The New Year will find the release of Dave B’s The Doughnuts EP, the follow-up to one of 206UP’s favorite rookie albums from last year, The Coffee EP. We like coffee and doughnuts. Dave is playing his cards right.
“Cigarettes” was produced by Kuddie Fresh of Tha Bizness and draws parallels between beautiful vices.
On Laws of Attraction Thaddeus David verges away from his heavy, trap-influenced sound to something a little gentler. Rapid high hats still abound, but behind a more supple backdrop. SAT Beats pushed all the buttons on this one.
The striking new visuals for Raz Simone’s “Don’t Shine”. Is there a rapper in the Town who leaves more of it on the field than this dude? I doubt it.
I’m surprised there weren’t more “Oh, shit!” faces from the hapless commuters. Then again, New Yorkers are surprised by very little. The reaction from the girl waiting at the bus stop when Mack and RL get off is priceless, though.
Catch the duo performing at the Grammy’s on January 26 and scan this here list for a grip of nominations. Good lookin’ out, fellas.
Astro King Phoenix is a striving young rapper from the Town whose Prequel To The Glory can be a fairly engaging listen. Sci-fi philosophy and indirect pillow talk filter through producer Ike Watson’s polished, modern sounds. In fact, often it’s Watson who leaves the biggest impression: “Lost” and “Poison Ivy” have nicely-executed sample flips and Astro’s flow becomes secondary to the hazy, R&B-tinged beats.
Bryce Bowden (no relation to Bruce Bowen) is part of the Eastside’s Honor Roll collective — Kung Foo Grip, Matic, et al — and BZA The Damaga is his third album. Bryce stands out for his refined, comfortable flow. He’s the type of rapper with an infectious, natural ease on the mic but he can also hit the gas when the beat calls for it.
BZA features a nice array of boom-bap, from the revivalist knock of “Thursday” to the R&B-tinged “Summertime” (featuring guest shots from Sol and Dice). Catch Bowden “high at the farmer’s market” or reluctantly taking a ride in a stolen set of wheels (“No Other Options”). Wherever you find him, 206UP is happy to report BZA The Damaga is the first top-notch entry in Seattle rap in 2014.
Listening to Bolo Nef’s new Sol Invictus reminded me of taking one of those long, solo road trips. When the fatigue of navigating an endless stretch of highway in the dark gives way to your brain wandering off to those shadowy, Cimmerian mind states. When you find yourself contemplating the implications of, say, absolute nothingness, and all that stares back at you from the road is the yawning, silent void.
Bolo’s team of creative minions, Underworld Dust Funk (or UDF), specializes in this type of isolationist theory. Theirs is the chant of the alienated and nihilistic; the ethos of the creatures that live and move in the shadows — literally and figuratively — of Seattle’s sunnier hip hop side.
Bolo took me to task on Twitter the other day for reaching snap judgements of his UDF counterpart Caz Greez’s album Misfit. I called that record “cloud trap, promethazine slumber rap”. Fair enough, Bolo. Misfit is definitely more than that. I would contend, however, that Sol Invictus does a superior job of conveying UDF’s prime philosophies. Maybe that’s due to Bolo’s turnt down lyrical style — Caz’s three appearances lend a welcome dose of animation to SI.
Yes, Bolo documents Percocet and pill popping here also, but it scans heavily as self-medication rather than recreational use. Sol Invictus slumbers, half-sober, amid the sounds of a mother’s cries, muted sirens and the waning ping of a heart monitor. While some other ma’fuckas do it to death on world tours, UDF has enough issues just avoiding death around the next corner. It’s probably time to wake up to Bolo’s un-merry crew of illicit prescription revelers. The problem is, sometimes waking up is the scariest part.
And yet another list.
The ten resolutions below came to me in a vision in New York City during my walk from the A train Fulton Street stop to the corner of Wall Street, where I make my “professional” home and persist to steal time from a well-intentioned not-for-profit. (I hope my boss isn’t reading, but if so… HI!)
Failure to make good on a minimum of five of these resolutions will result in the immediate deletion of this post. You will never see it again nor will I make mention of it. (In other words: if you have any intention of using this against me, copy and paste now.)
With that, here are the Top 10 things 206UP.COM professes to accomplish in the New Year:
Tacoma’s The Breaklites with a new album, I ♥ America. There’s been a growing buzz around this crew of party-focused South Sound rappers and it’s all deserved.
The Good Sin and guest Sean Carson party by the pool with a host of inanimate objects. And no I’m not talking about rap video models. These are actual inanimate objects. Been a minute since we’ve heard from Sinseer; nice to have him back in the mix. Download “Living Dreams”, here.
A SEATTLE HIP-HOP BLOG 