You ain't wack but you regular as f*ck
August 15, 2011 1 Comment
You know what’s kinda messed up? I posted that Vokab song because of Ridley. And I totally didn’t post this video by Young Foe, which also gets the Ridley co-sign (Ridley’s on the beat). Quan = racist writer.
Anyway, this song’s cool for the summer. But Young Foe sounds way better when he’s threatening skinny jeans rappers. What can I say? I like aggressive rappers.
August 11, 2011 18 Comments
This is my favorite track on Vokab Kompany’s Quit Sleep, mostly because of the screwed-up vocals, which appeal to my Houston rap fetish and also make Vokab sound a lot harder than usual. And really, I’m not even sure if this should really be called a Vokab Kompany song. It pretty much sounds like Ridley just samples Vokab to make his own beat, though I can’t be sure since I can’t track the original “Ridin’ My Bike” which may very well be tougher than leather.
In my failed search for the original version, I did find out that Vokab has made a song with Main Flow and Killah Priest, which was unexpected. Honestly, I think I keep wanting to write them off until I see that artists I like (Ridley, Main Flow, Lateef the Truth Speaker, Luckyiam) have worked with them and thus, give them an unofficial co-sign. I’m still on-the-fence but I’ll probably keep listening and make it out to a show to check them out soon enough.
UPDATE 1: I don’t think people read comment sections because I definitely don’t. Here it is straight from Burkey’s mouth (terrible grammar and all! I’m telling your students on you!!!), which you can read below in a comment:
Riding my bike is a remix of our song “that day” off of The New KOng. I am friends with Ridley, we tried working on a few beats of his that never came to fruition, but I am a big fan of his beat production. One nt i was grinding away on the new album and thought it would be a good idea to chop and screw that line in the song “Im a gangster when I’m riding my bike.” and developed the concept for a remix, I hit him up with the idea, we went back and forth for awhile and then sent him the accapella’s and he did his thing. No we did not pay him, but he is plenty worthy of payment cuz he is a great producer (and there is a chance this song may be placed in an HBO show, at which time we would then split the publishing with him),…but, concerning your comment ‘non-vokab song’, it is absolutely a Vokab song, and I would appreciate a tad bit of respect on this level.
UPDATE 2: And now, here’s Mr. Ridley via Facebook:
Ok quick rundown on Vokab Company and my relation to them (feel free to use in print if neccesary). Their entire band (besides Burky and Robbie) are all original members of Temple Productions (OG 2012) In like 2002 Geoff (their keyboardist and producer) and myself started a recording studio. Within that were like 3 bands and 4 hip-hop groups all within the same collective. After the studio shutdown and most people scattered, the remnants became Anti Citizens and then the rest of the instrumentalists became Vokabs’ band. Vokab and myself produced a few songs but we never finished them. They sent me acapellas for Ridin my Bike and I wrote all the music myself from scratch for the remix. They are way out of the “comfort zone” musically for SD hip hop heads, but I promise you they are some of the most down to earth, righteous human beings I have met within the Sd community. This is in response to your srticle by the way on SDRAPS
August 10, 2011 Leave a Comment
I’m back. Sorry for the short absence, but you know how it is, I just get burnt out sometimes (also, I was spending way too much time watching Sons of Anarchy on Netflix). Thanks for understanding and coming back.
The SDMA’s went down this past Monday. It was better this year than last year for a few reasons:
I mentioned before that, in the grand scheme of things, the SDMA’s don’t matter too much. MC Flow has won several SDMA’s and even she’s said that the award itself has had little effect on her career. I doubt that Blame will suddenly start caking after this award though that’d be cool (um, buy Endurance here though). But I think it’s useful, at least for the hip-hop community, to look at as a sort of report card for the local entertainment media to see how we’re doing in our coverage. And I think having good media coverage is one of the pre-requisites for fostering a healthier scene. Hopefully, next year will be even better.
August 3, 2011 Leave a Comment
I found a slew of clips from what looks like an old documentary/promo DVD for the Filtered Souls project that CJ of Wrongkind mentioned during his interview. The clips come from the What’s Hot Magazine channel on Youtube. Like CJ said, they seemed to have done a good job promoting this album. The video above features rapper Mad One and his video for “Psycho,” which is definitely on the same tip as Black Mikey’s “Rubber Rooms.”
And what do you know? “Rubber Rooms” is also part of the same promo DVD. You can check that out after the jump. Also included: an interview with some of the producers behind the Filtered Souls project, a cheesy intro segment about Skyline Records that put out the project, and an old NBC 7/39 news story at the very bottom on Mad One, whose song was used as WCW wrestler Konnan’s intro music. Read more of this post
August 2, 2011 11 Comments
UPDATE II: Contest is over! Congrats to Christie, Michael, Diamond, Leon, and Angel!
UPDATE: The message has been sent out. Contestants, please check your email. You have until Friday at 7pm PST to claim your prize.
Not SD music-related clearly. But I’m gonna use these free tickets to bribe at least a few of you into a cursory knowledge of SD rap history.
Here’s the deal: I have FIVE (5) pairs of tickets to Rock The Bells San Diego with Raekwon, Ghostface, and Mobb Deep. The first five people to name their favorite Gangsta Ern song in the comments section (HINT! HINT!) gets on the guestlist for the show +1.
Rules: 1. When leaving a comment, you must include a valid email address; 2. You must respond to the Congratulations email within 48 hours to claim your prize. If you break one of these rules, your prize goes to the next commenter in line.
For those who don’t want to try their luck, you can buy tickets for yourself at Live Nation here. Good luck to the rest. And of course, RIP Gangsta Ern.
August 2, 2011 6 Comments
We continue our talk with CJ, president of Wrongkind Records. In part 2, CJ runs through San Diego rap music history from Gangsta Ern to Filtered Souls. Then we shift gears, speaking on the gang injunction and its relationship to the recent spate of violence in Southeast San Diego.
SDRaps.com: Let me go back. You said you used to work at Fam Mart. You probably know tons of San Diego rap history.
CJ: And another thing: I know whose CD’s really sell and whose don’t. [laughs]
SDRaps.com: I don’t even know where to start. I wanna ask you who has been hot every year since–
CJ: The first three rappers that I could really say in the early ’90s that had city-wide recognition: Big June from Skyline, Green Eyes from Lincoln Park, and Gangsta Ern from the Brims. Gangsta Ern by far was the city superstar. He was HUGE!
SDRaps.com: This was way back.
CJ: This was ’91, ’92. These dudes go back to ’91, ’92.
SDRaps.com: They were first rappers with city-wide recognition–
CJ: –that put out CD’s. You know, because there were dudes that rapped that didn’t have a CD out. When Gangsta Ern had a CD out and he was a superstar, people knew Black Mikey could rap. And you heard Black Mikey rap but you heard Black Mikey rap in person. He might be at the playground in Bay Vista, there might be 40 people around him listening to him freestyle. You knew Damu could rap. But they just didn’t have records out yet. But yeah, those were the first three that really had a song that people knew throughout the city. Gangsta Ern had a song where, when you threw it on at a party, the party went HAM. The party would explode when you put that on. Read more of this post
August 1, 2011 2 Comments
Wrongkind Records turns 10 this year. To celebrate, Wrongkind is re-releasing the album that started it all for them: Mitchy Slick’s debut, Trigeration Station. I spoke with CJ, the president of Wrongkind, a couple months ago. I published some highlights last week on SoundDiego. But here’s the full interview in two parts.
In part 1 of our interview, CJ talks about the origins of Wrongkind and Mitchy Slick and the interesting ways in which their popularity has spread nationally. After you’re finished, be sure to continue onto part 2.
SDRaps.com: Why did you feel the need to start your own label in the first place?
CJ: I actually had been living in Los Angeles. I was staying with Xzibit. From being up there and around his situation, I picked up a lot of information about the music business and about the industry — how things are done. From being around the industry, I figured I had gained enough knowledge to start my own situation. Also, I worked at a record store for awhile. I was the type of person where I really studied the game, studied the music business. And I saw that one of the people that really had a lot of success, businesswise–and coming from a city where there was really no music business there previously–was Master P. Read more of this post
