Click album cover for D/L link.
Tacoma’s blue collar rhymer John Crown presents Coffee and Beats, the MC’s first full-length album. Bits and pieces of the record in the form of impressive one-offs have been released scattershot for the last few months. The most impressive was “Like This,” a collab with the Bronx’s favorite underground son, Action Bronson. The track appears again here along with 11 other joints of rugged Red Wing boot goodness. More thoughts later.
Click image to D/L.
Tacoma MC Fice offers up one more Pac NW Summer anthem before the sun says, “Buh-bye.” Hard to imagine the grey settling in with this track bumping in the ride.
Click album cover to purchase at Bandcamp.
Hip-hop and disco have had a long-lasting and fruitful marriage. From the essential breakbeat in “Rapper’s Delight” to Puff Daddy co-opting Diana Ross’ “I’m Coming Out” for Biggie’s “Mo Money Mo Problems,” both genres are fundamentally rooted in soul music, so the fusion of the two has always felt natural.
The BreakLites get it. On Robots and Daytons, the Tacoma trio of John McRae (producer and instrumentalist), Cruel (MC) and The Mayor (DJ) have created a nine-track blast of uptempo, highly danceable, disco/funk rap. It’s enjoyable because of the crew’s unapologetic mission of making pure party music, ensuring their Friday and Saturday nights have a soundtrack strictly designed for popping off. It’s legitimate hip-hop because Cruel’s mic skills are for real (at least on wax) and his freewheeling rhymes about beat writers, being broke and his affinity for gangsta rap, are charming and devoid of self-conscious pretension. Robots and Daytons was a late discovery for 206UP.COM this summer, which is a shame because that’s exactly the season it was made for.
Click album cover to D/L.
#LatePass. This dropped on July 6, but your dude is on vacation right now so I’m automating this post for July 19. Gotta spread the material thin to keep you fools interested. You ADD-havin’, attention span-lackin’, download freak flag flyin’ ma’f-ckas! (Just kidding, I love my readers!)
Gateway Drug is the latest drop from the South Sound crew Second Family. MC’s Element and NoQuezt keep it gully, grimy, gritty, and all other g-based euphemisms for “gangsta.”
Click here to download the track.
More hustle work for Rockwell Powers and Ill Pill’s Kids In The Back 2, dropping April 16. Tacoma is the jump-off for the release. All you SEA cats who think you’re too good for the South Sound, swallow that pride pill and get thee to the 253.
There is a street called “Broadway” in Tacoma. To my knowledge it’s not as major as the one running through Capitol Hill. EvergreenOne, John Crown, Gazmo, and Fice make it sound that way, however, on this remix to the legendary Seattle track of the same name.
(My favorite part is when John Crown brags about his Red Wings costing more than Jordans. #RealTacomaTalk.)
Click image for D/L link
Click Play to listen to “Posse On Broadway (Remix)” by EvergreenOne, John Crown, Gazmo, and Fice. Click here for the D/L link.
Shout-out to director Jonathan Augustavo for droppin’ this bit of 253-filthiness in my inbox. Hilltop goes hard, son:
Earlier in the year, Rockwell Powers and producer Ill Pill dropped, Kids in The Back, an album that will probably end up being the best release out of Tacoma in 2009. It’s a surprisingly polished and confident piece of underground hip-hop that deserves more burn than it’s gotten.
Now, Rockwell has released another collaborative effort, the Pocket Full of Stones EP, produced by Mat Wisner of the Viper Creek Club collective. Pocket is an eclectic exploration of hip-hop’s recent trend toward electronic and dance music; an updated version of disco for the 21st century. P Smoov is doing it locally. Kanye is doing it nationally. Some of it hits, some of it misses. Count Pocket Full of Stones as one that hits the mark, most of the time.
It’s available for free download. Click the album cover below for the link.
Nope, THIS is the last one (courtesy Viper Lust):
253-UP! Learn more about Tacoma’s Rockwell Powers and Ill Pill here — just do it, there’s a FREE download link! I haven’t had a chance to listen to their Kids in the Back yet (been too busy with The Book of Basketball), but as soon as it’s digested this loyal blogger will post.
A SEATTLE HIP-HOP BLOG 