Rap & Hip-Hop from the 619 to 760
Feeling this on a Sunday. I don’t know the reason for the switch from Young Foe to F.O.E. But if he’s hanging around Mr. Ridley and other 2012 Dynasty dudes, it’s probably an acronym for something real comic book nerdy.
The song comes from his new album, The Foe Show, which is out now on iTunes.
Happy Sunday, Easter or not. I think I actually like these low-budget videos of Kaboose more than the well-produced video for “The Sixth World“, though probably only someone as weird as Kaboose could make it work. Anyway, this makes me fond for the days of Jansports or whatever off-brand backpack I got on sale at Target.
What. The. Fck. Kaboose is weird as hell. On some other other isht, making the argument in favor of drug usage to help you cross different planes of existence. It also helps that he has a melodic, sing-songy hook to tie it together. It almost sounds like a PBS singalong song actually, which is of course very appropriate for getting high. I love how loose his flow is too. It’s like it just pushes against the beat until the drums drop out and then it finally wanders freely.
Produced by Scatterbrain Infinity Gauntlet. I kinda shy away from abstract, hardcore shit like this. But if San Diego hip-hop had a “sound”, it might be closer to this than anything. Or maybe I just pay too close attention to Masters of the Universe affiliates? I don’t know. It just seems like there are a lot of artists building on this sort of aesthetic from Anti Citizens to Circle Empire, Formula Abstract, Tenshun, Scatterbrain, Autopsy, etc.
What do you think? Am I tripping? Is this the “sound” of SD hip-hop? Is there even such a thing? And do these artists have anything in common with each other?
I’ve been trying to figure out this song. Listening to the lyrics, you figure it’s about like hustler mentality stuff. “I never sleep, I hustle 24 hours a day”. But it sounds too sincerely somber for that. It sounds like they’re actually tired from hustling. It’s like, despite being worn down, they are compelled to continue to hustle to chase their dreams. I wanna say it’s a more rounded portrait of a hustler.
I’m bumping this Monkey Beezness album, working on a review. One of the songs samples Chrono Trigger. Download at DatPiff.
New-ish video from Gonjasufi’s MU.ZZ.LE. “I’ve done some things in my time/ even I’m ashamed of me” pretty much describes the allure of his voice. A Youtube commenter made the critique that Sufi plays up his hobo image as much as a supermodel. I could definitely see that being plausible but it kinda depends on how much money he’s actually making. If he’s making fat stacks and still trying to look broke, then yeah, that’s pretty disingenuous. But I have very little idea how much money musicians actually make. For all we know, he could be another TLC or something–heard all around the world and still broke as shit. If that’s the case, go ahead and let him keep the hobo look.
I’m normally not about listening to a song that calls itself a classic. But this sounds good for a Sunday.
Strong Arm Steady apparently has a full album coming entirely produced by Statik Selektah called Stereotype. This is the album’s first single so Stereotype should drop soon. And by “soon” I mean, hopefully sometime this year.
I wrote some words about Aaron Evans’s new video at SoundDiego though I guess I tend to romanticize the mundane (RIP David Foster Wallace). On a related note, dang, you ever take the trolley to like Comic-Con or something and feel like such a jerk for crowding all the space of people who are actually taking the trolley so they can go to their real-ass jobs and support their real-ass lives?
The San Diego MTS (short for Metropolitan Transit System, to those of you blessed enough to never have taken public transportation in your life) continues its A Trolley Show video series but this time with a hip-hop twist. In the latest installment, rapper/poet Aaron Evans performs a song entitled “We All Work” with the accompaniment of Generik on the beatbox.
Evans is a recent transplant from Cleveland, having only moved to San Diego within the last few years. But in that short time, he’s already managed to make an impact locally. He’s become affiliated with the 2012 Dynasty crew, which includes acts like Orko Eloheim and Anti-Citizens (both of whom are playing at this month’s SoundDiego LIVE). He’s also become apart of the Train of Thought spoken-word collective hovering around Queen Bee’s in North Park. His advocacy and activism for medicinal marijuana legalization in 2010 led him to start writing for NUG Magazine. He continues to advocate for alternative medicines and health practices by writing for NUG as well as upstart magazine Ecotistic.
Evans’s Trolley Show performance is immediately remarkable just because, um, he doesn’t have an acoustic guitar, an instrument which has thus far dominated the video series. But the song choice itself is a good fit. I used to take the city bus to school when I was in college. The thing about taking public transport on the daily is that you come face-to-face with the wear and fatigue of the grind. Most everyone on the bus or trolley with you is either coming from or going to a job that beats them down five days a week (or more.) Either way, they’re beyond tired.
“We All Work” empathizes with those in the midst of the daily grind. It recognizes it as a struggle but also urges us to keep pushing. The “we” is important because Evans implicates himself in that same struggle — he’s walking the path along with us. More than that though, “we” connects everyone on that trolley to each other like an unspoken support group. I could imagine how much this would mean if I were coming home by trolley from a particularly crap day at work. This performance wins because it’s not just an anomalous distraction from routine. It gets at the sacred connectedness of this daily experience.
View more videos at: http://nbcsandiego.com.
The NBC SoundDiego blog started a weekly TV program this month (also called SoundDiego). To promote the upcoming SoundDiego LIVE show, we did quick interviews with both Orko and Anti-Citizens.
The SoundDiego TV show comes on every Saturday night after SNL on NBC (this week’s show will feature Banish). Sign up on the guestlist for the SoundDiego LIVE show on March 29. Check out a clip of Bazerkowitz from Anti-Citizens after the jump. I’m also in it, rocking the ill Stuntdouble & Tenshun Ballad of Shawn T. Nelson tee. Read more of this post
Visuals for one of my picks for 2011′s Best of SD Hip-Hop. Piff and Makeshift stay repping the Better Business Bureau.
