G. Love & Special Sauce – ‘Milk And Cereal’

G. Love is the underrated genius son of my brother’s adopted home-town of Philadelphia. Coincidentally, this has been on of D’s favourite songs for almost as long as he’s known how to use the Internet, which is why I was utterly bemused that it hadn’t been written about yet. Nothing like a rainy Sunday afternoon to let that situation be rectified, as we take a trip deep into the nether-realms of the chill-blues, funk-rap and nonsensical witticism that is one of The Special Sauce’s crowning achievements of weekend slacker jams. It should be noted that I am one of the least likely proponents of said combination, having been threatened and bribed to eat my milk with cereal up until the age of eleven, which happens to be around the time this song dropped on the now out-of-print Rappin’ Blues EP. But you can’t let tastebud preferences get in the way of a good song. If that was the case, many of us would never have listened to Red Hot Chili Peppers or Smashing Pumpkins.

Garrett Dutton is a remarkably skilled individual. He’s one of the few white guys that have come to some sort of musical prominence in the last decade who can articulate every necessary part of a band using only his body. Whether it’s rhythm through rap, harmony through vocals, melody through harmonica or feel and tone through strumming, Mr Love is a one-man machine. Milk and Cereal is a wonderful exploration of some of the founding tenets of composition that many of us learn about in highschool; rhythmic augmentation (when ‘Snap Crackle Pop’ goes from quavers to triplets), staggered chordal harmonies (everywhere) and of course, the power of repetition. I am consistently in awe of any singer-songwriter who can pen a popular song that doesn’t feature that word ‘love’ or ‘hate’ in it and make it work, let alone about one that details of breakfast. But whether he’s crooning about weed or launching Jack Johnson’s career, what can certainly be said for G is he makes it look so damn easy. You get that real vibe – and it’s one Johnson would eventually nail down to perfection over the course of five records – that this is just a bunch of friends gathering into a room every afternoon to jam, and that the tape just happens to be rolling. More even than talent itself, that’s a very hard thing to fake.

Dutton may have started something of a revolution without realising it, already we’ve found at least one other example, via Z-Trip and Murs, of rappers who love talking about the first meal of the day. But ‘Milk And Cereal’ is more than just a stunt, it’s a way of life. It’s a declaration that if you can make it funky, if you can make it groove and if the chords are good enough, the subject matter is of secondary importance. Though I’ll never tire of hearing a three-part male ensemble hitting ‘Snap Crackle Pop’, I’m probably more attracted to the idea behind it. Before it became common practice to slow down and unplug in order to win over hearts, Love firmly demonstrated (in an era when nu-metal was dominant nonetheless) that just because it isn’t in your face doesn’t mean it doesn’t have soul.

G. Love & Special Sauce – ‘Milk And Cereal’