CityBeat: Album Review: Pedalay The Boss – Issue #1

December 21, 2011 by Quan Vu 1 Comment

Pedalay The Boss
Pedalay The Boss “Voices”
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Pedalay The Boss “Support”
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Pedalay The Boss “Noise”
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I enjoyed Pedalay’s album, though I only finally heard it months after its release. I had worried that his parting ways with Scatterbrain would spell ruin–a testament to Scatterbrain’s production. But instead, Pedalay became a better rapper for it and his other producers hold their own for the most part.

My three favorite songs are above. What surprised me about this album was stuff like “Support,” which finally saw Pedalay get a little personal, a welcome change. But I still like “Voices” and “Noise” because they sound evil and I like to indulge in evil at times, like right now.

Check out a snippet below and read the full review at CityBeat:

Remember when beefing rappers made diss songs? Diss songs used to be the norm, so much so that they inspired b-movie “documentaries” like Beef. Today, beef plays out ungracefully on social media, with punch lines replaced by hashtags, snarky status updates and YouTube threats.

That’s why Pedalay The Boss’ latest album, Issue #1, sounds so refreshing. Pedalay, a Southeast San Diego rapper, is nerdy enough to spit abstract imagery and title his album like it’s a comic-book series. But he also talks about real-life shit, and his recent estrangement from rapper / producer Scatterbrain has provided fuel for his creativity.

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Access Sez So: Album Review: Stuntdouble & Tenshun – The Ballad of Shawn T. Nelson EP

December 4, 2011 by SDRaps.com Guest 7 Comments

Wes has been locked in his basement listening to this 7-inch and writing the great American novel a review. Now, he’s back with a vengeance.

Just a few a months ago, one of my favorite San Diego releases of the year dropped with a bang! And while it’s just a 7-inch EP with a mere four tracks, it’s a little release that had big things to say!

After their last album, Don’t Have to be Drunk To Tell the Truth, was released back in 2007, Stuntdouble and DJ/Producer Tenshun continued to perform locally, maintaining their presence around San Diego’s underground scene. Tenshun, as a solo act, has worked steadily on pushing out releases independently and through several other indie labels as a following of fans of his drum heavy production continues to grow. Stuntdouble remains equally busy juggling back and forth between school, work and family life, recording songs between releases, sometimes with other producers. Unfortunately, as the years passed, the material and the hours put into said sessions had become all but an afterthought for the emcee, and sadly those tracks may never see the light of day. Over the years, I would see both artists here at Access, and I’d always be eager to hear anything new and if they would at least hint at another release together. Finally, after a few delays over the summer in which the plates to press the brand new EP on vinyl were denied due to sampling issues, their long talked about return is here!

Stuntdouble didn’t set out to make an EP about how “fine” his city is with some half-assed anthems your friends can chant the words to at house parties. “Welcome to San Diego. Now go home.” These words are printed directly on the label of the record itself and this pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the EP. The Ballad of Shawn T. Nelson is a release filled with political connotations and the social commentary fans have come to expect from the fire-bearded and equally hot-tempered emcee. It’s aimed specifically at life in San Diego, from the perspective of the average citizen, and not some pamphlet-pushing tour guide who can’t wait to lure visitors on a tour bus to “America’s Finest City,” as it is so affectionately dubbed by the media. As an outsider myself, living in various neighborhoods amongst this city’s inhabitants for the last ten years, “America’s Finest City” is a term that definitely feels outdated. Read more of this post

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SoundDiego: Album Review: Gonjasufi – The Ninth Inning EP

December 2, 2011 by Quan Vu 2 Comments


Gonjasufi – The Ninth Inning EP by Hydroshare.tv

I wrote a track-by-track review Gonjasufi’s latest Fader-sponsored EP, The Ninth Inning, over at SoundDiego. In short, it’s a very weird 10 minutes of music. But I’m glad that he doesn’t rely on his weirdness as a crutch, doesn’t let himself become a gimmick. He still says real-ass shit even if it’s sometimes coded like “Be rich, eat fish, and die.”

Read a blurb about “Eatfish” below and check the rest of the review here:

Yay, break beats! It sounds like there are some soft xylophones, which is a nice counterpoint to the crisp drums. Gonajsufi is relegated to singing the hook and sprinkling his wailing through Blu’s verses, but this still sounds more like a Gonjasufi song despite Blu having the lion’s share of the mic time. When you pay attention to the lyrics, you realize this is basically a motivational song, though the message is given in the weirdest of terms: “Be rich, eat fish and die,” goes the chorus. You actually have to rely on Blu’s verses to get the main point of it, which is weird in itself since it’s usually the chorus that sums up the verses. Anyway, the point is: Whatever you want to be, it’s possible if you just work your ass off.

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SD CityBeat: Album Review: Black Mikey – The Cold Summer EP

November 30, 2011 by Quan Vu 1 Comment


Black Mikey “Screw Face”
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I wrote an album review of Black Mikey’s Cold Summer EP. In short, it’s half good, half meh. But “Screw Face” is amazing, one of the best songs in his catalog. Here’s a blurb about the good parts of the EP below. You can read the entire review here.

Mikey is much more successful when he’s focusing his energy elsewhere. “Rap Star” and “Motivated” reveal some of what’s driving his music, including escaping poverty, the traps of the ’hood and, deeper still, saving his own soul.

“Screw Face” is one of the best songs he’s ever made. In it, he takes on the title role, a manifestation of the devil on your shoulder steering you into evil and violence. At times, vocals that are slowed down and “screwed” (named after the technique’s originator, DJ Screw) pop in behind Mikey, creating a demonic effect that helps make this a horror-movie-esque cautionary tale.

You can get Cold Summer on iTunes here. Mikey has another album called Premeditated Music that I haven’t gotten to hear yet due to lack of access. Then there’s also the joint B.B. Kingz album with Bazerkowitz that sounds dope on first listen. I’m kinda annoyed actually that I chose to review this album for CityBeat when Premeditated Music might be much better (if only I had a copy) and B.B. Kingz is definitely that illness. I’m not sure how much space they’ll give me to ramble on about Black Mikey. I’d much rather use my limited space to ramble on about the best music, if possible.

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SD CityBeat: Album Review: Crhymes – The Evolution of Crhymes

November 7, 2011 by Quan Vu 9 Comments

I should’ve posted this up last week but I wasn’t feeling too hot. Kim Kardashian’s divorce can really leave you in shambles like that. But yeah, I reviewed Crhymes’s latest album, The Evolution of Crhymes, in this week’s issue of CityBeat. To tell you the truth though, I’m not entirely digging the final review. The biggest issue is that I have a limited word count that I must adhere to. In my self-editing, I had to ask myself if I wanted to: A. talk about Crhymes’s voice and why I didn’t like it; OR B. defend gangsta rap from the possible implications of this album’s title/concept. I chose the latter. But excluding the former and then adding further edits from my editor really seemed to take the teeth out of it.

The other issue that I really can’t go without saying is that Crhymes is a good dude and an advocate for the San Diego scene. He runs DagoSD.com radio, I think he helped get that CityBeat article about the shootings in Southeast published, he votes for godawful Lil Uno videos on MTV just to support SD artists. He’s a very earnest, eager person. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that him being a stand-up dude wasn’t in the back of my mind when listening to the album.

In a nutshell: the album is better than I’d thought it would be. Crhymes has heart but I don’t like his voice very much. Evolve provides soul sample-based, comfort food beats. But don’t for a second think this makes it high art as opposed to the g-funk/Ecay Uno-driven production on One Breath Closer. Read a grab below and then check the first link above for the full article:

As the program director at Internet radio station DagoSD.com, Latino rapper Crhymes is eager to connect with other artists to promote them and broaden his reach. On his new album, The Evolution of Crhymes, he works with one of his newer connections, beatmaker Evolve One. It’s an important partnership—while Crhymes’ earlier work focused on gangster-friendly West Coast G-funk, Evolve introduces soul-sample loops and, with it, what some might consider a more artistic experience. Whether or not you interpret this as Crhymes’ evolution, as the title suggests, depends on your preference for the two seemingly opposite hip-hop styles.

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SD CityBeat: Album Review: Treali Duce – The Flesh

October 26, 2011 by Quan Vu Leave a Comment



ComScore

I reviewed Treali Duce’s The Flesh over at CityBeat this week. To sum up, Treali has a ton of heart and enough skill to go with it. I might’ve said this before, but he reminds me of Z-Ro, who is like if Bun B could stand on his own and who is also one of my personal favorite rappers. Get a snip below and read the full article at CityBeat here (hah, as if it’s long enough to tease just a snip).

Before Treali Duce would call himself a rapper, he would probably identify himself as a man of God. Thankfully for us, that makes for more compelling music whether or not you’re a God-fearing man. The Flesh is Treali’s follow-up to last year’s emotional A Man’s Heart, which garnered a San Diego Music Award nomination. The title employs the Biblical concept of “the flesh” to add moral weight to the proceedings.

What follows is 41 minutes of gangster rap tempered by Treali’s Christian outlook. If most rappers are imitating Tony Montana from Scarface, Treali would be more like Leon from Leon: The Professional. He’s a conflicted character, a “bad guy” fighting to redeem himself.

Listen to “Addiction” above and watch “Crash Dummie” after the jump. The Flesh is available at Fam Mart and at Kunaki. Read more of this post

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Review: J. Blow – Summer EP

October 3, 2011 by Quan Vu Leave a Comment

I reviewed J. Blow’s Summer EP over at SoundDiego. Unfortunately, I forgot to include the outgoing link to actually be able to listen to the music. I’ve remedied that above with the Bandcamp player (btw, I <3 Bandcamp). "CA Knights" is that shit.

Summer is officially over on the calendar, but in San Diego, summer doesn’t really end for awhile. As I type this, the sun is beaming outside, bouncing off the leaves of the bushes and slipping through the blinds of my window. J. Blow, producer and DJ from the Fam Royal crew, released the Summer EP at the end of the summer, seemingly to capture the feeling of summer and prolong it through sound waves for just a little while longer.

To accomplish his goal, J. Blow has enlisted the help of Fam Royal’s extended, uh, family of artists, including Broken Dreams, Brother Nature, Piff Herrera and Parker Edison (of Parker & the Numberman). The production J. Blow provides them with is pretty much what you’d expect from a project paying tribute to summer. Soul samples abound, wrapped in a blanket of beautiful strings and keys, creating a warm haze to canvas summertime nostalgia.

What surprises me is the strong showing from the two members of Brother Nature — Real J. Wallace and Bam Circa 86 — who both perform solo songs on Summer. “Summer Days” finds Real J. at a crossroads. He’s arrived at that coming-of-age moment and he knows it, so he looks back fondly on the youthful summer memories before saying goodbye to them for good.

The far-and-away standout track is the climactic closer “CA Knights,” by Bam Circa 86. It’s a sort of victory lap for Bam. Who knows what he’s celebrating, but that doesn’t matter because the way he celebrates is just gorgeous. J. Blow’s instrumental reminds me of some of the more transcendent, downright spirit-awakening moments from Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On? A sampled songstress reaches for the heavens with her ooh’s, and Bam reaches along with her, increasing his intensity and working out this rhythm between himself and the sample. He’s never sounded this good. This is an excellent cap on a solid EP.

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Album Review: El-Gun Legro – The Return of the Future

July 10, 2011 by Quan Vu 5 Comments


I wrote a review of El-Gun Legro’s album, The Return of the Future, over at SoundDiego and I’ve copied it in full below. El-Gun’s inclusion in the SDMA nominations is somewhat controversial because most people in the hip-hop community had never heard of him until the nominations were announced. There’s a sense that he hadn’t paid his dues and that his nomination confirmed that the SDMA’s are still as bogus as ever. While I can’t really judge whether he’s paid his dues (hell, I feel like I will always be paying dues myself), I do think that he made a very good album. I think the other local artists would’ve also liked his music if they’d heard it without the SDMA nomination in mind. I’ve included a couple streaming songs here for you to check it out for yourself.

Hip-hop is way too serious. It seems like if rappers aren’t trying to look really cool with fly clothing or fly jewels or fly girls, they’re trying to look really hard by talking about drug dealing and killing dudes. And then you have all those other rappers trying to look really righteous by trying to “save hip-hop” (because clearly, the death of a musical genre is the #1 humanitarian crisis in the world today). Oftentimes, I just want them all to chill a little bit.

Enter Dominique Gilbert aka El-Gun Legro. El-Gun is teeming with personality and humor. He often rocks a Little Richard-esque hairdo with a front ponytail. You might also catch him in his superhero costume wearing nothing but a Speedo and snowboarding goggles. In one interview, he talks about eventually producing El-Gun Legro-branded condoms and condiments. He’s not afraid to show a sense of humor, even if it’s at his own expense.

Thankfully, he’s able to translate that same personality into his music. His debut album, The Return of the Future, is this hodge podge of disparate ideas jabbing in every direction to escape the confines of El-Gun’s head. The opening track, “Spaceship,” is rapper braggadocio centered around outer space wordplay and Star Trek references. “The Wiz” similarly plays on favorites from the fantasy genre like The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and The Wizard of Oz. After his mom turns off his phone because he isn’t paying his bill, El-Gun details his various, failed Internet exploits on “On My Computer.”

El-Gun Legro “The Wiz”
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It might seem gimmicky at first. After all, what separates El-Gun Legro’s character from, say, Microphone Mike? Read more of this post

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Access Sez So: Formula Abstract Presents … Universal Soundscapes

June 26, 2011 by SDRaps.com Guest Leave a Comment

Once again back is the incredible. For this installment of Access Sez So, Wes comes through with a track-by-track review of the latest from Formula Abstract.

I think it’s been over a year since Trust One told me he was putting this compilation together and I’m really glad it’s finally here. I’ve been anticipating not only some unreleased Formula Abstract (Trust One and the late Moderfire) tracks but some hardcore San Diego shit in general. Lately my posts have been about catching up with some of my favorites from 2010, so I’m happy I’ve got something new to share for a change. Of course, that could still be debated since many of these tracks have been completed for quite some time before awaiting the official release of Universal Soundscapes [ed. note: you can purchase Universal Soundscapes here]. Here’s a track for track breakdown, so bare with me and enjoy.

1. “Always” ft. Dr. Zarkov, Orko Eloheim, Trust One [prod. Trust One]
From the get go, selection and order of each track as they appear on the compilition is key. The opener “Always” sets the tone as the official third member of Formula Abstract, Dr. Zarkov, spits battle rhymes that avoid being overly aggressive, as the beat doesn’t call for it. The song itself reminds us that even though Moderfire is gone, he is not forgotten, as Orko makes a dedication to Miguel in his verse.

2. “We San See You” ft. Dr. Zarkov, 1019, Golden Gages, Trust One, Mike Tappen [prod. Andy Bandy]
3. “Every Groove In A Record” ft. Mike Tappen, Trust One, Sighphur One [prod. Trust One]
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Again as I mentioned the very nature of this selection of tracks showcases each emcee’s propensity for battle style rhymes, which to me denotes significant talent on the mic to outsiders looking in on San Diego’s hip hop scene. By track two and three things really pick up, with the bass-y/synth-y uptempo beat by French producer Andy Bandy is quickly ripped over by Trust, Zarkov, 1019 aka The Numberman, and Golden Gages of Circle Empire in just around three minutes. “Every Groove In A Record” is one of the absolute highlights of the release, with Trust, regular guest collaborator Mike Tappen, and old school SD battle rapper Sigphur One calling out amateur rappers that seem to flood the internet and local scenes these days. Trust One’s beat perfectly captures a 90′s boom-bap feel with a bassline that could have come from a Golden Era classic! Read more of this post

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Album Review: Strong Arm Steady – Arms & Hammers

March 2, 2011 by Quan Vu 1 Comment


Strong Arm Steady “Klack or Get Klacked” [prod. DJ Khalil]
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Strong Arm Steady ft. Too Short “On Point” [prod. Jelly Roll]
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After toiling for roughly a decade in the West Coast underground, Strong Arm Steady finally releases what they’re billing as their debut full-length. San Diego fans should be happy: the Southeast SD-bred Mitchy Slick is back in full force after sitting out for most of last year’s critically-acclaimed In Search of Stoney Jackson (which mysteriously doesn’t count as SAS’s debut). Unfortunately, what makes Mitchy a compelling rapper is largely missing from Arms & Hammers.

Don’t be mistaken: sonically, this album thumps. Production is man-handled by respected West Coast beatsmiths DJ Khalil, Jelly Roll, and Terrace Martin. “Klack Or Get Klacked” lays on the menace with relentless electric guitars. Smacking drums accentuate the disfigured organs and hellish choirs of “Gangsta’s.” On the flip side, the acoustic strums of “Much More” complement the sing-song flows of the SAS gang well. And the stripped down, playful “On Point” creates a fittingly pimp-like swagger for a Too Short guest verse.

What’s missing then is nuance. Mitchy Slick clearly positions himself as a gangsta rapper. But recently, he’s become more and more conflicted with gang life and the consequences of the lifestyle. Amid his pride he’s shown flashes of regret and remorse and pain that have made him stand out in his solo work. However, Arms & Hammers trades this complexity for contradiction. It’s a little odd when the music video for “Klack Or Get Klacked” sees SAS ridding the neighborhood of guns, helping to stop the violence, even as you hear them glorify that same violence in their verses. Odd still is their 15-minute short film that highlights three individuals making a living in three different ways–by straight-and-narrow construction work, by new-school blogging and social media, and by hustling on the corner–when the album revolves around only one of those lifestyles (guess which one). Of course, these examples are all marketing. The actual album on its own terms is a straightforward street rap affair. But even then, maybe it’s a little too straightforward and a little boring.

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