1 Giant Leap

Some of you may be familiar with the 1 Giant Leap project. Basically, it was an album that was put together by enlisting artists throughout the world who will "collaborate" by adding on to what others did before them. Speech appeared on the first project with the song "Braided Hair" which apparently did very well in Japan. It was a really good song and popped up on The Vagabond and Down South Produckshuns.

1 Giant Leap had a second project called What About Me that wasn't quite as well known- from what I can tell the album was released in Australia only. Speech actually appeared on two songs on this double album, as well as a remix. So courtesy of youtube, here are those songs. The first song, "Each Step Moves On" with Zap Mama is about the most mellow song we've heard from Speech. He doesn't pop up until about three minutes in.

Each Step Moves On


The second song is "What I Need is Something Different" with Boots Riley. This one is more in Speech's normal style and isn't a bad song overall, but long. The "Dub" version that closes out the album is the second track. I do want to warn some Speech fans that there is some cursing on this song (not from Speech) in case that is not your thing....

What I Need Is Something Different


"Dub" version


In my opinion, the songs run too long and have too little Speech to really hold my attention- they're not bad, but they run a minimum of six minutes. "Braided Hair" worked a lot better. Still, it's interesting to hear these songs and to hear the story of how it all came together.