On the heels of the Jake One/Freeway Rhymesayers collabo (Stimulus Package), comes hungry-as-a-bear rhyme animal, Logics. The man also known as Young Ghangas goes in with Free and Element on “The Calling”. Click below to download.
Tag: 206up
“The Whole is Greater Than…”
“…the sum of its parts” is certainly an adage applicable to the best hip-hop groups. Still, Sabzi and Geo (aka. Prometheus Brown) are pretty f*cking great when they’re doing their own thing, too.
Pro Brown drops some of his solo guest shots on this post from his personal blog, Prometheus Brown — with commentary (love that!).
Photo jacked from the blog, "Prometheus Brown".
DOWNLOAD: “Special” (D. Black & Fatal Lucciauno)
From D. Black and B. Brown’s forthcoming collabo, Black and Brown EP, comes this conscious slow-burner, “Special” (featuring fellow Sportn’ Lifer Fatal Lucciauno). Black is always at his best on these mid-tempo tracks. Sounds like he’s marching toward the light again…
Seatown Freezer
On 2.16.10 at the Highline Ballroom in Manhattan, Freeway and Jake One are having their (New York) Stimulus Package album release party. Sometimes living in NY has its benefits — okay, living in NY always has its benefits, but it’s especially great when a collabo like this goes down.
Free, for all his talent and quality discography, always seems just this shy of blowing. I think he’s been underrated his entire career. He’s the quintessential mainstream backpack rapper. I dig his sh*t, and always have.
And what can you say about local boy Jake One other than he’s the most well-known unknown producer in the game, and (I contend) one of the most versatile producers working today.
If you’re in NY on Feb. 16 hit up the Highline. I’ll definitely be there.
(The album packaging is f*ckin’ filthy, don’t you think?)
On Haiti
For those of us far-removed from Haiti, be it because of simply geographic location or because we have no personal relationships with Haitian folks or others who were in the country when the earthquake struck, we face a very different challenge at this time: the temptation to turn our backs on the crisis.
As the immediateness of the tragedy fades, and we turn on our computers and televisions every day, there is the temptation to pull away from the images. Through the dulling filter of news media and Twitter feeds we can allow the pain and suffering to become as real, or as make-believe, as we want. From the comfort of our living rooms we can choose to not pay attention. It’s uncomfortable to watch, and so easy to turn away.
It’s unnerving when disasters like this happen and those of us in a position of being unaffected are allowed that luxury. Everyone is guilty of simply ignoring humanitarian crises in communities far-removed from our own. We all do it every day — and not just with Haiti.
This is especially not the time to succumb to the temptation of turning away. Those of us fortunate enough to have not been personally affected by the earthquake (which probably constitutes the majority of this country’s citizens) have a different kind of personal responsibility during this crisis. The responsibilities of paying attention, supporting those who are affected, and then helping in some way, any way, possible. To do otherwise would be to fail ourselves and our fellow man.
Read the stories in the paper, look at the pictures, watch the videos online. Spend time recognizing how delicate and precious life is by acknowledging the recent event on a daily basis, and then pray for the strength and resiliency of those who experienced the earthquake, survived it, and are left to pick up the pieces.
Comfort our brothers, Sol and Khingz, and all of the other Haitian folks in the Seattle hip-hip community by supporting them and their families and then making a tangible difference through responsible contributions to the relief effort. Hopefully you’ve already done that. If not, start by attending this benefit show on February 4th at Neumos.
(For more about Sol’s involvement, read this article from The Daily UW.)
UPDATE (1.28.10, 9:45 pm): A clip of Sol and Khingz in the studio recording a song dedicated to the recent events in their home country.
DOWNLOAD: “Stay at Home Dad” (Macklemore)
Best ode to stay at home dads since Michael Keaton’s Mr. Mom.
VIDEO: “Salud” (Wizdom)
Or, “On Leaving Fake Rappers Behind.”
VIDEO: “Freakshow” (Canary Sing)
And the moral of the story is: When in music video doubt, just run that sh*t backwards.
(And now, on the count of three, every dude in Seattle fall in love with the ladies of Canary Sing…one…two…THREE!!)
(One more thing: How nice is it to see two more ladies doing their thing in The Six? Put these women on!)
REVIEW: They LA Soul (Mash Hall)
The truth is, I’m an eighties baby who is a sucker for any nostalgia-inducing music that reminds me of my formative adolescent years. So when a group like They Live! Mash Hall enters the scene, late eighties to mid-nineties pop culture references flying, I’m immediately taken. Show me a group that can borrow snippets from Jodeci’s Diary of a Mad Band (mind you, not even that r&b group’s career-defining record), cultivate the awesomeness and unintentional comedy of the foursome’s bad-boy loverman antics into hip-hop party music gold, and then sign me up.
They Live!’s Mash Hall’s full-length debut, They LA Soul (released for free download on 12.24.09 via the band’s blog) works that party magic. It’s a collage of many things eighties-nineties: Die Hard, Stevie Wonder, Total Recall, Shai, and New Edition are all given stage time via brief audio samples, the visual equivalent of which would be rapid flashes of ADHD-inducing klieg lights. The whole organized mess is then spray-painted with basic hip-hop treatment in the form of 808 kick drums, high hats and hand claps. And it’s all narrated with an intelligent stoner’s hazy wit by emcees Bruce Illest (who sometimes sounds a little like 50 Cent — if 50 were white, way more stoned, and significantly less menacing) and Gatsby, whose assertive West Coast style exists somewhere between the unapologetic party-rocking antics of Sir-Mix-A-Lot and the confident street sensibilities of Ice Cube. They’re a bit of an odd couple, but that’s why it works.
The production here isn’t completely based on sample mash-ups, but it comes close. Most tracks are built around familiar blasts of audio that are immediately recognizable to anyone who remembers awkwardly dancing in middle school to songs like Shai’s “If I Ever Fall in Love” (heavily featured on “Serve You”), The Brotherhood Creed’s “Helluva” (here reimagined as an ode to West Coast diction, “Hella Hella”), and New Edition’s “If it Isn’t Love” (on “Can You Stand the Reign”, where They Live! Mash Hall uses a familiar section of the source material’s synthesized drum pattern to similar, and thus ironic, rhythmic effect). The best track is “Up Early In Em”, a bare-bones drum and bass posse cut (featuring Tay Sean, Spaceman and Ronnie Voice) about being on your daily grind.
They LA Soul is a charming, catchy proposition because it reminds us that the very first hip-hop dance parties originated as massive collaborative endeavors, the music invented basically on the fly by turntablists who practiced a pure and free-wheeling extraneous form of musicianship. Or, maybe that’s digging a little deeper than the members of They Live! Mash Hall intended. Could be, Bruce Illest and Gatsby just want us to drink a little, smoke a little, find some shorties who remind us of the Fly Girls, and wild the f*ck out. Yeah, pretty sure that’s what this record is all about.
VIDEO: MTV’s $5 Cover Seattle Trailer
MTV’s $5 Cover series hits The Six. THEESatisfaction and Champagne Champagne are hella photogenic, don’t you think?
(NOTE: Vimeo won’t let me embed. Peep the video HERE.)
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