Kenn Starr, Blacktivity, Wordsworth, Supastition, Black Milk and more

Kenn Starr has reportedly gone back to the drawing board despite critical acclaim of his first release. Nothing wrong with keeping to the fundamentals and a posse cut has always been a classic move. Taken from his latest LP "Square One" Washington's finest bought a few friends along. 

Detroit is well known for it's high calibre of artists and Blacktivity is no exception; the crew have dropped thier first LP and it's a very nice slice of hip hop documenting a blue collar lifestyle full of reality, hopes, fears, dope beats and scratches. MC Ill Tone provides the on point lyrics (including a very nice nod to Wu Tang on Data Day) and the production is held done wonderfully by Shade Cobain. The creativity of this album is seriously impressive, it has been a while since I've heard something fresh with so many ideas and themes. "Photo Album" is a great concept, as it "Death of an Artist" which tells a familiar but sad tale of broken creative dreams, while "Wedding Crashers" goes on a joyfully mischeaveous jaunt of nonsense. The overall tone of the album is very nuanced but ultimately positive. I'm especially interested in the message delivered in the Outro about the effects of translation; however have no idea where it came from. I will investigate; in the meantime check out the whole album.


And finally....I meant to blog this incredible track a while ago as soon as I stumbled over it...Now this is what I call a collection of Emcees! 

Eat Good 2015 Cypher, UK Music Industry Event Plus New Music Out of Washington DC from Gerreddi

Very pleased to hear that Birmingham city will be hosting an event to get the UK rap scene together to develop a more coherent industry. DJ Miss C Brown has put together a lively selection of videos from classic and new UK artists as a showcase for the event on 24th January. Hard to say exactly how a more cohesive scene could be made, especially as music seems increasingly to be seen as something that should be available for free, or at the very least at a much lower monetary value than yesteryear. How successful different approaches can be is up for debate, and especially in rap and hip hop there's inevitably lots of cliques and differences of styles and opinion going on; one set of 'like minds' do not always see eye to eye with another set so will be interesting to see if answers come out of this.....I know Malik from MD7 does a whole heap of work in this area so those attending will be in a privileged position to hear him.

Very fitting that this event is coming to Birmingham, as the ever heavy Brum collective Eat Good have just released this banging cypher featuring RedBeard, Kosyne, Gen Uchiha and representing good Ol' East Anglia new recruit Booda French. Check this out, then head to the Eat Good website for a prime example of a business model built from the ground up with a very clear focus on style and quality product.

Finally, back to the global Inbox and Washington native Gerreddi delivers a track pushing a positive frame of mind in the face of hate and the ills of society, with the "Black Lives Matter" featuring heavily in the video. Not entirely cohesive lyrically I reckon but it stands out from the generice bling trap music that continues to jam up the Vocalswords PO Box.