Rapper Sol emerges today from a self-admitted creative drought with two new tracks produced by his squad Nima Skeemz and Elan Wright. On “People” and “Pages” Sol addresses the redemptive roles that his folks and his process contributed in pulling him out of his funk. The tracks are equal parts well-crafted hip-hop and heartfelt confessionals. It’s nice to hear from dude again.
Seattle has a Drake problem and his name is Ryan Caraveo. Hello, emo (or is that hella emo?) could be the subtitle to Ryan’s latest clip, “Paradise” (directed by Chris Volkmann). Like Drake’s best material, this music only lives in the present, serving to make us feel something, anything, like, right now. Everything’s well-lit, but then so is the produce section at Whole Foods. Ryan — and his new album, Swings — was built for mass consumption.
SassyBlack — also known as Catherine Harris-White — has her hand in a number of different pots, from the world traveling Sub Pop-underwritten adventures of THEESatisfaction, to the community-minded Black Weirdo parties hosted all across North America, to solo creative endeavors like Me And Mines (Cute Chicks), a brief, bouncy Garageband project that shows off Sassy’s wide range of musical influences.
Black Stax joined forces with South African singer Naomi Wamboe for a new single called “Star” which captures the easy fluidity between hip-hop and soul music. Produced by DJ Shingi.
Kublakai gets medieval in the country on your ass in his new video for “Moan,” a single off the rapper’s recent Wheels Up EP, which you can read more about here. Mike Folden behind the lens.
Moor Gang has a traitor in their midst. A conspirator. Informer. Turncoat. Snitch. Benedict Arnold. The moral of “Rank” is that you don’t wanna be that man or woman.
Raz Simone comes for the crown, naming names and invoking the spirit of hip-hop’s most revered ancestor. We’ve already said our piece. Let Solomon Samuel cook.
Seattle OG Draze timed the release of his new Vitamin D-produced single “Children Of The Light” to correspond with the EMP Museum’s Black History Month kick-off event which went down on Saturday, February 7 (and of which 206UP was a co-sponsor). The track embodies the “Black is beautiful” truism so elemental to hip-hop’s core.
The Loop is a trio consisting of K-Due, Truss One and Brotha Freeze. All three members have ties to K Records’ 1998 seminal Classic Elements compilation. In recent years they’ve devoted themselves to reinvigorating the, well, classic elements of hip-hop: samples, scratches and head nodding breaks. Not to mention thoroughly researched and expertly-constructed lyrical science*.
Their new Dead End Streets album hearkens to that simplicity — those “basics,” if you will. (Though “basic” as a descriptor in the parlance of our modern times certainly does not apply here.) It’s the delicate craft of distilling something complex out of something so simple — hip-hop’s “something from nothing” maxim — that Dead End Streets executes so well.
*Though the word “faggot” as a dismissive term for someone wack is a practice that should remain forever frozen in time. Curiously the boys felt the need to resurrect it here.
In the grand tradition of hip-hop instructional food videos from the Town, comes Jamil Suleman and Spekulation’s “Curry-NA-Hurry.” The quick, cheap and delicious solution to feeding your hungry family. #DontForgetTheRice, dummy.
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