularly hip-hop about them – they're just a group of laid-back Brooklynites who sing like choirboys and craft delicate (often great) tunes in a style that, if I were writing for Pitchfork, I'd probably call “chamber pop.”

When the great Jay-Z showed up at one of their performances on the Williamsburg Waterfront (along with Beyonce and Solange Knowles) music-lovers across the 'net took notice. That buzz became even greater the next day, when Hova told MTV News that that he considered Grizzly Bear an “incredible band,” and stated his belief that they and other acts like them will push hip-hop forward.

It's great that Kidz in the Hall, CuDi and even Jay-Z are taking the initiative to cross genre boundaries and expose their fans to horizon-expanding new music; to roll with the circle-of-friends metaphor mentioned above, hip-hop and indie/hipster-oriented acts clearly have more to talk about than I initially would have thought. Will these types of crossover exercises move beyond the 'novelty' stage and produce some truly groundbreaking work? Personally, I'm not sure – “eclectic” doesn't always mean “good,” and careless genre-blending can result in a finished product that's bland or even downright obnoxious. Whether this fusion turns out to be a bona fide musical revolution or simply a a trendy tangent, though, we can most definitely look forward to a few pleasant surprises along the way.

To download "The Grizzly Man" click here or here. Or listen to the track right now below.