Fake For Real - Tag - 2005The English written companion of Fake For Real: since 1997, reviews and articles about rap music2024-03-11T20:40:46+01:00Sylvain Bertoturn:md5:a035ff44a020bb716e18191580d6e9ecDotclearETERNIA - It’s Called Lifeurn:md5:b010d849892fba257c1f2feb998ff3172017-12-08T22:41:00+01:002021-01-01T14:40:26+01:00codotusylvAlbums2005CanadaEterniaOttawaURBnet Records <p>According to some, Eternia is the best female rapper in Canada. Whatever the truth is, this woman from Ottawa looks exactly as expected, from a Canadian hip-hop artist: she is white, her lyrics are on the conscious and progressive side of the genre, and her sounds are deeply rooted into New-York’s backpacker style. Actually, she has collaborated with a few underground heroes like the Demigodz, the Atoms Family, or Moodswing 9. Silk-Anne Kaya, also, is a feminist. Her lyrics, as well as her public activities, go into that direction. For example, she launched a campaign named "My Favorite Rapper Wears a Skirt" (including a series of t-shirts bearing this slogan), targeted at the sexist stereotypes the music she practices is full of.</p>
<p><img src="https://english.fakeforreal.net/public/Pochettes/2005/eternia-it-s-called-life.jpg" alt="ETERNIA - It’s Called Life" style="display:table; margin:0 auto;" title="ETERNIA - It’s Called Life" /></p>
<p><em>It’s Called Life</em> was Eternia's first album, and it was nominated to the Juno Awards, a local equivalent to the Grammies. That says a lot about Canada's pecularities. This could have hardly happened on the other side of the border, indeed, with such a release, which guests list somehow looks like a page from New-York’s underground Who’s Who. To support her, indeed, the Canadian rapper had invited Wordsworth, Freestyle from the Arsonists, and Helixx C., a member of female collective Anomolies. Also, quite expectedly, her music complied with the cannons of 90’s East Coast rap: it was full of loops, samples, scratches - DJ Dopey's on "Family" - and well-chiseled raps. Lyricism mattered, with this lady, who even went the spoken word way on the track called "Death". It mattered so much that she was a bit too verbose, at times.</p>
<p>Eternia, indeed, had plenty to say; personal confessions, mostly, as hinted with the record’s title, and its cover art, a picture of her as a child. Each track was named after a key subject matter, and gave way to intimate thoughts. The most obvious example was "Love", the album’s central piece. There, with a hook sung by her sister Jessica, the rapper showed affection for her mother, who had been abused by her husband. This track was so remarkable, that Amnesty International would use it later on, to support a campaign about violence against women.</p>
<p>This was not the only autobiographic song on the album. On "Control", for example, Eternia questioned how a previous partner, a control freak, had poisoned their relationship. "Time" was a different track, where she went all philosophical, but it was still quite cerebral. She also boasted about her resilience, or about her ability to overcome adversity, like when she assaulted her haters, on "Hate". And on "Evidence", a track based on a sample of the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations" – yes, that could work... – Eternia battled for a place in the hip-hop world, while sharing a bit of contempt for the star of the times – still a star today: Kanye West.</p>
<p>Eternia found her place, indeed. Sure, it is not commensurate to Kanye's, but still. A few years later, through her collaboration with MoSS, a fellow citizen, she became part of Canada’s musical landscape, and when she joined cult label Fat Beats, a respected member of hip-hop’s underground. She also became an apostle of feminism, talking in schools and seminars, working with same-minded colleagues like Jean Grae, Tiye Phoenix of the Polyrhythm Addicts, and a few others. In other words, Eternia was an ambassador for this style of rap, loyal to boom bap and full of social considerations, though not always as innovative as it pretends.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01KAVB9CG/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B01KAVB9CG&linkCode=as2&tag=fafore05-20" hreflang="en">Buy this album</a></strong></p>
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https://english.fakeforreal.net/index.php/post/2017/ETERNIA-It-s-Called-Life#comment-formhttps://english.fakeforreal.net/index.php/feed/atom/comments/2673DESSA - False Hopesurn:md5:64170e4541f60de89529410f1dab12a32017-11-21T23:13:00+01:002020-12-06T11:03:54+01:00codotusylvAlbums2005DessaDoomtree RecordsMinneapolis–Saint Paul <p><em>False Hopes</em> is not just one record, but many. Indeed, such were named several solo projects, released in the mid-noughties by various members of Doomtree, prior to recording a joint album with the same title. Even before this, that was the name of the duo P.O.S. and Cecil Otter had founded, before they created the larger Minneapolis collective. One of these many <em>False Hopes</em>, though, deserves a special attention, the one delivered by a female rapper, Dessa Darling, or Dessa. With the five songs of her own version – songs so good that she would reuse them on her second album, <em>Castor, The Twin</em> – she delivered one of the best in the series.</p>
<p><img src="https://english.fakeforreal.net/public/Pochettes/2005/dessa-false-hopes.jpg" alt="DESSA - False Hopes" style="display:table; margin:0 auto;" title="DESSA - False Hopes" /></p>
<p>Though Margret Wander joined Doomtree later than others, her profile fit the collective well. As most members, she was White – more or less, her mother being of Puerto Rican descent. She was also a literate middle-class lady, with a passion for books, a degree in philosophy, and sophisticated lyrics. And she didn’t mind crossing over to other genres, opting sometimes for spoken word instead of rap, or using “real” instruments. However, Dessa had joined Doomtree almost randomly. By 2001, as someone passionate in words, she participated to a slam poetry contest, which she won. This victory, as a matter of fact, was an accident: many of its best contestants were travelling abroad that very day. But anyway, it encouraged her to persevere. And through this new hobby, she became friend with a few rappers from her neighborhood.</p>
<p>Dessa’s experience with slam is visible on <em>False Hopes</em>. Her raps, indeed, are all about the art of language, and her subject matters are not the usual ones in hip-hop. For example, on the introductory track "Mineshaft", she philosophized about the weight of the past. There, the rapper talked about her consecutive experiences and identities, and their influence on what she had eventually become. On "Everything Floats", with Cecil Otter’s support, she talked about art, and how it soothes an empty or painful existence. "551" was a song about the fleeting nature of love, where she confessed that comfort was the driving force behind marital fidelity. And "Kites", another depressing track, was about the end of her dreams and illusions.</p>
<p>Mostly produced by Doomtree’s own beatmakers Lazerbeak and Paper Tiger, the music was as expected with the collective: the instruments sounded quite organic, and they were uncommon in a hip-hop context. Rap, in reality, was not Dessa’s only discipline: she could sing, and on "Kites" she engaged into strange murmurs. But still, she could blow the mic, being quite good at switching from one flow to another, and her style had a kind of old school flavor, like on "Press On", where Dessa and Sims played at completing each other's rhymes, <em>à la</em> Run-D.M.C.</p>
<p>Hers was a specific rap school – not the most visible, but an exciting one; a school not rooted in ghetto realities, and not concerned with stylistic purity, but still attached to the old-fashioned notion of “art”. In an accomplished way, and before her talent would dilute into long albums, the young rapper from Minneapolis offered a feminine face to her own genre of hip-hop.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001EL9RGW/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B001EL9RGW&linkCode=as2&tag=fafore05-20" hreflang="en">Buy this album</a></strong></p>https://english.fakeforreal.net/index.php/post/2017/DESSA-False-Hopes#comment-formhttps://english.fakeforreal.net/index.php/feed/atom/comments/2676ELIGH - Enigmaurn:md5:3ad0b5cebf4125ebe73362628892e68d2011-09-15T22:01:00+02:002021-04-26T07:41:38+02:00codotusylvAlbums2005ElighLegendary MusicLos Angeles <p>In the early noughties, the Living Legends were the archetypical underground hip-hop band. They were highly revered in the backpacker rap world, where they fully deserved their name. In the Wu-Tang way, this collective was made of various subgroups and solo artists, and people from countries as far as Japan and the Netherlands were affiliated to them. Thanks to their network, their aura was global. They reached a high standing with no help from major labels. However, contrary to some of their peers on the West Coast Underground scene, the Legends were not the most innovative rappers ever. They had great tracks, but scattered and lost in a too prolific discography. It was often live, actually, in concerts, that they were the greatest.</p>
<p><img src="https://english.fakeforreal.net/public/Pochettes/2005/eligh-enigma.jpg" alt="ELIGH - Enigma" style="display:table; margin:0 auto;" title="ELIGH - Enigma" /></p>
<p>Eligh Nachowitz, though, stood out from his colleagues. The rapper and beatmaker, one of the two White men in the band, was the least conventional of all. His talent was already obvious on late 90's solo albums like <em>As They Pass</em> and Gas <em>Dreams</em>, but it was in the other decade that he fully confirmed his originality, with works like <em>Poltergeist</em>, and the smooth and jazzy <em>Enigma</em>.</p>
<p>Though it was outstanding, that album had no hit. It had no "Funk", "The Mountain", or "Ancient Grandfather", some of the catchiest tracks on the previous record. And Eligh was barely rapping, a large part of the album being instrumental, a bit like his <em>Gandalf’s Beat Machine</em> series. There was a strong link with <em>Poltergeist</em>, nonetheless, and this one was Robert Miranda. An occasional contributor on the previous album, this musician assisted Eligh more systematically, on <em>Enigma</em>. Supported by sampled voices, a synthesizer and a few other instruments, his jazz guitar helped moving Eligh to a darker, smoother and dreamlike style.</p>
<p><em>Enigma</em> had no equivalent. The music from French-Irish beatmaker Doctor L, released ten years before, might be the only one comparable to Eligh's. The sumptuous "Life Dance", sung by folk singer Jo Wilkinson (Eligh's mother), the weird "Why?", the smart Leonard Cohen sample on "Who Else", the splendid "Phil" – well, actually, absolutely all tracks – were both subtle and appealing. And such subtlety and appeal were unprecedented, they only belonged to Eligh.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0007UVXJA/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0007UVXJA&linkCode=as2&tag=fafore05-20" hreflang="en">Buy this record</a></strong></p>https://english.fakeforreal.net/index.php/post/2011/ELIGH-Enigma#comment-formhttps://english.fakeforreal.net/index.php/feed/atom/comments/2611