Lyrical Skool Yard One Year Anniversary with Sojourn, Blame One

July 10, 2011 by Quan Vu Leave a Comment

If you’re in North County, check out Sojourn, Blame, and Kahlee rocking for the Lyrical Skool Yard One Year Anniversary show. Supernatural is headlining (in front of Abstract Rude? I didn’t see that one coming) and you might could impress a girl with his freestyle skill (weird how it works like that right? I guess you get cool points for knowing about it or something). Should be a fun show. Watch out for the cops though. Last time I went, they were hella crawling everywhere as I was getting lost, trying to find the venue. Then one of them pulled me over. I didn’t get a ticket but I’m just saying to be extra careful and shit.

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Video: Blame One, Johaz live at Paid Dues

April 5, 2011 by Quan Vu Leave a Comment

Blame One got a chance to rock at this year’s Paid Dues Festival just this past Saturday. And in a freaking Octagon, no less. It probably wouldn’t hurt him to take some tips from Johaz though, who is an excellent live performer. Johaz jumps all around the stage, spazzing to the beat. Even when he’s not rhyming, when he’s just hype man, he kinda steals the show from Blame. He’s captivating as a performer because he–in all his bouncy enthusiasm–looks like he believes in the music, or maybe more accurately, he shows that he believes in the music. I have no doubt that Blame believes in his music. The challenge then is to translate that conviction into live performance, if not in the same exact way as Johaz, then in some way that works just as well to grab the attention of a crowd of dudes who may or may not be familiar with him.

Peace to chaddyp for the footage.

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Blame One – Chemistry

March 9, 2011 by Quan Vu Leave a Comment


CHEMISTRY by Blame One prod.Coper by ChemistryUnion

Blame spits on a track for Chemistry Surfboards in Oceanside (OMG BLAME ONE SELLS OUT!!! Just playing, hah). Which makes me wonder how many surfing-ass rappers there are in the world. As someone who can barely swim, I’d say that the waves are definitely harder than the streets. Someone needs to start repping them waves, son. I bet they could make a killing making that surfboard rap, although it sounds like more or less the douchebaggiest thing in the world.

Production by Coper. Cuts by DJ Shag. Which is kind of a cock-tease, with all due respect. With a title like “Chemistry,” the song reminds us how much a Dirty Science posse cut needs to happen.

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Blame One – Blessed Weapon

February 17, 2011 by Quan Vu 2 Comments


Blame One “Blessed Weapon” [prod. DJ Day]
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Blame sometimes reminds me of Black Thought circa Illadelph Halflife with the elevated, esoteric poetry mixed into the battle rhymes. Lines like “My pen like an artifact buried under pyramid scrolls, every word is like a whisper from a thousand souls” and basically the entire chorus make the song sound like “Concerto of the Desperado“* set to a soul sample. Am I tripping?

Blame One landed a spot on the Paid Dues Festival, going down on April 2. Looks like he’ll be holding down the Grind Time stage with several other Dirty Science/Dream Sequence cohorts. Unfortunately, that means he will not be sharing a stage with Asher Roth ……

*Yes, this entire post is an excuse to listen to Illadelph in its entirety.

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Video: Black Sparx ft. Blame One – Summer Haze Intro

January 5, 2011 by Quan Vu Leave a Comment

I need to check Grandgood more often. Blame One spits the introduction to producer Black Sparx’s LP, Summer Haze, which came out last month. That’s really appropriate that it dropped in the winter if it’s anything like this intro track. This song is full of melancholy. Blame looks back on the summer from the sad cold of the winter after. It’s probably a metaphor for hip-hop but hey, maybe it’s some deep, mid-life crisis shit too. Or both, who knows?

Blame’s also got another song on the album, “Back In The Day,” which sounds good on preview but which I refuse to buy until it’s available outside of iTunes. Fuck iTunes. I’m waiting on that Bandcamp link.

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Video: DJ Shag ft. Blame One, Jimmy Powers, Sojourn, Kaus, Anti-Citizens – Technology

January 2, 2011 by Quan Vu 3 Comments

DJ Shag created a full album and produced three music videos. All on his iPhone. The album is bluntly titled, Made With My Phone, and is available for free download here. This shit is. Fucking ridiculous.

Alright, now that we’re over the initial ooh aah of it, “Technology” happens to be really interesting. It reminds me of Mos Def’s/Blackstar’s “Children’s Story” that criticized sampling even as it sampled/covered Slick Rick’s classic of the same name. In the same vein, most everybody on “Technology” seems to hate the effects that new technology has had on hip-hop even as they use one of the largest symbols of new technology, the iPhone, to produce both the song and its video. But just like Mos’s “Children’s Story” was created as an example of the correct way to sample, “Technology” and its dope video serves as a prescription for the correct way to utilize new technology to great effect. It’s a subtle, nuanced statement but very effective.

Anyway, not that all crewed up songs are contests, but Ridley slaughtered everyone, especially with “Upload my ego to the World Wide Web/ So I can live a thousand years inside an Access thread.” More videos from DJ Shag’s album after the jump. Read more of this post

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Best SD Rap, 2010

December 29, 2010 by Quan Vu 2 Comments


I wrote a blog post about my Top 5 SD Rap Albums of 2010 for the SD CityBeat blog (I also included a Top 5 Non-SD list). To complement that list, here’s a list of my next 5 SD Rap Albums and also a list of the Best SD Rap Songs of the year. I didn’t stress over the order too hard. For the Songs list, I limited it to one song per artist, although if the artist is featured on another artist’s song, that doesn’t count against them. And no, I don’t have the time or energy to write blurbs about each of them (I’ve already written about most of them anyway). Yes, I would love to hear you tell me how full of shit I am recommend me some good music that I missed.

Best SD Rap Albums

  1. Blame One – Endurance
  2. Treali Duce – A Man’s Heart
  3. Orko Eloheim – Forbidden Physics
  4. Anti Citizens – The Awakening EP
  5. MacPhly – Cheers
  6. Piff PCH Herrera – Vintage Verses: Paradigm Shift
  7. Easy Money Gang – Money Is The Motive
  8. Black Resume – Bar-Barian Music
  9. Jimmy Powers – Califoreigner
  10. Mitchy Slick Presents Tha Wrongkind – Yellow Tape

Best SD Rap Songs

In My Queue To Check Out

  • Ecay Uno – Mad At The World
  • Circle Empire – Before & After
  • Mr. Brady – Labor of Love
  • Thai Mex – Brand New Starts

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SD CityBeat: ‘Working Man.’ Blame One and The Recession

November 18, 2010 by Quan Vu 1 Comment


It’s been a long time. My bad. I have a shit-ton of excuses, all of which are pretty valid, none of which are more accurate than the fact that I just got kinda lazy. ::shrug::

Anyway, check out the article I wrote on Blame One’s latest foray into the rap game. I’d originally intended to transcribe the interview in full and run it here. But this past interview lasted about an hour and featured Blame rambling on drunkenly and admitting to undisclosed criminal activity. Funny thing: I used material from a previous article I wrote about him and Days Chasing Days. I took a writing class and wrote the article for the class. Unfortunately, they taught us to write articles without teaching us how to pitch articles to actually get published. I’m glad that some of it has finally seen some semblance of light.

Again, check out the article on Blame. Here’s a grab below:

Jahson Rutkowski’s daily routine has changed drastically in the past few months. Before becoming another victim of recession-era layoffs, Rutkowski’s typical day included campaign analysis at ad agency, EuroRSCG, in Carlsbad. After work, he’d spend time with his fiancée, Jenell, and their two children, Symphony, 6, and Anthony, 4. And only after tucking in the kids could he go into the makeshift studio in a spare room of his house, where he’d record music until 3 a.m. as his alter-ego, Blame One.

Now, he’s traded in the dress shirt and trousers for a hoodie and fitted cap. The freedom of unemployment allows him to fully pursue his passion.

“It turned out to be a blessing because right now is the perfect time for me,” Blame says. “I’m loving it.”

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Album Review: Blame One – Endurance

November 3, 2010 by Quan Vu 9 Comments


Blame One “Still Doin’ Me”
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Blame One ft. Johaz of Deep Rooted, Planet Asia “Left Shattered” [prod. Tranzformer]
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If you’ve ever read Wooden on Leadership, a motivational book by famed UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, you’ll remember that one of his keys to success was that his players never played to win. Rather, he trained them to play with the goal of playing the right way. And he trusted that doing so would inevitably lead to wins.

You hear the same philosophy in Blame One’s Endurance. Despite a frustrating career that has already seen a number of premature claims of retirement, Blame remains dedicated to what he sees as the right way of making hip-hop: funky breakbeats, soulful loops, sharp lyrics, clever wordplay, complex rhyme schemes, and substance. These old school fundamentals pervade much of his music and Endurance is not an exception. These fundamentals are refined to great quality in songs like the emcee-slaying “Left Shattered,” the socially-conscious “Ride For The Truth,” and “Do Work,” an autobiographical ode to the 9-to-5ers. Blame is at his best when he can mesh all of these elements together seamlessly like on “Still Doin’ Me,” where he jumps from calling out fake emcees to “melting words together like welders” to reiterating his mission to bring solace through his music. It’s an excellent display of finely honed craftsmanship.

And though it is a chaotic time for Blame–he dives head first into a declining music industry after having parted ways with his stable day-job–he keeps faith. He knows his fundamentals are intact. He’s making hip-hop the right way. The rest will follow.

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Blame One Interview on Conspiracy Radio UK

October 19, 2010 by Quan Vu Leave a Comment


Blame One had a dope interview on Conspiracy Radio UK the other day and the archived audio is now up. It’s a very insightful interview in which Blame speaks on the direction of his new album, Endurance, and addresses his penchant for premature retirement, among other topics. Even just part 2 of the broadcast is more than 2 hours long but the Blame One interview starts at right around the 1-hour mark. You can stream or download the interview here.

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