One of my best friends of all time met Spaceman at a Dyme Def show a few years back. This was before dude had officially “arrived” as one of The Six’s most enigmatic figures in rap. He tried to spit game to her and I’m pretty sure it went something like this:
My Friend: Hey, what’s up?
Space: Spaaaace…Maaaaaannn!!!
(I’m not even joking, that’s what he said. I wonder if he still has her number in his Blackberry?)
F-ck the spaced-out clean-line synths of modern day hip-hop production. They sound better like like this — fuzzed-out over a chompy beat. Spaceman and XP go in against the cops over Bean’s production. The whole thing sounds like walking on top of crushed-up pieces of concrete. Chunky.
Click image for D/L link.
Click to listen to “Yuk The Police” by YUK f/Spaceman and Xperience. Click here for the D/L link.
Raw, real and always hyperactive, Spaceman stays on this Just Blaze track like a nine-to-five grind. Director Wes Goodlife catches the (still) up-and-comer on the HD. How’s that proper LP coming, Space?
The Blue EP is a promising 5-track freebie from 4-2-5 rapper Akrish (“Real name, no gimmicks,” as Obie Trice says). All songs are produced by Brainstorm with guest bars courtesy Spaceman, Grynch, Chev, and Tunji, among others.
The highlight here is “Let’s Talk” a certified Grade-A Banger of a posse cut that Ak, Space and Brain rip into like starved lions. (Is that a Queen sample I hear?) Click below and get hip before everyone else does.
Click image for D/L link
A little late on this. Spaceman is one of them cats who always delivers a solid guest shot, but I’ve always wondered how an entire album of him would go down.
Will he evolve beyond just a feature bar performer and into an artist that can hold down an entire LP? Greetings Earthlings gets him one step closer to answering that question: dude’s on his way. Click here or below for the download link.
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.
Full disclosure: I live in New York City.
Some of you had probably already gleaned that from previous blog posts (like the one with a fuzzy camera phone photo of Jay-Z, taken near a subway stop that I frequently use), and some of you know from our interactions on Twitter or email. The fact that I live approximately 2,600 miles away from the 206 puts me at a major disadvantage when it comes to getting a proper and accurate feel for all of this recent Town movement. I miss all of the shows. I never get to interact with any of the artists in person. I have a hard time copping the latest releases — sometimes I practically have to beg rappers to send me their new sh*t. (Which reminds me: I owe a huge THANK YOU to all of those folks who’ve provided me with music. You will never know how much I appreciate it. And by the way, keep it coming please!)
On the other hand, living in NY does give me an interesting perspective when it comes to how Seattle’s hip-hop community compares to other cities. For example, not surprisingly the hip-hop scene in New York is incredibly vast and wide. You can’t even begin to absorb all of it, especially if your desire is to actually feel it. (Okay, I’m speaking for myself. I’m a true fan of the music, but I’m like most normal folks, my nine-to-five is not associated with hip-hop and the time I spend listening to music is in constant competition with the time I want to spend reading a book, or going to the movies, or a museum, or doing one of the millions of things there are to do in this city.) A hip-hop head in New York really has to pick and choose what specific artists and styles to pay attention to. It’s intimidating and, to be honest, I’ve mostly ignored it. I’m too busy with Seattle sh*t. There’s enough going on in our humble little town to satisfy the most carnivorous of listeners. Plus it keeps me connected to the city where my heart truly lies.
The irony of all this is that when I’m out visiting family and friends in the Northwest — as I was last week — those are the moments when I’m paying the least amount of attention to hip-hop. Time is so scarce during those short visits. Aside from having it on constant rotation on my iPod (as is the case no matter where my feet touch the ground), I didn’t have time to catch any shows and, as you probably noticed, didn’t write even a single post during the seven days I was in town. It’s kinda messed up, really. And so, I think the universe was trying to tell me something when it just so happened that, on Tuesday, I ended up on the same airporter shuttle bus from the Anacortes ferry terminal to Seatac, with none other than the homie Vitamin D who, like me, was also heading back to The Six after a weekend in the San Juan Islands. (Vita: I shoulda hollered at you, dude! Next time, I promise!) Now this may sound particularly corny, but it meant a lot to me for two reasons: (1) Vita is one of the true OGs of Seattle hip-hop. He’s been a trendsetter, a waymaker, and any other appropriately hyperbolic adjective one can find to describe his influence on rap and r&b in the 206. He deserves the props and anyone who knows anything about Town music would agree. Which is why (2) I found it particularly dope that he had been spending time in the San Juans, the place where I grew up, came of age, and, through interesting twists of musical fate, came to love hip-hop music. (See, I told you I was gonna get corny! Whatever, I could give a f*ck what you think, ha!)
Running into Vita in a seemingly totally random place like that brought me back around to what I think is the greatest thing about the current movement in Seattle. It’s so small. Tight-knit. Intimate, even. A real community. I’ve said before that Seattle is a great place to be a rapper these days because it’s one of the least-marginalized hip-hop communities in the country. From the constant collaborations, diversity of acts at the shows, to the online Twitter chatter (it’s like a virtual fraternity house). I’m sure that beef exists (Geo: “In a town not big enough for egos to breathe…Twisted, crab-in-a-barrel existence…”), but for the most part, it seems to be all L.O.V.E.
New York is the birthplace and eternal capital city of hip-hop. Have you ever paid attention to the little monologue Spaceman gives on the joint with J. Pinder (“SXSW/CMJ”) where he talks about how overwhelming it was to be an up-and-coming rapper from the 206, standing in the famous club, SOB’s, during CMJ? That’s how culturally ingrained hip-hop is in New York. It’s one of the city’s many touchstones. An institution. A feeling, even. There’s no other city where you can go see The Roots perform every f*cking Tuesday night! Or go to a random free screening of an independently-produced hip-hop documentary at Columbia University and end up standing at a urinal next to Talib Kweli (that sh*t happened to me!). I saw motherf*cking Jay-Z shooting a clip for “Empire State of Mind,” guerrilla-style, on my way to the subway! Through pure chance, I even ended up working at a non-profit organization that helped landmark 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the South Bronx as “The Birthplace of Hip-Hop” (see here and here). Hip-hop is the musical heartbeat of daily life in NY, and from a cultural standpoint, it will never be matched. But Seattle, man. DAMN. Our movement is young. Fresh. As optimistic as a box of baby rabbits. We still don’t know how high these artists will fly. Keep doin’ your thing. I’m looking forward to the day I come back and get to participate on an even deeper level.
…The Six puts in its two cents over the Drake beat (click on the photo to download at 2dopeboyz):
Best versus are by Spaceman and Grynch. The more I hear Space the more I like him — dude just has so much personality on the mic. The King of Ballard goes double-time here, ala Eminem — don’t think I’ve ever heard him do that, but it’s pretty f*cking filthy.
Tonight, at The Crocodile…
And Thursday (9/17), at The Showbox @ The Market…
It doesn’t get much better than this one-two punch. And big-ups to the Sportn’ Life family for doing it big on both bills.
In related news: I’ve listened to about half of D. Black’s Ali’Yah. So far it’s predictably uplifting and powerful. There’s something extra-special at work when a hip-hop artist consciously sets out on a mission to uplift his community. This is a case where the message is far greater than the music. As always, a review is on its way so stay tuned.
A SEATTLE HIP-HOP BLOG 