ESSENTIAL HIP-HOP REVUE
WORDS: MATT OLIVER
Singles/EPs
As the seasons change and a slightly woollier wardrobe comes into view, Rapture & Verse notes that Danny Brown has got his trademark gap tooth grin fixed, Flavor Flav is reportedly suing Chuck D in a royalty dispute, and that one-off, zillion dollar Wu-Tang album is now an eBay listing (brand new with tags, one careful owner). Representing the sound of such events slowly going haywire, Bisk & Goosewater go bobbing for battery acid beats on ‘bsidegoosevol.1’ and ‘Cream Soda’: witch doctors looking at hip-hop through the rear view mirror in pursuit of the ultimate boom bap hangover. Pete Cannon’s Luna C instrumental issuing a ‘Reality Check’ chases Roots Manuva’s ‘Witness’ down a back alley while leading a marching band on the run from banditos. With a hook having a go because it knows it’s hard enough, VersesBang’s ‘What You Think’ brings Gutta along for a ride of grimy, ghoulish trap bending everything and everyone out of shape. Walking in a London wonderland, Ty’s ‘Brixton Baby’ represents his home postcode with a feathery eyewitness account.
‘Live from the Iron Curtain’, Apathy & OC have ways of making you speak as they turn the square red, the latter upstaging the former by a nose on a funky headhunter. In their roles of ‘Wounded Healer’ and ’Galvanometer’, Opio and Homeboy Sandman prize open ears with their own medicating methods and win out with a selection of alternatives. You can’t argue with someone whose “repertoire can unhinge a reservoir”. Sandman then reprises his critter-hop role alongside Aesop Rock as ‘Triple Fat Lice’: five tracks of entertaining, endlessly quotable, maverick termite surrealism. Go ‘head and let them lay eggs in your speakers.
Don’t look down when clipping begin to ripple, ‘The Deep’ dealing in the loneliness of the life aquatic but then quickening its stroke as it potently starts to smell blood from a mile away. Jeru the Damaja and The Beatnuts’ Psycho Les as the Funky Pandas are an odd couple task force getting the job done on the stunner snythed ‘Dope Dealer’. Tuck in your napkin for Dillon and Diamond D’s ‘Black Tie Affair’: five courses you’ll easily find room for, including moreish first person script flipper ‘Femme Fatale’.
Albums
The smooth sound of your last lava lamp bubble popping, rhyme regulator Bendaddict, soul chanteuse Ella Mae and closing time producer Slim explore the properties of ‘Teal’. More than just a neo-soul filing, the trio, with nods to Jehst and Erykah Badu, happen on a chemistry wrapping a collective arm around you that autumnal types will lap up. Dying embers hip-hop, producing plenty of heat and warmth.
A duo playing the game their own way, The Jones Brothers’ ‘Roughs with the Smooth’ is Joker Starr and AnyWay Tha God catching themselves between suave crime-solving bonnet sliders, street teachers for the people, and old London town hatchet men you shouldn’t unlock your door to. El Ay’s funk and soul is the real linchpin, providing the album’s expensively suited drama while barely breaking sweat. The ‘Two Man Band’ of Ash the Author and Krang puts the mic in a full nelson and gives ears a lesson they won’t forget in a hurry. While ATA treats the first ten rows to eight tracks of full on phlegm throttle, Krang mixes up rockers and twinkles, as the pair’s styles play off one another in a time honoured beats-and-rhymes system. Anything but two-bob.
It’s a typical day in the office for Action Bronson when he starts stacking his new brand of ‘Blue Chips 7000’. Force of personality plays a comic book hero only normally found in fan fiction, wielding outrageous one liners, a Rick Ross collabo and yacht-shot funkiness that he’s either feeling or oblivious too. All of which equates to Bronson’s autopilot mode still yielding plenty of listener gains, putting hip-hop pedestrians in their place.
Handing around a helping of ‘Anchovies’, Planet Asia and Apollo Brown join forces to divide and conquer. The former’s world-weathered flow is constantly jabbing, poking and irking you, prepared to argue whether night follows day. The latter gently rocks back and forth, unconcerned with arguing the toss upon inhaling old vinyl dust, asleep with one eye open so you never write him off. A soul go-slow with cat-like reflexes.
Next to alter the axis of those thinking they don’t like hip-hop is Grieves. Melodic and chart friendly without overdoing the softener, the Seattle emcee reaches into the realms of Mac Miller and Brother Ali on ‘Running Wild’ with lightness of flow that can still mean something to make him Rhymesayers through and through. Swedish producer Chords is in his corner, laying down sun-blushed synths and live funk using a most modern urban lounge filter.
Confused about ‘The World Today’? Wordsworth’s your man for a concise breakdown, articulating the everyday as a keynote speaker and bringing enough entertainment to steady the undiluted truths. Sam Brown on production clocks in with exactly what the emcee needs: chest beaters, daggers to the heart, and, as per Wordsworth’s flow carrying a spirited edge pledging “holy matrimony with the audience”, assurances that everything’s gonna be alright even when the chips are down.
Northern dramatists Ceiling Demons bring an interesting thespian element to the game on ‘Nil’, a folk-influenced performance quaffing from a psychedelic cauldron. Rhymes are recitals (but not your oik-ish street poet, think more Ed Scissor & Lamplighter educated by Blackadder), and beats paint pictures of royalty trying to resist the ravages of dread and paranoia, rather than just throwing the emcees a loop. Living and dying by their definition of the dark arts, this will greatly benefit your gramophone.
Wiki’s observation that there’re ‘No Mountains in Manhattan’ should land him a top 10 spot come the end of the year. An aggressive flow that the Ratking member fine tunes into a melodic, sometimes mindful set of skewers, has the keys to a fertile carnival of sound that’s a long way from the candy floss and celebration remit, plus spots from Ghostface and Your Old Droog. Sending out an S-O-S of licks, plucks, squalls and keys, live quartet Son of Sam have got the goods to get a bevy of celebrated underground heroes on board. The team assembled to ascend ‘Cinder Hill’ – J-Live, Masta Ace, Sadat X, Prince Po, Guilty Simpson, Soundsci and more – keeps the hip-hop band template fresh, funky and nimble at every turn, though rather for the great outdoors, they build a fortress of solitude that’s all killer and “raw like Eddie in a leather suit”.
Another month, another heist involving Giallo Point, this time fronted by the plucky PhybaOptikz, a babyface assassin in a pair of Air Max charged with half inching the ‘Voynich Manuscript’. As ever the beats’ mob connections go all the way to the top, with Farma G and Sonnyjim accessories to the firm. Brandishing the jolliest of hockey sticks, noble B-boys Elemental and Dr Syntax are the voice of The Menagerie, a four man funtime team of English pleasantries going hunting for the ‘Odd Beast’. Crystal clear conversation set to super spiffy beats putting the awe in roaring 40s, only step to these toffs if you think you’ve got the teeth to tackle their upper crust.
Ready to smack the monocle off your boat, Legion of Goon’s ‘Project Goon’ plonks the truth out there with a smash and grab of double ‘ard bastard beats and rhymes that are “British like fish and chips” and certified to give you spine splints. Stig of the Dump and Stu the Don blaze up to leave you fearing the beard. Not quite on Stephen King’s coattails but not without steps into darkness, Blockhead’s ‘Funeral Balloons’ signify an instrumental set of trip hop distinctions creating a loop-clearing cross section to challenge any mic contraption.
Blinders to take a peek at this month, from Stylz & Wells, Verb T and Gift of Gab.
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