Fake For Real – page 19

THE UNDERACHIEVERS - Indigoism

Based in Brooklyn, The Underachievers are presented as affiliates to the Beast Coast movement, a band of rappers somehow associated with A$AP Rocky and his A$AP Mob collective, and whose most prominent member is Joey […]

MIKE LADD - Welcome to the Afterfuture

It had been predictable: sooner or later, hip-hop would have turned progressive. This happened, indeed, by the late 1990's, as one of the major trends behind the indie rap movement. Only a few, however, represented as well as Mike Ladd did this willingness to anticipate the future, to go beyond rap or, for some, to renew the experimentalism of hip-hop's beginnings.

ALLEY BOY - Definition of F#ck Sh*t 2

Rap music is still going well in Atlanta, judging by the output of a Gucci Mane, the advent of new stars like Waka Flocka Flame and Future, and the hype around newcomers like, for example, Trinidad James. The good […]

ARSONISTS - As the World Burns

1999 was a year full of expectations, as far as the Arsonists' first album was concerned. Having become underground icons after a series of singles released on Fondle'em and Serchlite, their growing reputation had allowed them to join Matador. This rock label, at this time, was interested in the indie rap scene, having also signed Non Phixion. And it offered to the group formerly known as the Bushwick Bomb Squad, and affiliated to the famed Rock Steady Crew, a unique way to reach an extended audience with its incandescent kind of rap.

THESIS SAHIB - Loved Ones

This was Clothes Horse's second life. After it released the very special records of its founding members, the Saskatoon label had taken care of Canadian rap's lost legends. It started in 2004, with Recyclone, whose first […]

AESOP ROCK - Skelethon

Stimulated by the rise of a new generation of creative artists, the old underground from the late 90's is currently looking like it is back from the dead. In 2012, several of its key players - El-P, Bigg Jus, Brother Ali, I Self Devine, Busdriver, Dose One, Radioinactive, and even Mhz - released an album sometimes after long years of silence. The most relevant of all, though, may very well be Aesop Rock.

GUNPLAY - Bogota Rich: The Prequel

The endless bursts of a machine gun. The horrific screams of a panicking women. Crescendos built with the help of booming synthesizers. Martial choruses. All of these played very loudly. And also, most importantly, the raspy and enraged voice of Gunplay himself, rapping in a breathless way, as if today was his last day. Those who assumed that nothing could be more extreme than the brutal Inglorious Bastard, he released in 2011, were completely wrong. The song "Jump Out" is insane, it is just utter madness. It goes beyond anything heard before.

ELIGH - Poltergeist

In 2003, Eligh Nachowitz was not a newcomer. Any fan willing to explore deeper than hip-hop's most obvious faces already knew his remarkable As They Pass (1996) and Gas Dreams (1999) albums. This time, however, the rapper was ready to reach the upper level. Thanks to his group's – the Living Legends – growing reputation; thanks, also, to Poltergeist, a consistent, haunted, and poetic record, stronger than his previous releases.

RADIOINACTIVE - Pyramidi

So many years later, the bizarre and indigestible Pyramidi is just a distant memory, some remainder of the early 2000's and the short-lived abstract hip-hop era represented by labels such as Mush and Anticon. And though, and though… it aged much better that so many other records released by the same time by similar minded artists.

EYEDEA - The Many Faces Of Oliver Hart

For those, by the early 2000's, no longer satisfied with Slug, Eyedea is an alternative. Having joined the Rhymesayers clique while still a teenager, won the Scribble Jam in 1999 - against P.E.A.C.E., no less - and made […]

ALOE BLACC - Good Things

What made the difference between Good Things and other revivalist initiatives of the same kind, was Aloe Blacc's ability to update a well-known formula in an almost imperceptible way. It was, also, his superior feeling for music, which he developed by learning to play "real" instruments. It was thanks to these, and many other details, that Aloe proved that nu soul could be, at times, something much better than a tasteless old recipe for aging folks.

MICRANOTS - Return of the Travellahs

In the year 2000, the Micranots made an impression with Obelisk Movements, a record full of hallucinated and apocalyptic undie rap they had released under Bigg Jus' sponsorship, on his Sub Verse label. This had not been their first album, tough. As early as in the mid-90's, I Self Devine (MC) and Kool Akiem (DJ) had already recorded the Return of the Travellahs cassette, which easily bears the comparison with their later record.

SUBTITLE - I'm Always Recovering from Tomorrow

It starts with an almost unremarkable track, a very cold kind of rap declaimed with a deep voice from the back of the bathroom, and built on a few piano keys ("Textbook Life"). The three following songs are as […]

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