Interview: Jimmy Powers defines his true currency

April 27, 2010 by Quan Vu 1 Comment


Jimmy Powers “Cali-foreigner“
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Jimmy Powers ft. Blame One “True Currency“
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Jimmy Powers has been making waves in the San Diego music scene in the very short time that he’s been active. After putting in work as one half of Clay Pigeons, Jimmy is now poised to release his solo debut, Califoreigner, which is due out May 4. We spoke to Jimmy about his new album, the many hats he wears, and why he won’t just rap about yachts and beatdowns.

SDRaps.com: How’d you first get into hip-hop?
Jimmy Powers: I’ve always been THAT hip-hop head but I was never in a hip-hop scene or hip-hop community because I bounced around from Boston to Houston to Boston to Chicago to Florida to San Diego. So I never really had a scene that I jumped into. I was always the hip-hop head outside of the hip-hop scene that everyone came to to look for music. I was always spitting. I knew I had some sort of talent. But I really didn’t get into a scene till … I think 2007? 2007 was when I actually started to do stuff.

SDRaps.com: Well, y’know, even as fan …
Jimmy Powers: Oh yeah, since I was a kid. First thing: I got a Paid In Full record on tape when I lived in Houston. And from there, that was pretty much the only thing I listened to.

SDRaps.com: I know you’ve mentioned in your songs that you work for the military and have been in the military. Obviously, hip-hop doesn’t take real kindly to authority figures like the military. Do you feel conflicted at all?
Jimmy Powers: Absolutely not. Because I had the choice to either: get out and go to college–and I couldn’t pay for college–or go to the military. When I was 18, my mother said, “You’re either going to college or the military. As soon as you’re 18, you’re out.” And I had horrible grades. I fucked off all through high school so my only choice pretty much was to go to the military. So I went into the military, did my four years, couldn’t stand it because I can’t stand authority figures and everyone I beat up in high school was in charge of me. So I got out and ended up staying in San Diego because it’s beautiful. Read more of this post

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Johaz & Exile, Freestyle Fellowship @ UCSD this Thursday

April 26, 2010 by Quan Vu 2 Comments

A quick announcement that there’s gonna be a really dope hip-hop show at UCSD this Thursday, April 29. The recently reunited godfathers of Project Blowed, Freestyle Fellowship (Aceyalone, Mikah 9, P.E.A.C.E., Self Jupiter), are headlining, which should be EPIC in itself. But SD rap fans will also get a first look at the collaboration between Deep Rooted’s frontman, Johaz, and producer-extraordinaire, Exile (who was apparently born in San Diego?). The two of them are working on a full-length project called Dag Savage. Let’s just hope no one gets hurt at the racist breeding grounds that is the UCSD campus, hah.

Details:
Freestyle Fellowship, Johaz & Exile, Dibiase, DJ Pound
Thursday, April 29, 2010 @ 7:30pm (Come early)
UCSD, Price Center East Ball
Price: $ Free.99

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Throwback Raps: Blame One – Grown Man Rap

April 26, 2010 by Quan Vu 1 Comment


I recently heard that Sean Price was teaming with Roc Marciano and Mayhem Lauren to form the Grown Man Rap Crew. Which made me wonder if he was inspired at all by Blame One’s signature song. I don’t think it would be a complete stretch seeing as how Sean P and Blame collabed on a song off Blame’s last album. Anyway, Sean P says he’s recruiting more dudes for the GMR Crew so maybe there’s a spot for Blame on there.

“Grown Man Rap” comes from Blame’s 2003 EP of the same name. Beats and hook by Exile. Video features the interior of the Access Hip-Hop Shop, which pressed up and put out the EP too.

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Mixtape: Piff PCH stuns with ‘Vintage Verses: Paradigm Shift’

April 26, 2010 by Quan Vu 5 Comments

DOWNLOAD: Piff PCH – Vintage Verses: Paradigm Shift (via his Bandcamp page)
Piff PCH “Players Paradigm“
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Piff PCH “Devils & Diadems“
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One of the better feelings I get from the work I do is when good music comes out of nowhere and knocks me on my ass. I was on Twitter when Blame One retweeted someone else’s list of their five favorite rappers from San Diego. Of course, the list had your usual suspects: Blame One, Mitchy Slick, Johaz (of Deep Rooted), and Big June. But then there was one name I’d never heard of at all–Piff Herrera. A quick Google search and a Bandcamp download later and I’m sitting at my laptop completely stunned. Piff PCH, aka Piff California Herrera, is ill.

Let’s put it this way: you know how Blu has kinda fallen off recently, not in terms of skill but in terms of not putting out much music since Below the Heavens and kinda retreating into the shadows? And you know how none of that mattered once Fashawn came out and took over the reigns? Well, let’s say if Fashawn ever decided to retreat into shadows, Piff PCH could take his place.

Piff is an emcee from Southeast SD with a dense stream-of-consciousness lyrical style like Nas or Rakim, flowing in and out of rhyme schemes with ease, mixing words of upliftment with like Leviathans, Satan, blunts, guns, and revolution. It’s the type of blend of high poetry, street slang, and verbal gymnastics that backpacking rap nerds like me just drool over. Everything from his rhyme schemes to wordplay to diction to story-telling ability is just so technically on-point, you know that he’s been studying the craft for years.

Vintage Verses: Paradigm Shift is a collaboration between Piff and Chicago producer, D-Ski, who handles all the production and even hops on the mic a couple of times (to good effect, too). The production is a solid combination of chopped samples and smacking drums that lends itself really well to Piff’s lyrical style. There’s often this hint of mysticism or eclecticism in the beats that mirrors Piff’s metaphysical imagery. But it’s supported by a stable boom-bap foundation just like Piff’s lyrics are grounded in street knowledge. Overall, the beats knock and stay varied enough for Piff to stretch out his talents.

Vintage Verses: Paradigm Shift is a very good mixtape-album from a very skilled lyricist. Hopefully, Piff can follow through with more dope music in the near future.

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Blame gets around like the underground

April 22, 2010 by Quan Vu 3 Comments


Praverb the Wyse ft. Blame One, Theo 3 “Rock On“
The Seed ft. Blame One “Never Lost Control“
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Blame One “Gotta Be Me” [prod. DJ Babu]
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Doodlebug ft. Blame One “I’ll Be Right There“
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Here are some recent collabs featuring Blame Uno, in loose order of how much I like them. It’s good to see Blame getting it in with artists outside of the city, hopefully sending a signal that, yes, there are spitters in San Diego. I’d normally ramble on needlessly but it’s late at night and I kinda can’t think straight. And sorry about the missing streaming player on the first joint. I’m having some technical difficulties that I can’t solve at 3am. Dope beats, dope rhymes, what more do y’all want? ©Phonte

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Cricet – Nigga Fuck You

April 19, 2010 by Quan Vu 1 Comment


Let’s pause for a public service announcement from Cricet. Because sometimes you gotta be direct with the people:

Cricet “Nigga Fuck You”
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From what I understand, Cricet is one of the OG’s of San Diego hip-hop, going about as far back as even Black Mikey. More recently, he did a gang of production on the Mitchy Slick-Wrongkind Yellow Tape album. Here, he hops on the mic and instructs the younger generation of gangsters to get off that fuckshit. It doesn’t get realer than the hook: “Nigga, fuck you! You know how many gangbang funerals I been to?” Gotta stop killing each other.

On a less serious note, I’m pretty sure Cricet threatens these kids with “monocle pimp slaps” in the third verse.

The song comes off Cricet’s 2009 album, Mercy. I’ll let you know about it when I get my copy.

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Jayo Felony, Knoc’Turnal, Jaguar – Oh, Oh Here She Comes

April 18, 2010 by Quan Vu 1 Comment


Jayo Felony, Knoc’Turnal, Jaguar, & some white girl “Oh, Oh Here She Comes“
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Jayo Felony seems like he’s been quiet since his last album, Crip Hop, dropped in 2001 but it’s probably just that he’s too real to be fucking around with nerdy Internet dweebs. Here’s a song that was clearly just bought by whoever’s managing the new white chick singer in an attempt to give her some street cred (on the Internet?) so she can become the next “Omigod! She’s white but she’s got so much soooouuuulllll!” hip singer of the moment.

Thankfully, Jayo is hilarious on his verse. A little bit of self-deprecation goes a long way. Jayo paints himself as a poor pimp hollering at some girl, bragging that he’s got dough–then baking her some cookies. Later, he shows off his Cadillac, only to admit that he lives in it. It’s definitely a good look to address his sorta fall from grace from being a Def Jam signee to being virtually non-existent.

Jayo’s Wikipedia page says that his next album, Don’t Get Meatballed, is due out this year. But it said the same thing last year too so who knows? Ice Cube also mentioned that he’s working with Jayo and WC on the single to his next album. I guess we’ll see.

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Throwback Raps: Jayo Felony – Watcha Gonna Do ft. Method Man, DMX

April 18, 2010 by Quan Vu 4 Comments


I figured I better post this for historical purposes.

The biggest hit that has ever come from an SD rap artist is Jayo Felony’s “Watcha Gonna Do” featuring Method Man and DMX (and with the fragmentation of the music industry, this is likely gonna stay the biggest hit ever). This is the title track of Jayo’s second album released in 1998 under Def Jam. A few years earlier, Jayo was discovered by the late Jam Master Jay, who put him on, helping craft Jayo’s debut and probably had a good part in landing him on Def Jam. This probably doesn’t represent Jayo’s best talents, nor does it represent SD real hard with all the shouting-out of rappers in other cities. But the fact remains this is SD’s biggest hit. Until someone changes that, respect.

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Review: Infinity Gauntlet the quiet assassin on ‘Pistol Opera’

April 14, 2010 by Quan Vu 3 Comments


Infinity Gauntlet “Gala”
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Can we just designate Infinity Gauntlet as the namer of all things ever? First, he takes up the moniker, Infinity Gauntlet, which is the dopest name you could ever have for a producer, if you’re up on your Marvel Comics game. Then he names his latest instrumental album, Pistol Opera, which is so goddamn gangster even before I found out what the reference was.

Producer Infinity Gauntlet has deep roots in San Diego hip-hop. He is/was part of the seemingly mythical Masters of the Universe clique that dates all the way back to the beginning of SD rap history and more or less includes/included anyone who ever even thought about rhyming who lived in San Diego. Seriously, the list of Masters of the U members probably outnumbers the black student population at UCSD (ouch ……). More recently, he’s put in work on Pedalay’s solid Why So Serious? mixtape from last year.

Pistol Opera is an extremely short instrumental album Infinity Gauntlet recently released (try 10 tracks clocking in at roughly 15 minutes). Pistol Opera takes its name from a 2001 Japanese action flick about a small league of assassins and the internal struggle for power that goes on between the assassins. From what I understand, it’s a throwback to kinda cheesy 70s action flicks. It’s in the same vein as something like Kill Bill.

And just as those movies revel in their unabashed gore, ruthlessness, and stylized dismemberments, so does Infinity Gauntlet’s album. Pistol Opera sets out to kill and to sound really cool doing it. The songs alternate between this sort of stoic, calm prowl and the thrill of rushing in and pouncing on your prey. Before I realized that the title referenced a movie, the music made me think of various anime samurai like Afro Samurai or Jin from Samurai Champloo: deadly but possessing an ice cold, unfeeling attitude about it. Like those samurai, Infinity Gauntlet is a man of few words. Which is probably why this is an instrumental album.

“Gala” is one of the stoic prowling sections of Pistol Opera. It showcases the strong Eastern influence, though to me it sounds more like a Mid-Eastern sound than Far Eastern. After the jump, the trailer for the Pistol Opera movie. Read more of this post

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Throwback Raps: Black Mikey – Rubber Rooms

April 12, 2010 by Quan Vu 5 Comments

Fuckit, it deserved its own post. I’m not sure when this video came out but it’s gotta be pretty old since Black Mikey was in jail from about 2002-09. Like I was saying, he’s really on his horrorcore shit here, telling us about his nightmares, suicidal thoughts, and split personalities and even rapping in a feigned insanity type of delivery. I like that the reasons he gives for his insanity is that he’s losing all his friends to death and the penitentiary. Even amidst all his psycho raps, he still pays respects to his friends and family.

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