What a piece of advice! And what a stormer of an EP...classic raps, introspective soul bearing dopeness and beats that absolutely smash it, this is an evocotive piece of work crafted with a depth of soul, acoustic finesse and lyrical accomplishment that makes it a definite to check and download for repeated listening.....a lot of instrumentals on the end of the jams which is great for you aspiring rappers out there to get up and rhyme to your reflection in the window!
I probably need to write in shorter sentences. So check it...
"I can't take it, I'm loosing my childhood favourites, Bill Cosby a rapist & Hulk Hogan a racist"....too true and a sentiment I increasingly find myself relating too. This beautifully produced banger from Endemic Emerald, the seasoned UK heavyweight producer smashing it in NYC sets the scene perfectly for Skanks to deliver topical insights into the messed up world where the Black Lives Matter is increasingly heard but not necessarily addressed.
Bury St Edmund's is pinned definitively on the map by the Scare the Normals crew who present their second full length release "Creepy Brainfood" a very welcome blast of fresh air from the fens incorporating anti-establishment spit fire rhymes with hyped up instrumentals with the classic festival stomping elements of scratching and mind bending sound effects. Serious messages are nicely laced into the fabric of the hectic, feel good vibe while reminding us of perils of modern life; "Diet coke and fluoride giving me a tumor" Apologies but late Sunday eve and there are too many bangers to go in depth review wise on but if you want to mainline the goodness jump straight to "Brass Leaf" for a super smasher of a track.
Marcellus Juvann presents a nicely laid back projects kicking off with "Make my way" which has some lovely sax work intertwining with everyman struggle bars interspersed with some imaginative vignettes such as winning a stare out competition with Medusa. "Do the Right Thing" gives a good account of the dillemas faced in modern life and the percieved need to get the Fat Gold Chain and other shiney trinkets.
You really need to check Scarface's incredible, poignent and disturbing new track. Venting out as only Brad Jordan can he goes in hard as "the evil demons came back" and he reflects with desolation; "Ive been a loyal dude and you can trust that, but loyalty versus greed equals fuck that".
What an absolute stormer! I say that even though the track is relatively laid back tempo and beat wise but the precision of wordplay of Stig and infectious hook from Jehst make this a paradoxically hypnotic yet lyrically super satisfying tour de force. I've played this on repeat many times without the video and it's an absolute banger. Watching the video almost makes it too incredible; the attention to detail and incredible homage to Stanley Kubrick deserves serious respect and attention. Stig's interpretations of leading characters whilst still delivering parts of himself through his bars is very impressive; and the surreal glimpses of Jehst depicting iconic scenes from Kubrick's work makes the whole video a proper classic.
This track should be an absolute classic. It suffers slightly from a lack of consistent engineering and though the beat is hella dope it should be slamming in harder. Aside these criticisms this really shows hiphop in it's most incredibly positive social light; some ill spitting helps deliver a profound message of solidarity and hope whilst gently calling out some of the more mainstream artist who are "ignorant to civil rights like it aint they fight". The incorporation of many people and generations in the video help cement this as a great focal point for positive, collaborative and hopeful music.
Ackurate's new joint describes him as a "Soul Misfit" but in reality the precision of beats and points of view he expresses should have him fitting well into the ears of those appreciative of intelligent and progressive hiphop. No surprise his work is tagged with "90's" and "Underground" on his Bandcamp page; it is indeed a strange state affairs that such non-mainstream tags still need to be applied to what is in fact great quality music that, in the humble opinion of Vocalswords, should actually be getting that big ol' mainstream spotlight. Highlights include The Excursion giving a nice intro to the poetically inspired styles of Ackurate and his world view while 'Vibes' produced by Capo is a smoothly rolling track oozing positivity.
A massive loss to Hip Hop comes with the news that underground legend, Sean Price aka Ruck; one half of the incredible Heltah Skeltah outfit has passed away. I played "Monkey Bars" a few weeks ago in full and was thinking how many other rappers have such complex, entertaining and brutal styles and to be honest I'm not sure there is anyone better. A sad day. I've posted a couple of my favourite clips of Sean P and one of my favourite joints from Monkey Barz; the chemistry dude had with Rock and the incredible skill level is in full effect; Thanks for the work big man.
As Greece faces an uncertain future in terms of it's solvency and relationship to the European Union after an historic vote which may prove pivitol in the history of both democracy and international economic affairs I thought it fitting to play a slice of hiphop from Greece. Fortunately I stumbled fairly quickly over this hopefull sounding banger from Sins; a prophetic "Live as One" hook haunts the track as headknodding melodic flows referencing Cronus provide the subtance that at the moment is unfortunately elusive. Any translaters, or Sins if you are out there get at me to break the lyrics down!
Word up Ron Beatty; I know why they ain't heard about you dog, its cause you sound truthful, humble and honest....give me a lift in your (hopefully electrically powered) Maserati one day and I'll join you leaning out the window yelling! Holler @RonBeattyNC, Video Shot by @Nervreck and @scorpioflo_kob1
"My Instructions came with a typo!....tough life tales from @Mr_VNova but with a poetic flair that keeps it banging along nicely over a Crack Factory beat.
Rass Kass uniting struggles with characteristic hardcore flair here over Domingo's swinging, gun shot laced production.....a shame that the rich are killing the weak but as long as that is the status quo the elite need to watch out for the wrath of Rassy....Domingo has an impressive stack of joints featuring some dope dope emcees, go check it here.
The last one is a big shout out to my girl who complains about too much of hip hop being a bit depressing or over intellectualized (ok, mainly just UK Hip Hop coming mainly from white boys like me). This track is pretty much about hard core bars with a video about having fun, so not too much too complain about from me as long as I am of course overlooking the standard misogyny, crass commercialism etc blah blah blah ah stuff it its been a long day and D.O.S got some bars to cheer me up, is having a great time with his crew so why not!!?
Unbelievably ill, stick this shit on rewind from the former Little Brother heavyweight emcee telling you with force and panache "What you already new" over a banger from Apollo Brown. Also peep the goodness from Napoleon who hold it down getting Biblically inspired with a nice feature from Killah Priest. We finish off with an excellent video for a banging cut where Sim-E smashes the beats up and is ably assisted by the irrepressible Rock of Heltah Skeltah and the ever intriguing Quelle Chris.
Check out this slice of Psychadlic Bovine illness from the Young N Restless camp; Hey!zeus.i asking the important question "....if the lands barren where you graze your flock?" and Kashmere of Strange U giving the sage advice ".......get creative" this tripped out marvelously hypnotic track is completed by The High Plains Drifter kicking in a holy cash cow earning verse. Great to be hearing this original business, great music should be appreciated by all.
And if that's not quite enough high powered lyricism for you check out the new Tony Starks LP "Sour Soul", a tour de force of paired back rhymes allowing a soundscape to showcase some of the illest flows in the game. As Pretty Tony spits....
Pete Rock releases a free download of "Heaven and Earth" a gorgeous instrumental as you may well come to expect; if you're not familiar get to know the man's back catalogue ASAP, true hiphop legend. Watch out for the full length coming from Mellow Music Group coming 23rd June.
The Blah Records camp is in full effect at the moment with Herrotics releasing "Fathead" alongside two videos documenting UK city life to the sounds of some immensely hardcore lyrical rap...Get involved with this and pick up some tasty Blah Merch here, Not gonna put my geographical knowledge neck on the line; if you know which city (ies) are being repped by Herrotics get at me solocypher@gmail.com.
New track "Come Up" gets analytical on the trap situation many increasingly are struggling to escape from. "Praying for a come up" appears to depressingly be the only way out for LouiVon & Young Cam as they get serious over a nice beat from Enlighten. Check the Memorial Day Mixtape Out Here.
Its a pleasure to introduce these next two videos coming from talents representing my current home town of London. First up the cerebral laid back tones of Granville Session's Big Frits goes nicely over a jazzy soulful beat from Cognitive. Frites has a serious flow but humour is always lurking as he's "Staying current like a synonym for raisens" This is a fresh trippy visual that pairs with the other excellent vid "I Drink Coffee" from the man who has just dropped the ill full length banger "The River Wandle,,,I've been lucky to have a sneak peak and it is ill, (top choice so far is Track 16, Sim City prod. Sam Zircon), so....promoters get booking this dude, just remember to put Dim Sum on the menu yeah!? Word to Mr Chips.
Next up is the irrepressible Emerge who destroys with bar after bar of heated bars drawn from his turbulant, wildstyle lifestyle. His passion for life, his people and desire to be at the top of the game is shines through....back on his boss shit!
I've followed Futa for a lil while now and sensed something powerful would come from this talented artist. This track is the one...incredibly powerful lyracism from a cat who needs to be recognised. The opening "One question, have you ever seen a woman cry from methods of genodcide..." shocks and awes the listener into a record that is raw and incredibly painful but ultimately beautifully uplifting.
"Fuck what they told you every soul has a heaven"
Bigging up your home town is one of my favourite parts of hiphop music and Blahz Martell smashes this alongside grammy nominated Camille Carolina.
Brum based emcee legend returns with a very generous serving of Granola with his latest installments, available from Eatgood
Now here's a selection of bar related goodness I've been put onto recently....First Flabbz is going in HARD on Charlie Sloth's 'Fire in the Streets' sessions; followed up by Chester P's contribution....I'm posting it straight up then watching as I already know its gonna be well worth it ha.....then a couple more slabs of heavy weight lyracism firstly with Copywrite putting a great twist on slang with 'Yasin Bey' and then Tre Isaacs vibing out on hyper medula venting operation....
Chima Anya has jumped into a fantastic project with Clem Beats, and this deeply emotional track is the first single with visuals taken from their EP available here. RIP Ade.
A new voice to Vocalswords, Georgia Anne Muldrow is certainly no novice and this powerful track gives a lyrical knockout to the commercial world of pop rap.
First Up, really digging this, a fantastic audio back drop from RjD2 gives STS the perfect canvas to throw down knowledge....
Vocalswords try to keep things on a righteous tip and I was excited to find this selection of collabs with def rhyme spitter Nutso...so got a bit worried by the uber violent "The Reaper" but then taking it for the extended metaphore it is decided to give it the benefit of the doubt; concerns over the presentation of uber violence, misogyny and all the usual difficult subjects stick with me as the tape progresses; however the fact that many of the rhymes in this project give a much better defined narrative with explanatory caveats (or just the Nutso " FucK You Attitude") than the majority of music (much of which often only contains about the total of 2 sentences of actual lyrics) that I'm getting daily through the inbox means it deserves to be heard...especially the Ras Kass appearance from around 15mins in...plus an existential take on Shakespeare around 22mins in....will balance out the hip hop karma I reckon!....
And whoosh...that was February gone! Such a short month sometimes feels like it doesn't even exist, and a big job changeover as meant a chance to chill in hiphop land has been lacking 'till now...Luckily the Legendary Ludacris has decided to smash back into the booth to remind new jacks who's got the Juice..."You rap like something behind ya"...Some speculation on the Youtube comments that this is aimed at Drake; I don't care either way but if there is a reply it better be fire!....Freshness!
Always love to see a Large Pro release in my inbox....always a guarantee of quality and the Hook says it all...Megadon slams hard and the chorus rocks hard with "Ay yo this Chemistry will make you form ideas, and make things clear, Y'All B Squared"....delivered by the wonderfully voiced Medina Green; an old school hero for producing some of the illest early joints alongside Mos Def....Damn Right We Breakin' Atoms!
An academic career nearly de-railed by drugs, a teaching zipping out disses to wanna be G's in his class, and a pot head puking up at a bar.....got to say bravo to Bravado for repping his profession and presenting a banging record. Along with Alumni SC Static and No Name well crafted bars come flying out covering many ideas and themes common to many young men, nicely paralleling the life of Johnny Cash, as depicted in the film and song, Walk the Line. No prizes for creative sample flipping here but an enjoyable and interesting slab of a track.
A cool combination here over a mellow beat gets the best out of these emcees, it's always particularly good to hear Sean P get reflective, even when as expected it's sandwiched betwen a plethora of depressing gun imagry. Tragedy Khadafi holds it down nicely as do Oowop the Don/Kima Rocel
Teaming up with DJ Nifty this second LP combines outer space beats with tales of the city and lyrical chicanery
Solocypher - Citizen Framed Download
Debut 2003 album features Chima Anya, Kid Anime, Serious, Concept, Eliza and Kaf. Includes smash hits "Selly Oak" "One Love one Life" and "This is what happens (when you don't stay sane) Email solocypher@gmail.com for a proper version!
Change Through The Rhyme
Check Solocypher trading international bars with Scholarman over heavy D'Logic beat
