Rockwell Powers and Mat Wisner (moonlighting hip-hop producer extraordinaire) combine forces for “Riot,” a glistening head-nodder. Rockwell’s blue-collar flow and Wisner’s hard-but-lush board-work are the perfect way to close out another big year in Northwest hip-hop.
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Cabin fever strikes Blue Scholars again. The recent inclement weather in The Deuce Dot had Geo and Zia feeling restless and creative. The recent unseasonably warm weather in The Empire City had Sabzi dancing on rooftops and playing with a pineapple (?). The result: a Pro Brown freeverse over a loping Sabzi track that sounds like a OOF! throwaway. (Also, the DJ raps — well, sorta — for the first time.)
Peep the clip below and download the track, here.
Khingz dropped this free nine track EP yesterday. Happy Black Friday to everyone who doesn’t think lining up outside Best Buy at four in the morning is the way to holiday happiness. Freedom through free music!
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Question: how easy is it for you rappers to feel like a big fish in a small pond in the SEA? Answer: Fairly easy, according to the homie Solzilla. “Feed My Ego” is a little like therapy on wax for Sol, one of The Six’s current favorites. Balancing on the precipice of Mount Humble can be a fairly precarious act when folks are so quick to praise your sh-t, he says. Sol even calls out blogs like this one for inflating his dome with every little bit of exaltation proffered forth.
Rest assured, my dude, 206UP.COM doesn’t say it unless we really mean it. Do with the praise what you will, we can’t control that. But this blog (generally) thinks you’re pretty dope.
The original version of “The Youth Die Young” (the title track from Mad Rad’s forthcoming album of the same name, streaming, here) is a whimsical but not totally innocent paean to the joys of youth. It’s a celebratory but dubious anthem for the internet generation. There’s a cautionary tale lurking somewhere in the track that belies its upbeat vibe, as if describing a slightly aged Ferris Bueller who’s come to the sudden and harsh realization that the world doesn’t revolve around him. “The Youth Die Young” is actually quite a mature song for Mad Rad, perhaps a sign that the crew is evolving beyond its sophomoric antics of past days. Whatever. The most important aspect of the song is that it gets your ass to moving.
DJ Nphared quietly produced the best SEA hip-hop song of 2010. The Physics’ “Coronas On Madrona” was a breezy soulful anthem that expertly captured the laid-back vibe of a typical Seattle summer.
The Red October EP is a four-track freebie from Grynch’s favorite DJ and features a few Town heavyweights like Sol, Thig Nat, Fatal Lucciauno, and The King of Ballard himself. Click below for the download link.
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Somehow, 206UP.COM managed to miss this: Kung Foo Grip’s Make Moves EP from early Summer 2010. What a vital mistake I’ve made. The forthcoming Top 10 of ’10 SEA Hip-Hop Albums would be incomplete without KFG’s contribution under consideration. The EP consists of seven doses of blunted Golden Era nostalgia. Quite necessary, if you ask me.
(Heretofore, 206UP.COM will now be referred to as, The Lateness.)
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Let it be known, the SEA rapper known as Eighty4Fly is not a man wishing to have his voice be heard from the underground. The subterranean recesses where the majority of Eighty’s fellow small-market emcees are cutting their teeth is a place where rappers on the come-up are paid in favors, free press and maybe a co-sign by rap tastemakers like 2DopeBoyz. If they’re lucky. Ain’t no rapper makin’ Young Money money when the only venue he/she is playing is in Seattle on Thursday nights.
And really, can anyone blame rappers like Eighty for aiming at that higher tax bracket? When similarly talented “emcees” like Drake are “telling punchlines for money,” a hungry cat like Eighty is surely dreaming of the day he can turn his black leather sofa into one money green like Biggie’s. Judging by his most recent free mixtape, 1st Class In Fly World, I’d say his chances are about fifty/fifty that those dreams come to fruition.
Not saying that Eighty isn’t putting his best foot forward, but 1st Class, though longer and slightly more expansive musically than his previous ‘tape, The Eighty4Fly Project, is still a lot of style over substance. The Clear Channel appeal of tracks like “Power” and “Good Life” is apparent, and the wet dream money fantasy, “Such A Millionaire,” sounds like diamonds dripping onto the hood of a pearl white Maybach. While these full-pocket reveries are clearly not my sh-t, I still appreciate them for what they are. The problem here is that I am listening intently for more. Hoping, wishing — praying, even — that Eighty is able to step up his game, lyrically. Yet he consistently lets me down.
Eighty4Fly, like most rappers who can still recall what it is to be an artist whose medium is words, is at his best when being one of two things: 1) grimier, like on the refreshingly pure “Hip Hop Shit;” and 2) introspective, as he is on the moment-of-truth ballad “Optimistic.” Maybe some would qualify me as a hater and maybe I’ve outlived my usefulness when it comes to considering the range of quality across the breadth of hip-hop’s now vast landscape. But I’m sure even the most expert of culinary experts would grow tired of eating the same dish fifteen times out of seventeen meals, even if that dish was prepared by a chef with the greatest authority in his particular comestible genre. And therein lies the main gripe I have with Eighty4Fly: he’s not even an expert in his own field. By all accounts he’s a coach-class rapper who manages to bump his way into first-class from time to time. Until he proves otherwise, label me a skeptic.
(Click the album covers below for the FREE download link for 1st Class In Fly World.)
“Big Bank Hank” is the latest free drop from Blue Scholars. It’s catchy. It’s freewheeling. And, unlike ninety-nine percent of all other Blue Scholars tracks, it’s mostly underwhelming. For such an uber-intelligent rap crew like the aforementioned duo, the purpose of a track like “Big Bank Hank” falls somewhere between, “Let’s keep momentum going until our next full-length drops (Cinematropolis, coming in 2011)” and, “This is the rap equivalent of a tune-up at Jiffy Lube.” As an appetizer to a forthcoming main course, the Scholars faithful could do much worse than “Big Bank Hank.”
At the very least, the write-up on the group’s website offers amusing insight into their creative process. Read about it and download the fruits of their brainstorm session, here.
More goodness from Mr. Sinseer. Check how he flips Yeezy’s “Lord, Lord, Lord” into “Birds On My Roof,” a warning shot to all those coattail riders wantin’ a piece of someone else’s stardom, however big or small. Ah, rappers and bloggers both have the same problems, don’t they?
Click here for the D/L link for “Birds On My Roof (Lord, Lord, Lord)” – The Good Sin
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