Expect breezy, pristine beats and rhymes from School Daze, the upcoming project by rapper Dave B and The Physics’ in-house producer Justo. “He Got Game” is the first drop, a wistful look back at Dave’s high school basketball days. This sounds like a Seattle summer to us.
Choklate and Stas (of THEESatisfaction) emancipate the groove on this brief exhale of a track. Here we are, shuffling toward the weekend. Be well, readers.
Wizdom, the long standing nice guy of Seattle rap, recently dropped The Next Step, his self-proclaimed final album project. (Don’t go Wiz, we’ll miss you!) It’s an engaging eight-tracker that trends boom-bap with tasteful pop sensibilities. The best thing about Wiz has always been his straight-forward, old school flow, and amiable self-conscious swagger. Rappers generally have difficulty admitting their faults, but Wiz embraces his and wears them like a badge of honor.
D-Sea is a “hibernating Seattle hip-hop artist” according to the rapper’s Facebook page. You saw him though — if you were paying attention, that is — on the blog about a month ago when he dropped the video for “Hold Up”, the first song from his new EP Nightmares & Fantasies. D pals around with L.A.C.O.S.A. clique members Mack E and Produktive — good company if your focus is lyric-based hip hop fundamentalism (one of the few times that that word is associated with something good). In any case, check out D-Sea’s latest single, “Stayin’ Up”, below.
Play Nacho Picasso’s For The Glory at three-quarter speed while watching Labyrinth backwards, standing on your head. Shit’s trippy, dun.
The rapper Wizdom has a new album dropping next week called The Next Step. First up to bat from that project is his opus to the Town, “My City’s Filthy”, featuring vocal assists from Grynch and Fearce Vill (of Dyme Def), and a cinematic instrumental backdrop by D-Sane. A nice re-entry point by Wiz who we haven’t heard from in a minute.
Nope, Key Nyata isn’t talking about Scientology on this latest drop. Somewhere under the beat produced by Baltimore’s Dsavage is a hard lesson about celebrity. Mackned also joins the hazy fray.
Operation Take Over the World (OTOW) is: Massiah, Ka.lil, Uce Wayne, and Mic Flont. The first member of this 206 hip hop crew wrote this impassioned ballad to the late Kurt Cobain. Click here to read more about the particular inspiration that Massiah gleaned from the Seattle rock legend.
Ka.lil and Vancouver’s RLGN team-up again for “Heavenly”, a breezy spin around the block for exercise and higher learning.
Tacoma’s Rockwell Powers and DJ Phinisey released a brief new track called “101”, an outtake from their most recent collaborative effort, Build. It’s a perfect companion piece to that record, Rockwell and Phin speaking truth to power in a hardcore fashion. Check out the duo’s live, in-studio performance of “Denial” and “101” on KEXP below.
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