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DOWNLOAD: NO HOAX – Onry Ozzborn

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Hip-hop industry rule #5,080: freely downloadable albums, mixtapes and singles are to be of equal (or greater) quality as the music consumers pay for.

This has been a rap maxim since the mid-aughts, when artist-friendly grassroots websites like 2DopeBoyz and DatPiff took the place of record label distribution deals. It’s an adage that has allowed for the rapid burgeoning of underground hip-hop scenes just like the one in our fair city. Making beats and rhymes and then distributing them freely to millions on the internet is the modern-day equivalent of singing into your hairbrush and dancing around in front of a mirror. (Okay, bad example for hip-hop, but you get the idea.)

Click here to continue reading at SSG Music.

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206UP.COM’s Top 10 SEA Hip-Hop Albums of 2010

As a hip-hop and baseball obsessed youth, I constantly formulated Top 10 Lists. Athletes, shoes, songs, movies — if it was rate-able, I was Top 10’in it, practically weekly. This is probably why 206UP.COM’s year-end list is my favorite post to write. Last year I waxed not-so-poetically on how, in 2005, Seattle’s underground rap scene single-handedly renewed my faith in the music. This year my affinity for Town rap became even tighter knit.

The albums, songs, free downloads, and videos that originated strictly in Seattle were enough to keep my hip-hop appetite satisfied through the whole year. Not to say excellent new albums by nationally known artists (Big Boi, The Roots, Kanye West, etc.) weren’t heavy on my playlist, or that the underground movements in other cities weren’t relevant. It’s just that hip-hop in the 2-0-6 is so grown now, more than it’s ever been, and the voices, perspectives and spectrum of sounds in our Town are talented and diverse enough to keep my ears fully attuned.

While there were some glaring omissions in 2010 (the new Physics LP being the most significant, for me), there were some other big advancements and unexpected surprises:

The emergence of La (formerly known as Language Arts) as a force to be reckoned with (at least on wax). This cat blew through like a Northeaster on his two LP’s, Gravity and Roll With The Winners, spitting outlandish braggadocio unlike any other rapper in town.

Two career-defining performances by Blue Scholars. The first was at the Bowery Ballroom in New York City, which I wrote about, here. At this show, the Scholars proved to the hip-hop world that they could hang in the Mecca, legitimizing their voice on a whole new level. (Macklemore’s opening performance was definitely notable, too.) The other show folks were buzzing about was the City Arts music festival performance at The Paramount, the first time a local hip-hop group rocked the venerable theater’s stage. Blue Scholars made history, nationally and locally, with these two shows.

This year also saw artists better known for their previously established collaborative endeavors break out with successful new excursions. JFK and Onry Ozzborn both dropped excellent LP’s independent of their legendary Grayskul partnership — JFK on the straight-up solo tip and Onry Ozzborn in collaboration with Chi-town producer Zavala. RA Scion reinvented himself with his Victor Shade project with producer MTK. And Gabriel Teodros and Amos Miller connected in Brooklyn, forming the impromptu collab Air 2 A Bird after being rebuffed in London on the eve of their world tour.

But enough with the recap. The following list represents what 206UP.COM sees as the best Seattle hip-hop albums of the year. There was no real science to compiling the list and, when it comes down to it, these things are matters of pure conjecture, subject to debate and relentless criticism of the people who made them (which this blog always welcomes, by the way). Enjoy the list and Happy New Year!

Honorable mentions:

JFK – Building Wings on the Way Down
LaRue – Saturn Returns
Avatar Young Blaze – Russian Revolution Mixtape

10. State of the Artist – SeattleCaliFragilisticExtraHellaDopeness

The album equivalent of a 2-0-6 hip-hop houseparty, by design SeattleCal wasn’t exactly an official debut LP for State of the Artist, but a showcase for much of the talent in the city. The three SOTA emcees were consistently outshone by their guests and a lot of times the lyrics didn’t seem to make any sense. As strictly a party album, however, there wasn’t one better.

9. Victor Shade – Victor Shade

The re-birth of RA Scion as the rap superhero Victor Shade saw a major shift in musical tone, but not a dramatic change in delivery or aesthetic. RA’s lyrics are still dense as hell and require close examination on paper in order to understand their meaning. It all sounded great, however, over MTK’s knocking production. RA Scion (aka. Victor Shade) remains the most professorial battle rapper in Seattle.

8. Air 2 A Bird – Crow Hill

A soaring achievement considering the bare-bones tools Air 2 A Bird (Gabriel Teodros and Amos Miller) had to work with when making this album in Brooklyn. In its creation, Crow Hill captured the very essence of hip-hop: eloquent poetics, masterful improvisation and a revolutionary spirit  (albeit on a quieter and more reserved scale). This album proves that hip-hop executed with class and panache can be just as effective as the bombastic variety.

7. La – Roll With The Winners

This “debut” album from the emcee formerly known as “Language Arts” featured expert throwback production by an unknown producer named Blu-Ray, whose heavy soul sampling sounds like The Alchemist on his most nostalgic day. The highlight, though, was La’s take-no-prisoners lyrical work. Hearing raw talent like this is akin to watching Allen Iverson play basketball for the first time. At this stage in his career La is still all fearless potential, but on paper he might already be the most technically sound rapper in the city.

6. Helladope – Helladope (aka Return to Planet Rock)

Helladope’s Tay Sean is far too young a cat to be making music with this much soul and expert tribute to the R&B and funk of yesteryear. Still, he accomplished the feat with ease. Along with emcee/vocalist Jerm, Helladope’s debut album offers a fresh take on the P-funk/G-funk rap amalgamation that originated in Southern California in the early 90’s. The sound is updated here with extraterrestrial gimmickry that amuses but isn’t essential to the album’s vibe.

5. J. Pinder – Code Red EP

This star-studded EP by Seattle ex-pat J. Pinder had a professional sheen equal to most major label releases. And it was free, to boot. Unsurprisingly, the folks who built the foundation of Code Red are either consummate hip-hop professionals or quickly on their way: Vitamin D, Jake One and Kuddie Fresh, among others. Pinder’s easy flow and accessible subject matter made this album easy to ride for.

4. Dark Time Sunshine – Vessel

Vessel exists in the same category as the number two album on this list, The Stimulus Package. The lyrical work is quintessential Onry Ozzborn (here reborn as Cape Cowen) but the production is a masterful concoction of headphone-oriented beats that only a cold soul from Chicago could assemble. Producer Zavala cultivates a terrain of rich electronica that feels organic, as if grown and harvested with the precision of robot farmers. The most sonically progressive SEA hip-hop album this side of Shabazz Palaces’ 2009 masterpiece.

3. Jake One & Freeway – The Stimulus Package

At first consideration it seemed strange to include this release featuring an emcee so deeply associated with the city of Philadelphia. Fifty percent of the album artist credit is from Seattle though so how could it be excluded? The obvious truth is Jake One had as much (if not more) to do with the quality of The Stimulus Package as Freeway. Jake has a knack for creating fresh ideas while staying inside the bounds of traditional boom-bap. Stimulus is his best and most cohesive collection of beats, ever.

2. Candidt – Sweatsuit & Churchshoes

Candidt’s long-delayed Sweatsuit & Churchshoes is a refreshing and dynamic package of West Coast B-boy rap. Every local young buck in the game should take this album as the new hip-hop gospel for the way it connects Old School and New. Candidt doesn’t sound like anyone else in the city and his willingness to experiment with new sounds while keeping strict West Coast principles earns SS&CS major props.

1. Def Dee & La (fka. Language Arts) – Gravity

Producer Def Dee caught lightning in a bottle with his masterful production work on this album. Gravity pays direct tribute to NYC Golden Era boom-bap and is unapologetic in its revivalist ideology. It also manages to sound fresh and timeless, however, and is the most musically cohesive album of these ten. Emcee La officially established himself as one of the best rappers in the city. He plays it cooler than on his proper solo debut, Roll With The Winners, but that’s because the music requires him to. Gravity stands firmly to the side of Seattle’s so-called “Third Wave hip-hop,” a position that’s especially important to the purist set. All the current innovation in local rap is a great thing, but so is the creation of more traditional forms like Gravity. It reminds everyone that hip-hop made in our isolated corner of the map is inextricably linked to the region of its genesis.

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VIDEO: “Doom/Go Team/The Wrong Kids” (Dark Time Sunshine)

Northwest (Cape Cowen, aka. Onry Ozzborn) and Midwest (Zavala) collide once more in duo Dark Time Sunshine. Here’s their three-in-one video for “Doom”, “Go Team” and “The Wrong Kids”. Get their free EP, Believeyoume, at Fake Four Inc. I feel high…

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REVIEW: Graymaker (Grayskul)

(Note: This review also appears on national hip-hop blog abovegroundmagazine.com.)

Grayskul are the Northwest’s proudest bastions of hip-hop non-conformity. Unlike many other left-of-center groups that constantly remind listeners of their otherworldly origins, Grayskul’s genesis is rooted more firmly in earth’s terra firma. They’re too human to be aliens, too lively to be zombies. Think of them as creatures more highly-evolved than their fellow rap brethren. Emcees JFK and Onry Ozzborn have mic cords for tendons and kick-drum rhythms for heartbeats. It’s as if they crawled from hip-hop’s primordial ooze in a slightly more advanced state than other humans. A freaky genetic mutation of the hip-hop gene have allowed them to represent a true artistic advancement in the genre.

The last two Grayskul albums (Deadlivers and Bloody Radio) were so consistently excellent it’s hard to put their newest release, Graymaker, into proper context. Listened to end-to-end, the three albums blend together into an extended experience rather than separate distinct collections. Deadlivers remains their most fully-realized conceptual achievement, a sprawling descent into hip-hop madness and the dawning of the emcees’ dark superhero antics. On Bloody Radio, the group returns to daylight, a little less abstraction on their minds and on a mission to rid hip-hop’s landscape of its perceived wackness. And now, on Graymaker, the duo flashes signs of even more normalcy (though I use the term loosely), with what amounts to probably their most consistent and well-rounded album to date.

All of the production on this go-round is handled by Maker (hence the album’s title), a Chicago-based producer whose dark, moody soundscapes immediately reflect the cold, stony winter weather and Gothic architecture of his native Chi. Not surprisingly, the music matches Grayskul’s rhyme aesthetic perfectly. It’s a match made in hip-hop heaven (or hell, as the case may be). “Mars Voltage” takes a crazy horn lick and makes sense of it amidst an ominous bassline and live-sounding drums. “Bread And Wine” hypnotizes with hazy, layered vocals, lackadaisical guitar plucks, and a soul-sample turned eerie. “Bloodwork” is an addictive head-nodder, but in an atypical RZA-esque fashion. The most interesting track is “Machine,” which sounds like the organized ambient noise from an assembly-line plant. It churns and spits and goes in different directions, but never loses focus, much like the entire album. Maker’s production is perfectly anomalous, never veering into total weirdness, yet never boring.

Best of all, Maker lets JFK and Onry do them. One of Grayskul’s defining characteristics has always been the two rappers’ drastically contrasted styles — a This Is So Crazy It Just Might Work-type experiment in hip-hop chemistry. JFK’s controlled rants make him seem perpetually on the verge of a vocal meltdown, whereas Onry’s delivery is so understated that when he says some crazy sh*t, the listener begins to nod and understand that the rapper just might be so crazy. The standard Grayskul fare is here on Graymaker: vocal abstractions spit at rapid-fire pace so as to sound like the blustery ravings of lunatics (“Crazy Talk”), and sh*t talk elevated to such an extraordinarily advanced degree that other rappers might as well not even try to respond (“In the Know”).

The secret of JFK and Onry is that they are experts at narrating the horrors of this world with a poets’ trenchant. What sounds like free-associative wordplay, might actually be social commentary. What sounds like outright dismissal of religion and positive acknowledgment of the occult, might actually be a suggestion to find commonality in our ideas about who God is. The challenge for us listeners is to transcend our tendency to indulge our ADHD (which a lot of hip-hop encourages) to the point where we can recognize Grayskul’s sly wit. When that happens, you can see those sneaking rays of optimism that shine through the group’s pessimistic cloud. Listen closely and you might understand that the joke is on all of us. Souls so dark couldn’t possibly be responsible for hip-hop with this much life.

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