VIDEO: “Marathon” (live on The Underground Railroad) – CopperWire
CopperWire (Gabriel Teodros x Meklit Hadero x Burntface) came through for a performance and interview segment on The Underground Railroad, the legendary hip-hop show on New York’s WBAI radio. The first voice you hear in the interview (other than host Jay Smooth’s) is that of the SEA’s own Gabriel Teodros. A very nice look for CopperWire and hopefully the sign of even greater exposure for the groundbreaking crew.
VIDEO: “Phone Home” – CopperWire
The first video from CopperWire’s Earthbound (which dropped yesterday). I just wrote a little bit about this crew, go here to read it.
NEW MUSIC: Earthbound – Copperwire
Image courtesy artist's website.
Meklit Hadero, Burntface and Seattle’s own Gabriel Teodros form the musical union/futuristic space narrative, Copperwire. Melding elements of hip-hop/R&B, social justice and science fiction, the trio is set to release their debut album, Earthbound, tomorrow.
Amidst the tales of hijacked spacecraft, time travel and extraterrestrial superpowers are hardcore beats, rhymes and melodies rooted very much in a fundamental concern for homo sapiens everywhere.
Keep tabs on the Copperwire’s music and travels, here.
REVIEW: Colored People’s Time Machine – Gabriel Teodros
Gabriel Teodros
Colored People’s Time Machine
Fresh Chopped Beats/MADK Productions; 2012
Score: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Telling Seattle rappers they’re not making an honest attempt at gaining visibility outside of their area code is a fairly common accusation nowadays. Truth be told, there’s a lot of Big Fish in Small Pond syndrome being passed around — that every MC comes through to every other MC’s video shoot is both the charming and tedious nature of the Seattle hip-hop community. The Six is a quaint environment in which to exist as a musician, but I would imagine the socked-in loom of the Pacific Northwest winter becomes the perfect metaphor for a restless MC feeling particularly confined to his or her own insular bounds of the region.
Gabriel Teodros’ new LP, Colored People’s Time Machine, serves as a direct affront to the notion that Seattle rap has yet to grow beyond its geographic margins. It’s a stark (albeit humble) answer to local music writers who’ve posited the conceit, as well as an inspiration of sorts to fellow artists who want to stretch their own boundaries, though not in the fashion that results in rap’s standard measures of fame and largesse.
Corporate capital has never been Teodros’ main pursuit, anyway. It’s more appropriate to call his hustle one for identity scratch, but not the type that wins you admission to clubs or free custom-made clothes. More like the kind that enriches your soul and the various communities you associate yourself with. You know, fairly inconsequential stuff. CPTM cuts the broadest cultural swath of any area rap record in recent memory, featuring guest appearances by artists rhyming and singing in their native languages (including English, Spanish, Arabic, and Tagalog). Recently an obsession with interplanetary commutation has infiltrated Seattle rap subject matter, but on this album Teodros favors good old-fashioned terrestrial navigation.
The central theme on CPTM is home. Many of the album’s tracks serve to extrapolate the concept, beginning with its definition as a specific physical location and extending outward to include less concrete ideas. Though Gabriel reps strongly for the Pacific Northwest, “Alien Native” describes a regional upbringing in which a sense of belonging was never fortified. He documents physical and spiritual movements through other US cities (Las Vegas on “Babylon by Bus” and Brooklyn on “Saturn’s Return”) and other countries like Canada and Ethiopia, that served to define his identity. Teodros grapples with the same paradox that many other people of color in America do: That one’s birthplace here does not, by default, represent one’s cultural center.
He and his brethren essentially remain strangers in a strange land, relying on serendipitous collisions with others who share similar experiences to assist in a perpetual search for belonging. Colored People’s Time Machine is the fortunate product of happenstance and focused directive from an MC that values his community, wherever it may be found.
THE SIX: Featuring Gabriel Teodros
This post marks the inaugural edition of 206UP.COM’s THE SIX, a new interview feature on the blog where we focus on a single Town artist who has a recent project (album, single, video, etc.) either upcoming or already in the bag. The format is simple: Six questions are asked by 206UP.COM, six questions are answered by the subject. (Can you guess how we came up with the title?)
We’re incredibly pleased to feature Gabriel Teodros in the first edition. Yesterday, the Ethiopian-American MC dropped his new full-length, Colored People’s Time Machine, a world-wise collection of tracks that highlight his expansive roots and influences from various locations across the globe. Check for the record, here. Read on for more insight into the project.
Photo via Seattle Weekly.
1. What is the origin of the album title, Colored People’s Time Machine?
It came from a few places, one was this Ethiopian guy I met in DC who told a group of us it wasn’t until he moved to the US that time became a commodity, something that you can lose, something we count, and something we always chase. He said “Here time moves, but back home i move through time,” and it just made sense to me. Another origin is over 10 years ago the homie Orko Elohiem told another group of us he only believes there are two kinds of music in the world: Music that is timeless, and music for the time. Also, the term “CPT” has always has had a negative stigma, it implies people of color are always late. I wanted to take that term and completely flip it. All music is based on time and people of color are responsible for every musical movement this country has ever produced. With music you can travel to the future and let voices from the origins of this universe come up through you. So in short, music is our time machine. We’re not late, the way we move through time is just different. The concept of Colored People’s Time Machine embraces all of this.
2. The idea of one’s home is a dominant theme on CPTM. Is your definition of “home” that of a specific physicality, or is the concept more ambiguous than that?
Definitely a central theme, it’s said so many ways on the album, but “home” has come to mean a lot [of] places, and no place at all. Earlier this year my extended family in Toronto came up with the concept of “pieces of home” because we all seem to have pieces scattered all over the planet. This last year felt like I was constantly leaving home to go home no matter where I went. A lot of what home means is just the people we love. And as far as home as a place… I feel like every “place” that ever felt like home, at some point got jacked, and will never be the same.
3. What’s your favorite city or town other than Seattle?
Brooklyn/NYC, Addis Ababa, Toronto, the Bay Area, DC… These are the places I spent most of my time the last 12 months.
4. What was the last great book you read?
Octavia Butler’s Parable Of The Sower. and before that Nnedi Okorafor’s Who Fears Death. I HIGHLY recommend both.
5. Did you participate in any of the Occupy movements?
I didn’t. I did watch it in awe… And had loved ones on both coasts who were heavily involved.
6. Is there another Abyssinian Creole album on the horizon?
We’ve had an EP (produced by DJ Ian Head) recorded for a while now. How and when we’ll release it is a mystery to me! After Colored People’s Time Machine I have a group project with Meklit Hadero & Burntface entitled CopperWire Earthbound coming out on Porto Franco Records. I also have another solo project recorded with a producer from DC/Addis named AirME, and collaborative projects in the works with Suntonio Bandanaz & Thirdeyebling, and producer agentCB from Seattle. Khingz recently released a solo project called Liberation Of The Monster with producer Rel!g!on out of Vancouver, and the new Hi-Life Soundsystem album dropped earlier this month too! Khingz has a huge year coming up with two more solo projects, one produced by BeanOne and another by Vitamin D, as well as a group project called OTOW Gang. There’s so much to look for from both of us! And we do feature each other on our projects all the time.
NEW MUSIC: “Blossoms of Fire” – Gabriel Teodros
If the content of Gabriel Teodros‘ upcoming album (watch for it on 1.19.12) is as epic as its title and cover, Seattle rap is in for a resounding entry into the new year. Stream the opening track, “Blossoms of Fire” below.
DOWNLOAD: “Beit” – Gabriel Teodros (feat. Sabreena Da Witch) (prod. by Amos Miller)
Photo by Adam Way.
The scope of Gabriel Teodros’ music continues to widen with this drop from the forthcoming Colored People’s Time Machine (release date: 1.19.12). Featuring a vocal appearance by Palestinian-American artist Abeer Alzinaty (otherwise known as Sabreena Da Witch), GT’s kaleidoscopic and worldly point-of-view isn’t held by The Town’s concise geographic margins, and that’s something to be applauded.
VIDEO & NEWS: “Colored People’s Time Machine” Preview – Gabriel Teodros
Taking a cue from Town brethren like Macklemore and Blue Scholars, Gabriel Teodros is asking the fans to help fund the production of his new full-length album, Colored People’s Time Machine, via the IndieGoGo fundraising platform.
Here’s how his campaign tells it:
“Community activist and hip hop pathfinder Gabriel Teodros stands poised to turn the clock backwards to reach the future. His sophomore solo effort, ‘Colored People’s Time Machine’, is an examination of the history, dreams and future of native people everywhere. Not content to analyze the past, Teodros prepares listeners for a future free of the constraints of genre.” – Dume 41
“15 tracks, 9 different producers, 11 featured vocalists later… in many ways ‘Colored People’s Time Machine’ has been the biggest and most involved album I’ve done to date. It took a few years, some of the most personal songs I’ve ever written, and I want as many people to be able to hear it now as possible. Getting the funds to put this album out the way we want to hasn’t been easy, and it seems what makes the most sense now is to put the power in your hands. By ordering the album now, by getting any of the packages offered, or even just by spreading the word, you help this music live. Can’t wait to share the album with you.” – gabriel teodros
Where is the money going you ask? Publicity (print, web, radio), CD duplication, Printing, Shipping, Design Services, Mixing, Mastering…
And if we don’t make our goal? The album still comes out and packages still get filled… we just have to come up with the rest. Some people may not get paid, and the album might get slept on. All hell will break loose in Seattle’s streets. This can not be an option… pre-order the album today!
Below is a clip of GT performing some of the tracks off CPTM:
DOWNLOAD: “Sangre Nueva” – Bocafloja (feat. Gabriel Teodros)
Click image for D/L link.
World-wise and conscious MC Gabriel Teodros extends his boundaries even further with this collab, “Sangre Nueva” (“New Blood”), with like-minded Mexican MC, Bocafloja. #ItsBiggerThanHipHop.
VIDEO: “Computer Parlor” – Gabriel Teodros & DJ Ian Head
“I turn my laptop on/And then I zone out.” I know the feeling, GT.
Does anybody remember what people did with themselves in the line for the bathroom before iPhones and Blackberrys? It must’ve been sooooo awkward.
(Get Gabriel Teodros and DJ Ian Head’s FREE The Lentil Soup EP, here.)
VIDEO: “Coming Up” – Willie Joe feat. Dice
Caught this over at the homie Gabriel Teodros’ internet crib. Willie Joe is a native of Cali and lives in the ATL. Dice is also from The Killa but now lays her head in The Town. Like a slew of other lovely local double X chromosomes, Dice has been on the bubble for a minute but, for whatever reason (I blame motherf-ckin’ patriarchy), hasn’t blown up. Ladies first, I say.
SHOW: Gabriel Teodros’ “The Lentil Soup EP” Release Party @ New World Seafood Restaurant on 3.4.11
Mr. Lovework (aka. Gabriel Teodros) brings some of that new-new to the New World Seafood Restaurant this Friday. Celebrate the release of GT and DJ Ian Head’s The Lentil Soup EP. It’s more of that powerful positivity from the world-wise local cat. 206UP.COM will have more on Lentil when it drops.
VIDEO: “Let’s Ride” – Air 2 A Bird
The world is round and we’re not really driving it. So says Air 2 A Bird in their debut video for “Let’s Ride.” The brainchild of Gabriel Teodros and Amos Miller, Air 2 A Bird was the result of a serendipitous (if not totally unexpected) unification of the two artists in Brooklyn, when original plans would have had them circumnavigating that previously referenced world. SEA hip-hop is all the better for it. Peep their fly game:
DOWNLOAD/LISTEN: “Air 2 A Bird” (Crow Hill)
Inspiration is as fleeting as a rainstorm in a desert. Sometimes, however, when we’re found in unwanted situations, ingenuity inevitably finds us.
A few months ago, an unfortunate detention by the powers-that-be grounded Gabriel Teodros in New York, when he was originally scheduled to spread his uplifting brand of hip-hop around the globe. The album Air 2 A Bird is the result of that internment.
From an undesirable predicament, GT and frequent collaborator Amos Miller (together re-borne as Crow Hill) found inspiration where most would only find insipidness. Read the entire story here. Air 2 A Bird is simultaneously the child of political vagary and perhaps evidence that order exists in the universe even though disorder seems the rule of the day. The lesson? Always listen to the turbulence made by the wings around us.
Click image for D/L link
An Evening With Khingz and GT
For your viewing pleasure, make sure to check this out.
GT + Khingz = Khingz + GT = Abyssinian Creole (the collective, which this show is NOT). However you slice it, them dudes will get your head nodding and teach you a little sumthin’ in the process.
REVIEW: Hear Me Out (Yirim Seck)
Yirim Seck raps like most people drink water. Or breathe. You know those normal human activities we all do with such mandatory repetition that we forget we’re doing them? Some artists paint pictures, some authors write novels, and some athletes play sports in the same fashion. It just comes naturally. Those folks have muscles that most people don’t. Yirim Seck just happens to have the Emcee Muscle.
Which is why, considering how intensely hungry the 206 hip-hop scene is for music these days, it comes as a surprise (at least to this blogger) that it’s taken this long for Yirim Seck to release a full-length album. He’s mostly known around town as one-third of (now defunct?) Pyrate Radio, an act that, surprisingly for all its considerable talent, has also never released an album (at least to my knowledge). I’m sure the inner-workings of a hip-hop group are fraught with a myriad of reasons why they can’t get their collective act together (Pearl Dragon, after all, has got a pretty good thing going with Champagne Champagne), but the release of a Pyrate Radio record would be cause for celebration for many underground fans.
Instead, we get Hear Me Out from Yirim Seck. And, trust, it’s enough. Here Yirim separates himself, talent-wise, from his Pyrate Radio brethren. In fact, he separates himself from most local rappers completely. Dude is talented. The first time I heard him spit was on the Pyrate Radio track, “Hey You Say You” where I was struck by his effortless, nonchalant flow and clever wordplay. There’s even more of that on Hear Me Out. Yirim possesses that rare rapper’s ability to effectively express himself without sounding like he’s working very hard. It’s a style that draws you in naturally to the music, a voice that complements hip-hop’s indigenous breaks and boom-bap perfectly.
On the album, he puts his talent to good-use. Yirim wants listeners to know he’s a fully-arrived solo emcee who’s legit (“Check”). He also makes clear that his life is filled with very ordinary circumstances, from the unexpected birth of his first child (“Rebirth”), to the struggle of trying to make a living off his art (“Run It”), to the sexual temptations that f*ck-up relationships (“Trust”). Hear Me Out‘s main character is an everyman who says, “See, I have some of the same problems you do.” That this everyman can tell his stories and present his particular ethos more lyrically than others is to the benefit of hip-hop fans everywhere.
The production is generally straight-forward, traditional hip-hop. There are no grand histrionic sonic arrangements or overwrought musical experiments. What it lacks in relative spectacular-ness, it makes up for in well-executed convention, mostly a mixture of DJ Premier-cloned beats with straight-laced underground sensibilities. Yirim Seck doesn’t need fancy sh*t anyway, there’s enough raw personality and talent here to announce a welcome (re-)arrival of this emcee without superfluous musical flourish.
Just because the general public doesn’t know who Yirim Seck is, doesn’t mean he’s an unknown among the members of Seattle’s hip-hop community. He’s been down with The Physics and Gabriel Teodros for years. They all came up rapping together. To fans, however, he appears to be that dude on the low, waiting for an opportunity. Like the ballplayer who’s kicked around the minors for a few years developing his skills, and then all of a sudden he’s in the majors batting .350.
In actuality, Yirim Seck’s just been busy living real life. Very few local artists eat off rap, and those lucky enough to do so are probably both greatly thankful for the opportunity but tired from the constant and necessary grind. Yirim Seck is already worn-out from the hustle, and he hasn’t even “made it” in the music business yet. It’s cats like these, the hard-working underdogs whose talent often makes them more-deserving than those above them, that hip-hop roots for.
My Hip-Hop Ear Glut
Real quick: I was making a list tonight of 206 hip-hop albums that I haven’t had a chance to really spend quality time with. Here’s what it looks like so far…
THEESatisfaction – Snow Motion
Grieves – 88 Keys & Counting
Gabriel Teodros – Westlake Class of ’99
Shabazz Palaces – Shabazz Palaces and Of Light
Champagne Champagne – Champagne Champagne
Yirim Seck - Hear Me Out
And that’s not even including new D. Black, Macklemore, and The Physics. (Whenever that’s dropping, which I hope is soon — I consider that CD the last possible ray of sunlight in summer ’09, but I have a feeling it will be more like the first drop of winter slush in 2010. No matter, it will still be absolute fire, I can’t f*cking wait! Physics are about to own hip-hop in this town, and you can put that in your savings account and collect interest on it, fools!)
Now, I listen to a ton of hip-hop; so much hip-hop that I feel like my Elton John CDs are starting to feel neglected. And if you think I’m wack for liking Elton John, just listen to “Kiss The Ring” off OB4CL2 and go ahead and f*ck off.
My point is, there is a glut of hip-hop swirling around the belly of the 206 and it’s a full-time job just listening to all of it. And I don’t mean just putting it on as background music while you Dustbuster your apartment. I mean really spend quality time with the sh*t, which, if you’re even interested at all in appreciating these artists’ grinds and hustles, you will do out of sheer deference.
Anyway, this rant is basically meant as a shout-out to those artists putting in work for the love of the music. As fans, we appreciate it, and we are paying attention. Stay up and keep making music like your lives depend on it.
Peace!
Piece at Hidmo
From the first iteration of the brand new Live @ Hidmo series, which, as the name suggests, is a weekly live show at Hidmo Eritrean Cuisine (20th and Jackson) featuring local musical acts every Friday from 8 to 10 pm.
Laura “Piece” Kelley and DJ B-Girl kicked things off on 7.24. Here’s how it went down.
It’s free and all ages, so there’s no excuse not to come through!
REVIEW: From Slaveships to Spaceships (Khingz)
Concept albums are always a tricky business. Rarely do they succeed in achieving a true sense of coherence, a completeness in actualizing the very “concept” they’re attempting to convey. Either they fall short because of straight-up weirdness, or inconsistencies that exist somewhere in the actual music (be it in production, lyrics, style, or what-have-you).
Because concept albums so often fall on their ambitious faces, to simply call Khingz’s second solo entry, From Slaveships to Spaceships, a “concept album” would be doing the record a disservice. It’s actually much more than that. If a music artist’s work is always inspired by something they either find valuable or have experienced in perpetuity throughout their lives, then a coherent expression of that in a single album is much less a “concept” and more a concrete expression of the artist’s reality.
From Slaveships to Spaceships certainly qualifies as an expression of Khingz’s life and experiences as a self-admitted social outcast. It’s only because science-fiction themes are so pervasive throughout that a critic like myself is excused when using the term “concept album” to help describe the record.
The album’s title and sci-fi terminologies aside, FStoS exists more on the terra firma that is Seattle’s South End than it does in the outer-reaches of our galaxy. It’s an honest expression of life as a person of color in The Town’s suddenly en vogue southern neighborhoods. Bitterness, confusion, and self-realization are all explored in dramatic fashion. Khingz (much like his brother Gabriel Teodros) is a sensitive dude. And, also like GT, restraint in his lyrics is not a problem he suffers from. There’s a valuable and uncommon connection between art and self-awareness here that makes for some heavy-handed sh*t, like the emotional tour de force of the title track. By the end of the song Khingz sounds like he’s lived enough trying times for a thousand lives.
Sonically, this album runs the gamut. From hyper-active beats emulating space battles (“Hydroplanin’” made me feel like I was stuck in the middle of a shootout between Stormtroopers and the Rebel Alliance) to the smoothed-out hip-hop valentine “Blaq Han Solo.” There’s an undeniable energy running through these beats; it’s equal parts thoughtful production and Khingz’s own crazy-versatile flow that act as the electrical current bringing each track to life.
Throughout this record, Khingz makes clear that he’s seeking his liberation from something. Could be the past. Could be liberation from the typical musical stylings that so often contribute to the stagnation of his beloved art form. Whatever. As a listener I was just happy that, by album’s end, he seems to have found what he’s looking for. As fans of hip-hop, we should be thankful that Khingz expresses his liberation through his music. It makes for “important” hip-hop in the most well-defined sense of the word.
