Cashus Flow recently released his latest offering ‘Lamplighter Delight’. Cashus is a multi-faceted dude, and rocks the turntables and production just as much as he does the mic. For fans of Ugly Duckling, God Cypher Divine and Atmosphere.
Audio
Something for the backpackers. We got this a little while back, but our inbox is always pretty full so we don’t always get to everything straight away-but this is a tight track from Miami native Checkmate The Gr8. It’s got a smooth beat, and the scratching’s used in the right way. Dude’s got a lot of potential and I’d be interested to see where he’s going to go from here. It sounds like it’s straight from the Miami suburbs and ithe horn section of the track would sit happily at home on an early 90’s film soundtrack, i.e Boyz N The Hood. The track is from his recently released album ‘Ape Shit 2’ which came out late September.
For fans of Tupac, Trek Life and early 90’s coast hip-hop (south and west)
Last night myself (Aimee) and our in-house beatboxer Matt recorded our first in hopefully a series of podcasts showcasing new and classic hip-hop hosted by, yeah you’ve guested it www.hiphoplifeandtimes.com. We concentrate on mainly underground hip-hop from the UK and international, and the better releases that we’ve been sent or reviewed over the last few weeks. We’ll hopefully be interviewing artists within the hip-hop scene in our up and coming podcasts, so keep checking back to see what’s going on. Anyway I really hope you enjoy this and listen to the over episodes over the next couple months. Listen to it when you’re in the bath, on the train, having a run or trying to forget your hangover. We’re so multi-purpose.
In this episode we talk about whether the UK has ever had a group that could touch the level of success and notoriety of Wu-Tang, why I’m not a fan of Busta Rhymes anymore, demonstrate the diversity of the South West UK scene, talk about Mr-T’s brief but fantastic rap career, and I even try to pass off ‘weeped’ as a word. Click on the track listing to go to artist’s music page, some are free, some aren’t. But you should really give them all your money either way.
1) Aspects – Top Choice (Album: Correct English)
2) DatKid – Home By 8 (Album: Home By 8)
3) A Tribe Called Quest – Scenario Featuing Leaders Of The New School (Album: The Low End Theory)
4) Doomtree – Beacon (Album: No Kings)
5) Book Thieves – Smiles and Cries Featuring Illiterate of Concept of Thought (Prod. Fredo) (Album: Why Do We Do This Everyday?)
6) B-iLLA – Move Back Featuring Big Dutty Deeze (Album: illa Than Most)
7) X-Ecutioners – A Journey Into Sound Featuring Kenny Muhammad (Album: Built From Scratch)
8) SGT Over – Martial Arts Featuring Physical Graffiti & Early Grey (Album: Uncut Diamonds)
9) Three Headed Beast – Swimming With Sharks (Album: Three Headed Beast)
10) Beautiful Eulogy – Covet (Album: Satellite Kite)
11) RZA – Grits Featuring Allah Real & Masta Killa (Album: The Birth Of a Prince)
12) Too Many Ts – It Ain’t Right Featuring Alena (Soon to be released mixtape)
13) The Four Owls – Burning Vapour (Album: Nature’s Greatest Mystery)
14) Jae Apollo – All The Right Mistakes (Album: All The Right Mistakes)
Enjoy!
In my eyes to have a really god instrumental release is you can’t make an album full of fruityloops beats, or create tracks that sound like EVERY other mainstream grime song on the radio. Those are the obvious points, but in my eyes it’s got to have some unique vibe to it, and since there’s no vocals (although there are vocals in the last track, but you get what I’m saying?) it better have an amazing atmospheric feel to it. Well, what’d you know 19-year old South West London producer Motel Eola has that and more. Aren’t you all lucky?
For fans of Lazerbeak, Dead Man Walkn and Red Skull Beats.
Cop his EP for free over at his bandcamp below, it’s really fucking good EP.
www.youtube.com/motelofficial.com
www.twitter.com/MotelEola1st
For those of you who didn’t get on the free download of Ruthless’ new EP ‘Say Something’, well…Too bad you’ll just have to pay the £3 now. This is Ruthless’ at his highest, and it features in my humble opinions one of his best tracks, ‘Emotional Mess’ featuring Ruinz Ason. If you aren’t aware of who Ruthless is then I think it’s time you were, so get to clicking. For fans of B-iLLAH, A.C, Genesis Elijah, early Akala.
YouTube
SoundCloud
Twitter
Facebook
National Poetry Day post 2! Thanks again to all the suggestions, we may put up a third before the night’s out-so keep your eyes peeled. Then again you should be watching us 24/7 anyway.
Next up is not only a UK legend, but general underground hip-hop legend that is the mighty Chester P from Task Force. Stix reminded me what an obvious choice Chester P would be on Poetry Day. Just listening to a few minutes of him spit you can hear immediately that his style could easily serve as a poem. His use of wordplay is ridiculous, and creates verses that just wouldn’t make sense coming out of anyone else’s mouth. Just watch the first 30 seconds of the first video to see what I mean.
Second up is The Ruby Kid. We’ve been big supporters of this dude for a long time, and even did a cheeky interview with him a few months back. The Ruby Kid mixes a lot of metaphors and quite surreal imagery into his music, that whilst still pretty avant garde in places, still manage to pull back the narrative without coming off as pretentious or hipster rap. One of my personal favourites of this year; he also does a lot of spoken word so you can see his influences are obvious.
Third up is DarkoTheSuper. We’ve also covered Darko recently, and did a short write-up of his previous release ‘The Ledge Below The Edge’. The funny thing about this is I (it was me that was reviewing him) said that his style would work perfectly with spoken word, so I guess I was right all along. Darko is an intense MC, and carries an intensity that’s extremely reminiscent of written poetry. In fact I spoke to the dude this afternoon via our Facebook page and he said that he’d been likened to T.S Elliot (accolades indeed!). You can listen for yourself to his new release and see what I’m talking about.
Last up is, well do I really need to introduce Immortal Technique? Ahh come on really? Immortal Technique is in my humble opinion one of the greatest MCs of all time. In my mind he rates up in my top 2, next to Tupac and let me tell you that’s some hard competition in my world. Tech is not only a revolutionary and all round awesome rapper, but a fantastic storyteller. His style is obviously heavily influenced by early toasting techniques, and more traditional forms of storytelling, and communication. If you’re not aware of Immortal Technique then it’s okay, there’s still time we can help, just watch these and everything will be alright.
Did anyone notice I said ‘avant garde’?
Words: Aimee
So if you’re not an idiot, (then again if you’re reading our site then I’m hoping you’re probably well versed enough to know what the five elements are) then you’ll be well aware that MC came from and was heavily influenced by Caribbean toasting, Jazz scatting and last but not least poetry. Well today ia National Poetry Day, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to give shine to a few well known, and not so known MCs that heavily inspired by poetry and spoken-word. Now we could argue that every rapper alive is influenced by poetry, and that wouldn’t be an untruth in fact it’s a completely accurate statement. There are of course MCs out there however that could happily play the same show as a ‘traditional’ poet , and not be out of place. Then again that in itself is a pretty wide statement too, but I hope you can understand where I’m coming from.
If you think we’re missing out on some artists that are so fantastic that you’re shocked we didn’t know, get in contact via our Twitter or Facebook and let’s have a conversation.
First up is Cormega, that I was introduced this afternoon via Christopher Mitchell from our Facebook page. It’s a short accapella spit, but what it lacks in length it makes up for in substance. Really reminiscent of early slam poetry and street cyphers, and is a big testament to Cormega’s skills as an MC.
Next up is an artist that I hope a lot of you will be aware of already, but if not hopefully you’ll become a fan of. Eyedea was a major artist from Rhymesayers the family, and often worked with DJ Abilities. Not forgetting his huge presence within the battle rap and freestyle scene. His multisyllabic style whilst of course not uncommon, was definitely his own, and his use of language could easily have been transfered into written poetry. Evan Souza very kindly showed me a link to a remixed version of Eyedea & Abilties last album together before Eyedea’s sad passing. The album is mixed Illusionist, and you can have a listen down here, as well as a video of Eyedea’s earlier freestyle battles.
Thank-you to both Christopher and Evan for their suggestions! And keep checking back today for a few more National Poetry Day posts.
http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/
Words: Aimee
Wasn’t expecting to hear a track of this level this afternoon. I mean, I was but I wasn’t. Ya get me? Anyway, until this video of Just Putt (of the Dead Poets Society) posted this on our Facebook page I had no idea about this dude, well thank-you internet. The skill of this MC is at the higher level of a lot of artists, and is full of potential, and I’ve been bumping this video since we were first put on it. I suggest you get your little eyes and ears over it too.
Dead Poets Society EP available for purchase @
http://dps201.bandcamp.com/album/dead-poets-society
A nice bit of grimy British hip-hop to start our great comeback with…haha but really this track by UK rapper Zikki and produced by Rayden is a solid release. For fans of Ruthless. I’ve embedded it on this post, so you really can’t be so lazy that you can’t at least click that play button; pure positive song.
