iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/honkey-kong/id450016137
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Honkey-Kong-Apathy/dp/B005CSLRPM
Official merch: http://www.demigodzstore.com
Music by Apathy ft. Celph Titled (Prod. by DJ Premier) Off of the “Honkey Kong” full length album – Available on CD, 2LP and Digital Download. Video Directed and Edited by Nicolas Heller and Produced by Apathy and Nicolas Heller
@ApathyDGZ
@RickyShabazz
@CelphTitled
@RealDJPremier
Ragz Sweet Jones (formerly known as Rapper Ragz) first come to my attention when Supar Novar produced his debut album. Since then I have saw how hard he has been grinding and now with the release of his new project I thought it was only right to get him up on the Hip-Hop Life And Times site!
Wassup Ragz, hope your good. For those that don’t know can you tell people what you’ve released and featured on since you’ve been creating music.
Yeah I’m good mayne. Basically I’ve got two projects that are available for free download online. The first is “no budget hip hop” produced by tony mahoney. The other is “music 4 miss peaches” produced by supar novar. I’m featured on songs with a bunch of other artists like novar, big ben, danny bones and dash gambino among others. “The zombie tape” came out recently and its all produced by tony.
Your first album was produced by Supar Novar. How did you hook with Novar and tell us about how that album was made.
Me and novar been friends since primary school. One of them ones where he knows my real name and all that lol. I think that project just came about after some drunk conversations or suttin. I’m not sure to be honest. At the time I’d only ever had one project out and he’d just started studying sound engineering so it was a good learning experience for both of us. I would just go there pick beats I liked and write to them. Other times I would take him songs I wanted him to sample and he would flip them for me. That project was a lot of fun still.
So are you a member of F.L.I.P then yeh?
Yeah yeah. Most of us grew up together innit, its not really a “put together” type group. We all good friends. I came up with some gang signals for it and all that lol. Its fly.
Okay so lets talk about your latest release ‘Zombies Cannot Live By Flesh Alone’ with Tony Mahoney. Tell us why the release has this title and the whole concept for the release.
Me and tony started working on an album “folk heroes of the have-nots” but a lot of the songs we were making had a different sort of vibe from what we’d previously recorded so I just came up with the zombie theme. At the time tony was fucking with a lot of horror film samples and what not so it just worked. I was living like a zombie at the time aswell to be honest. Like too much drugs and drink. Not sleeping enough not eating enough, just not taking very good care of myself in general. I wrote and recorded that shit in zombie mode still. In the bible it says “man cannot live by bread alone” meaning people have spiritual needs as well as material. Music is one of the ways I fulfill that need, so I look at this album like soul food for zombies like me lol!
For those that don’t know, tell us a little bit more about Tony Mahoney.
Tony is one of my favourate producers and a close friend of mine. My favourate person to work with still. He’s made beats for big ben, dash aswell as me. He produced an e.p. Called “revisited” with terawrizt from dublin. Tera is in a crew called class a’s and he done a lot of beats for their group projects. He recently made an e.p. For a rapper from florida called 24/7. He’s a dope battle rapper still. He battles on “grindtime” and all that. The e.p.s called “a room full of empty bottles” and its gettin bare love over there. You can find him if you check “tonymahoneybeats” on youtube he’s got beats for sale too 😉
So who produced this project?
Tony innit. Co production from me here and there slyly tho!
The release is credited as being on ‘Music 4 Miss Peaches’. Is this your label and can you tell us who ‘Miss Peaches’ is (lol)?!
Not a label nah. One day hopefully. All my music is for miss peaches.
Out of the ten main tracks on the release what would you honestly say are the main stand out tracks?
I can tell you what my favourate track is at the moment. I’m feeling the “don’t try this at home” song at the moment. The “shark fin soup” track cracks me up everytime that shit makes me smile, did a uk overstood video for that still its gonna be out soon. But to be honest if you ask me tomorrow I might name some different shit coz each song was an experience in itself with memories attached to it and all that children of the corn type shit.
How long did the project take to make and what was it a stress free experience or was there any dramas along the way?
I think the project took about 2 months the momentum was good on this one. If we didn’t have lives beside music it wouldve been done in like a week. Tony been one of my closest friends for years and years and we have the same type of musical tastes especially when it comes to hip hop, so working together is pretty much effortless. Sometimes I give him samples I want him to flip but mostly he gives me the beats I pick what I like and he just leaves the rest to me. The only thing we ever disagree on is what song to put on what project and we both maaad subborn so boy lol! The only frustrating thing about it was the mixing. Our friend terawrizt he’s a full time genius. He mixed the whole project for us, but he lives in ireland so it was kinda long having to email back and forth for the little minor changes we wanted. Need to jump on the skype hype real quick bruv trust me!
So are you planning another solo album release soon or for next year?
Me and tony gonna put the “folk heroes” tape out asap we got like 10 songs done. I wanna do a follow up to the zombie ting and the miss peaches ting aswell. Gonna put out some accapellas for all the producers out there. But the shit I’m excited about right now is the k.I.n. Project. That’s dash gambino, big ben and me. The beats will be mostly my boy mk ultra and tony, with some random instrumentals thrown in there for the fuck of it. We got some bangers for that trust. You need to check out “sound of the city” on youtube that’s dashs channel he shoots and edits videos for a bunch of artists, so everyone out there that need videos done need to holla him still.
In the UK at the moment who do you think is killing it on the microphone at the moment?
To be honest I don’t listen to much hip hop. I mostly listen to beats I’m writing to and a whole bowl of weed smoking music. Outside my immediate camp I like m.c.5, ti2bs, terminator mc, shadrack and the mandem. I like peoples army still there’s a bunch of good mc’s there and I just like the way they organised and what they about. They a proper army too theres hundreds of them!
How serious is music to you and what do you have planned for next year?
I’m very passionate about my music. Its my therapy. I might of got sectioned or some shit by now if I didn’t have that creative release. For the future I just want to keep having fun making music. I definently wanna collaborate a lot more with other artists. I wanna experiment.
Can you give us all of your social networking sites/links please?
I’m on youtube, twitter, facebook all as “ragz sweet jones” just google me mayne!
Interview by Tricksta
CHECK OUT ALL THE VIDEOS!!!
ICY
HARD WHERE WE LIVIN
BACK IN THE DAYS
JUST A MAN
CANDLELIGHT
WELCOME 2 MY WORLD
LOVE IS A BATTLEFIELD
ROYAL FLUSH
SEX, DRUGS AND HIP HOP
THE CURSED
U AINT GOT A CLUE
LOST IN THE BLOCKS
SAD TOMORROWS
PAIN
DJ GONE FREESTYLE
ZEE TVD FREESTYLE
Speakers Corner returns to Jamm for an all star line up of Hip-Hop pioneers. [Part1] delivers you the artists who gave us our voice accent and sound, from Hip-Hop to Jungle + all roots/routes in between.
Check out the amazing line up that has been put together for this night and make sure you just don’t miss out.
Congo Natty (aka Rebel MC)
Daddy Freddy
Blak Twang
MC Mell’O’
Rodney P (London Posse)
MC D (Silent Eclipse)
& More TBA!
Plus selectors
DJ Snuff
Keith Lawrence
Lionpulse Sound (Reggae Roots)
& More TBA!
Alongside SPEAKERS CORNER resident host & family!
Visuals by GLOBALFACTION
http://www.youtube.com/GlobalFaction
More info at:
www.brixtonjamm.org/event.php?event_id=125
Friday 21st October
21:00 – 05:00
£6 adv
Tickets at: www.ticketweb.co.uk/user/?region=gb_london&query=detail&event=469434
Rediculus is a producer based out in Chicago who is sticking to his guns when it comes to quality Hip-Hop releases. His new album ‘Masters Of Conversation’ has just dropped and its features a whole host of brilliant emcees, both new skool and old skool, including such talents as Ruste Juxx, Sha Stimuli, Emilio Rojas as well as Craig G, Sadat X, Chubb Rock and even British rapper Big Dutty Deeze. So with a whole bunch of things to talk on we got this exclusive interview.
First up congratulations on the album bro! It’s a future classic! You must be really happy with the outcome right?
Thanks man and thanks for taking the time out to chat with me!
Thanks again man! Yea I’m way more than the outcome, the project is amazing. Every MC that I reached out to delivered classic verses and really made the beats shine.
Eighteen tracks long and packed deep with guests this album must have took some time to make. How long did it take from your original first plans to actually finishing it ready for release?
This album is the culmination of almost 2 years of work. I finished the previous Masters of Conversation project ReVerb about 2 years ago and immediately went to work on this album. I knew that I wanted this one to be pretty big. I had networked a lot during the time reverb was being recorded and had forged good relationships with some more successful artists and knew that it was the right time to put out a project like this. Hip Hop is at a turning point, soulful intelligent music is making a comeback and I’m proud to be part of that movement.
It’s your birthday too right? Did you mean to drop the album at the same time or was it just coincidence?
Actually a little bit of both. The album is really about 8 months late to be technical but I’m super glad I made the decision to push it back. I wanted to drop it early in the year this year, but I wasn’t happy with enough of the work to put out more than 10 or 11 songs and I wanted this album to really be worth people’s money. So I really pushed the project back to the fall and recorded probably 10 more songs this summer for the final 30 or so that were recorded for the project, out of which 17 made the final cut with a special 18th track feat. Big Dutty Deeze and Craig G for a UK only limited edition physical CD copy that will be out later this year.
Let’s talk about the legends on the album. How did it all that come about? I mean Chubb Rock, Craig G, Sadat X… that’s serious business!
I travel to NYC probably 5 or 6 times a year so I’m always out networking and I’m always online networking trying to find new people to work with who are serious about this craft. I’d always been a fan of all 3 of them since I was coming up in the 80/90’s so when I saw the direction this project was going guest wise I started reaching out to some of the people who inspired me to do this and see if they would be willing to work together. It was actually pretty cool that all of them responded positively considering that they didn’t really know me. One at a time it just all kind of fell into place and before I knew it I had an album full of classic MC’s.
Let’s talk about your studio set up for a minute. What equipment and software do you use?
I make all of my beats in Maschine now. I was a HUGE MPC head for years, I owned at one time 2 MPC 2000’s and an EPS 16+ by Ensoniq but I gave all that up for Maschine. Its amazing the workflow you can achieve with all that it gives you.
I record mostly in Sony Vegas. I’ve been using it for man over a decade now, back since 2.0. Pro Tools, while its cool and everyone has it, was pretty limited in the LE versions 10 years ago when I built my first studio and Vegas was much cheaper and had a lot more features. I own a set of pro tools but haven’t really used it much.
I’m just now getting into plug ins and VST’s so check back in a few months and I’m sure I’ll have a ton that I use.
So the album is out on your label Knowledge Giving Birth which is distributed by Island/Def Jam which is a big look. Let’s talk about the label more. When did you start the label?
I started KGB back in 1998 and have run it ever since. At times it’s been a record label, at times its been a recording studio, at times it’s been a production company, at time’s it’s been all 3 lol. Right now its both a music production company and a small indie record label.
So how many releases have you had out now and being honest which releases do you think have been the best received by fans and music buyers?
As a label I’ve put out 4 Masters of Conversation albums and an instrumental album, as a production company I’ve produced NIZM’s debut album back in 2001, as well as a few mix tapes for Rich Malone, Prome and Pair-a-Dyce
So far I’ve gotten the best feedback from the current Masters of Conversation project by far. As far as sales go, we’re working hard on that part and support from folks like yourself definitely help in that so thanks again!!
Do you have any more releases planned for 2011 or 2012?
The rest of this year will be mostly promoting this Masters of Conversation project, but Prome might have an EP drop after Thanksgiving and Rich Malone has an EP done, just getting all the other crap done so it can come out.
In 2012 we’re kicking the year off with Big Dutty Deeze’s debut album which I’m producing, Prome’s debut album will be out after that and Pair-a-Dyce as well should drop in the first quarter of 2012. Kayser9soze and Gage One have projects slated for early 2012 as well and my newest distribution client 1Fifty1 should have their next project done and out before summer 2012.
So what is the main aim and mission statement for Knowledge Giving Birth as a whole?
I took the name from an old saying that goes “Knowledge gives birth to wisdom and understanding” and I try to keep that mantra up when running the company. We strive to bring forward artists who make good intelligent music for anyone who wants to hear it and make the best music possible for those who come to me for production.
Well listen, I better let you go and let you carry on mixing those hits down! Good luck with the album and all your other projects.
Thanks again for taking the time out to talk to me and for all the continued support!!
Interview by Stix
Here is a street artist who is currently working hard on his brand new website which looks to be published this month. Based in Wolverhampton in theWest Midlands, Mr. Tronix has been painting for years and now in 2011 he switches gears. The new website will include images of his latest work, as well as his own clothing label, prints and loads more.
Mr. Tronix is definitely a name to look out for in 2011 and 2012 as his unique style of art is somewhat inspiring. We love everything about this work, from the colour schemes, to the sharp imagery and original ideas. Be on the lookout for a full interview coming real soon.
Written by Stix
It feels like a million years since I got keyboard bash on, and thankfully for my first review for HHLAT I don’t have to trudge through some second-rate effort. Quite the opposite! From the beginning note of Quest-Rah’s “Ancient Tapes Vol. 2 – The Lost Art” I knew this was something special. I’m not usually a big fan of intros/outros and skits but I was generally surprised at how much I enjoyed the intro “Lost Art”. It sounds like it could be the title track of a movie or an ambient guitar band’s album. It’s not what I expected at all, and it was very cleverly placed because now you know that this record is not going to be a generic release from the very outset. The album constantly changes pace and mixes up traditional hip-hop beats with Arabic inspired instrumentals, something I haven’t heard done well in a long time.
The production of Ancient tapes initially was what grabbed me the most, it’s pretty much flawless-and I don’t say that lightly. Whilst there are many different contributing producers throughout the album, including Ancient Arts, Ayman Raze and Quest Rah himself (to name only a handful) they all have a similar vibe to them that sounds to me like they were all influenced by similar hip-hop’s early heavyweights. Jeru The Damaja and The Pharcyde were names that constantly kept popping up the longer I listened. Whilst we’re on the topic of production and early influences I was very happy to hear DJ Illout feature prominently on the record as I personally believe that’s something greatly lacking from a lot of current releases. DJs! More elements are needed!
The elements of hip-hop are something that Quest-Rah himself devotes a whole song to: on “5th Element”. The track talks of the lack of knowledge not just within hip-hop but also in a much more wider sense. It’s very well written and one of the album’s standouts as it really showcases the MC’s diverse lyrical dialect.
Speaking on his lyrical content, Quest-Rah not only is a rapper but also a spoken word artist and you can hear the influence of this from the very start. He addresses current topics effecting the UK as well as global, as well as more personal issues closer to home. “Femme Fatal” is a cleverly written track about the pitfalls of falling in love with a bad idea, whilst “The Weak & The Strong” addresses the tragedy and heroism of children fighting against oppressive regimes, and the strength of abused women facing violence and misogyny. His words and flow are never clumsy or oversaturated, but well thought out and confidently put together. Some thing that the guest rappers like OnTheD and The Planets also can proudly claim as well.
After listening to Ancient Tapes Vol. 2 – The Lost Art, I immediately started it all over again and went youtube stalking to find as many tracks and videos by Quest Rah as I could. Fully converted. This record doesn’t disappoint and whilst you can download it for free from bandcamp I suggest buying the physical copy (£5!) Tinie Tempah doesn’t need your money.
Recommended if you like: Jeru The Damaja, The Pharcyde, Akala, Jimmy Jitsu.
01. Intro – A Lost Art – music by Kieran Tonra
02. Heat – produced by Insomniak, cuts by DJ Illout
03. Chasin’ Shadows (feat. The Planets) – produced by Quest-Rah
04. Femme Fatale – produced by Ayman Raze/The Planets
05. Stay Official (feat. Digital Martyrs & Ikwon) – produced by Quest-Rah, cuts by DJ Illout
06. Legend of a Fighter – produced by Quest-Rah
07. The Window (feat. Phonetikz) – produced by Silent Trigger, cuts by DJ Illout
08. Interlude – Concrete Desert – produced by Shanakee
09. Move On, Elevate – produced by Ancient Arts
10. Opium Warz (feat. Phoenix Da Icefire & Phonetikz) – produced by Ancient Arts, cuts by DJ Illout
11. Craftsman – produced by J Zak
12. 5th Element – produced by Quest-Rah
13. El Ijaza (Vacation) (feat. AbdelKader Saadoun) – produced by Omar Rayan (RIP), Abdelkader Saadoun & Quest-Rah
14. The Weak & The Strong (feat. OnTheD) – produced by Ancient Arts
15. Calm Before The Storm (RMX) – produced by Ancient Arts
16. Outro – Remembrance
Free Download link (click Free Download):
http://quest-rah.bandcamp.com/album/ancient-tapes-vol-2-the-lost-art-2011
Review by Aimee
The raw, dark solo debut EP from producer/emcee OMeza Meziah. Coming straight out of the shadows, bringing that mosh type shit!!
01.Intro (Dilemma of the Ceremony) 00:51
02.The Start 03:40
03.Rage 04:58
04.Behelits 00:43
05.Stuck in the Mud 04:02
06.New Era 05:58
07.Better at Night 03:12
08.At Night feat. Apex Zero and Kyra 03:37
09.Happy (skit) 02:19
10.At Night (Branded Remix) 03:51
11.At Night (Instrumental) 03:41
12. At Night (Branded Remix Instrumental) 03:51
Download link:
http://firstandlast.bandcamp.com/track/the-start
