NEW MUSIC: Seacal Drive – Scribes

Scribes - SEACAL Drive EP

Seattle ex-pat and now Los Angeles resident Scribes released his new EP yesterday, SeaCal Drive. Dude has teased the record with a grip of lead-up material which you can find covered elsewhere on this blog. Best to just grab the download for free, though, and check the behind-the-scenes video below.

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VIDEO: “Ned’s World” – Mackned (feat. Thaddeus David & Steezie Nasa)

You may not have heard Mackned rap, but you’ve probably heard his beats. He’s all over Thaddeus David’s latest, None The Less (scroll down for that), and he’s one of Moor Gang’s in-house producers. Fellow MG troublemakers TH and Steezie Nasa show up on the title track to Mack’s solo album which you can download below. If trap ruled the world…

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VIDEO & COMMENTARY: “Greetings (Intro)” – Spac3man (dir. by Travels Through Images)

So this is Spac3man’s latest video for “Greetings (Intro)” off his upcoming Beyond The Stars EP. The track was produced by Sportn’ Life labelmate Nissm and the video was directed by Travels Through Images. There’s a rapper, with a half-naked Asian girl, in a hotel room, blah blah blah.

The casual depiction of women as sex objects in music videos is a rampant practice in the music industry. Hopefully you already know this and agree. The convention doesn’t really discriminate along racial lines, but for the purposes of the statement I’m about to make — and because I’m the lone editor and sole voice of this blog, who also happens to be an Asian man — I’m comfortable in doing so, at least in this particular moment.

To all the casting agents, directors, screenwriters, novelists, television show runners, and rappers (like Spac3man) who persist in exhibiting Asian women as casual accessories to male sexual fantasy: FUCK YOU.

The practice is cheap, lowest-common-denominator, racist bullshit. These folks must not fully understand the damaging history of Asian fetishism. It becomes especially curious when the perpetrators of this device are fellow men of color who seem to lack even a passing understanding of how women of their own shared skin color are marginalized. Aren’t you offended when women of your ethnicity — women who resemble your sisters, your mothers, your cousins, your friends — are reduced to sexual decor? Apparently you are not.

White America tends to portray its brown, male citizens as emblems of criminality. That’s a straight-up injustice. Men (of all colors) have a tendency to portray women as objects of sexual desire and conquest. Rappers: Are you so dense as to not see the disconnect?

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NEW MUSIC: None The Less – Thaddeus David

Thaddeus David - NoneTheLess

Thaddeus David has stayed crazy active in the lead-up to his latest album, None The Less. Check past mp3 and video drops here. The new 12-track LP features a gonzo-style cover (above) and is apparently heavily influenced by pizza (see the latest video, directed by Harry Clean of Detooz Films, below). Thaddeus describes NTL as an extension of Trapital Trill “with an elevated twist.”

(Also, who remembers the ubiquitous chain of cheap-o pizza joints in Bellingham called Pizza Time? It’s likely 70% of all dinners I consumed between September of 1995 and June of 2000 [aka my college undergrad years] were prepared by the good folks at “Pizza Slime,” as my college roommates and I lovingly bequeathed them. Here’s to mystery meat and “cheese” you can blow bubbles with.)


Audio Downloads Video

VIDEO: “Sad Face” – Young Diffy & Ju-Ju Twist (prod. by Rob Skeetz)

Young Diffy and Ju-Ju Twist are two new voices in Seattle rap. Their We Strizzy Boi (which is produced by Moor Gang’s Rob Skeetz) has a September 13 release date. That purple and green haze you see lingering just above the treeline is the trap-inspired nebula come for your soul.

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