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AESOP ROCK - Appleseed

1999 is, somehow, the apex of the indie rap era. Many gems are recorded, that year. The more we dig, the more of these we find, released by small labels, or self-released. Appleseed is one of these. With its eight tracks […]
Published on Sunday 10 November 2013 at 15:15 in Albums
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AWOL ONE & DADDY KEV - Number 3 on the Phone

By the early 2000's, because of his incredible and inebriated voice, his subtlety, his sense of humor and his vulnerability, because of his style made partly of classic hip-hop, partly of Project Blowed-influenced innovations, we predicted a triumph to Awol One. But it didn't happen. The most charismatic Shape Shifter never capitalized on the buzz around Souldoubt, in 2001. He remained an unsung hero, and he never released the masterpiece we expected. On the opposite, his records would become less and less noticeable, with the exception of the very convicting Only Death can Kill he released in 2007 with Factor, the Canadian beatmaker.

Published on Monday 4 November 2013 at 23:08 in Albums

2MEX - B-Boys in Occupied Mexico

B-Boys in Occupied Mexico was 2Mex's first true album, a promising beginning, a record which should have boosted the rapper's career. An excellent MC and performer, the guy had the potential of a star, everyone should have expected an opus magnus from him. Such a masterpiece, though, was never delivered. And now, many years later, B-Boys in Occupied Mexico is still 2Mex's best album.

Published on Tuesday 29 October 2013 at 23:06 in Albums

ORKO THE SYCOTIK ALIEN - Atoms Of Eden

By the early 2000's, nobody cared any longer about drum'n'bass. After a few years, in the previous decade, when this genre - born from the UK rave scene and characterized by frenetic rhythms - was praised as the music of […]
Published on Wednesday 23 October 2013 at 23:25 in Albums

A-WAX - Jesus Malverde

Originally, Jesus Malverde was a Mexican bandit killed by the country's authorities, in 1909, just before the revolution. It is not sure he really existed, but whatever: progressively, he became a legend. Once dead, he […]
Published on Tuesday 22 October 2013 at 22:55 in Mixtapes

VIKTOR VAUGHN - Vaudeville Villain

This is a universal law: what great artists sow, they generally harvest much too late. They are celebrated just when their skills are no longer what they used to be. Then, fans and critics alike are praising them, […]
Published on Sunday 20 October 2013 at 12:47 in Albums

SIAH & YESHUA DAPOED - The Visualz Anthology

Fondle'em's merit, but also, its mistake, is to have preferred the EP format to any other. For that reason, in a world that still considers LPs as the ultimate masterpiece for music, the legacy of New-York's indie rap scene founding label is not as big as it deserves. Most of its artists, the Cenobites, the Juggaknots or the Arsonists, finally had to transform anthology singles or EPs into real albums, adding to them some demos, freestyles, rarities or new tracks. For some of them, this extension of their previous records was a success, as is the case with the Juggaknots' Re:Release. But for some others, the final output was a bit frustrating and unbalanced, as with The Visualz Anthology, a compilation of Siah and Yeshua's work, released in 2008.

Published on Tuesday 8 October 2013 at 23:09 in Albums

NEILA - Only This One Counts

"Please support my album to help pay for hospital bills and rent!" This is how Neila introduced her latest album, Only This One Counts, in 2011. With this cry of pain and distress, the Hawaiian rapper, a close […]
Published on Wednesday 2 October 2013 at 23:13 in Albums

LISTENER - Wooden Heart

Let's set the stage: a certain Dan Smith, a.k.a. Listener, an MC and founding member of Deepspace5 - a central band of the Christian rap galaxy - came back in 2010 with two new friends, a bassist (Kristen Smith) and a […]
Published on Tuesday 24 September 2013 at 23:03 in Albums

CYPHA 7 - Got Struggle!

How many records like this? How many of these small masterpieces, released at the wrong time, in the wrong place? How many never reached the right audience, the right ears, and ended in the dustbin of the music history, […]
Published on Sunday 15 September 2013 at 12:08 in Albums

CESCHI - They Hate Francisco False

Over time, Julio Francisco Ramos, a.k.a. Ceschi Ramos, or just Ceschi, has become a key member of the indie rap scene. Based in Connecticut, but close to the West Coast Underground, he collaborated with people as diverse […]
Published on Wednesday 11 September 2013 at 23:20 in Albums

BUCK 65 - Secret House Against The World

Released in 2003, Talkin' Honky Blues was Buck 65's second album for Warner, and the first to really sound like a major label record. It was the first, also, to be thoroughly advertised. There, Buck 65 completed his […]
Published on Monday 2 September 2013 at 23:21 in Albums

THAVIUS BECK - Thru

Contrary to what his experimentalist posture suggests, Thavius Beck's music has sometimes been too easy. The ex producer of Global Phlowtations, one of its few members who met some kind of critical recognition in the 2000's, thanks to his releases with Mush Records, Plug Research and Big Dada, sometimes spoiled his music with too many effects and pyrotechnics, and with some big, threatening electronic sounds, sounding like an exaggeratedly gothic version of hip-hop. Many times, though, the individual proved that he was really gifted and talented.

Published on Wednesday 21 August 2013 at 23:10 in Albums

CLOUDDEAD - cLOUDDEAD

Appeared by the end of the 1990's, out of the indie rap movement, Anticon was a world apart in hip-hop's underground scene. Located as many others on the very active Bay Area, but gathering people from multiple places, the label funded by Sole managed to federate a large community of original artists, a collection of marginal and weirdoes, all seeking to challenge the many routines of hip-hop.

Published on Saturday 17 August 2013 at 15:44 in Albums

TOOLSHED - Schemata

Making one's best so that hip-hop looks like a live experience, strengthening raps with the sounds of "real" instruments, has not always been a successful approach. The most famous group which tried to go this way, The Roots, has sometimes failed at it, coming dangerously close to boredom. And when a rapper proves to be good at this, it is more often in concerts than on records. Toolshed, though, a group from London, Ontario, used this formula fantastically on their second album, a record blended with bouncing guitar, drums, bass and saxophone sounds, reinforced with facetious and dynamic raps, and full of rhythm and scratches.

Published on Thursday 15 August 2013 at 11:07 in Albums

PIGEON JOHN - Sings the Blues

In 2004, along with a collection of poems, Pigeon John released the South Bay Blues EP. This had been the best and most personal record ever delivered by this LA Symphony ex-member, also a Good Life Café regular. It was 8 tracks long only, but each of them was no less than exceptional. They were worth "What is Love?!" and "Emily", the best songs on Pigeon John is Dating your Sister, the rapper's previous album. This EP, however, had not been advertised enough to find its public, and it was more easily available as illegal MP3s than as a regular record. Eventually, we had to wait for a new album, Pigeon John Sings the Blues - the last the mixed-race rapper released on Basement Records before he joined Quannum Projects - to finally get hold of these 8 marvels, but in a new version.

Published on Thursday 8 August 2013 at 11:08 in Albums
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