Hi, Verbal. I’m going to New Hampshire for the next four days and won’t have wireless. Step your post game up.

#TECB

I haven’t been on TECB in almost three weeks — not because I don’t have an inbox chock full of great music to post, or by way of Verbal’s taste in hip-hop making me wish I was the cop tied to the chair in Reservoir Dogs, but due to the simple fact that life gets hectic sometimes. This past week in particular has been non-stop, unfortunately with the downs outweighing the ups. I’ll be sure to depress you more in the posts to come, but the point I’d like to make here is how some music is too good to sit in your email account.

Enter Matty Mischief. My dude reached out to me today about the next track off of Bigger in My Own Mind, his upcoming and highly anticipated solo album. If you haven’t heard of said album as of yet, kindly ask the person closest to horse-kick you in the nether region. Hopefully the genital pain you’re now experiencing will get you to pay closer attention to The Echo Chamber Blog and our coverage of Rhode Island hip-hop, as you’ve done missed a scorcher with Emilio Lopez and a cut that’s so fucking stupid, Corky Thatcher now feels like the latest leather-bound volume of Encyclopedia Britannica.

Anyway, the track he sent over — featuring Matty’s Now or Never rhyme-partner Meta P and DJ Sterbyrock of the locally based Dead Letter squad on the cuts — has a title fitting for both my return to TECB and the quality of music it represents: “Need That.”

Creek that…

…and speak on that…

North Carolina is known for many things. Most notably, it’s the home of Duke and the University of North Carolina where legacies of Michael Jordan and Coach “K” started. The state has been in the news recently, but for more unfortunate reasons that I won’t get into because I’m pretty sure WordPress is owned and operated by fascists. That’s heresy. Or is it?

ANYWAY, I was fortunate to sit down with a much brighter spot from that region, Mallz. If you’re not familiar with the rapping man from the land of Raleigh-Durham, hit the jump and press play on his new single, “Sleeping Giant,” and then sit down and take a breath full of everything Mallz, Voltron, Plymouth Reliants, and star-studded rap collabs:

Verbal Spacey: If you could, give us a little difference between The I In Team, your forthcoming album with X3M, and Service Entrance, your album released just over a year ago.

Mallz: When I started working on Service Entrance back in 2007, my group that I had been in since my sophomore year in college parted ways and I wanted to make an album that was all about me. I’ve been rapping for a really long time and most of that time has been as a part of a group so it was really important for me to establish myself as a solo artist and not just “that guy from this group” or “So And So’s homeboy”. I really wanted to go back to the days when an emcee held down a whole album by himself – no features. With The I In Team, I wanted to do the opposite. I started working on it during the summer of 2011 and I never reached out to other rappers for my own songs, so I decided to holla at a couple of people (thank God and Oprah for Twitter). I actually came up with the title back in 2006 or so when a member of my old group and I were going to do an album as a duo. Glad that album never happened…I kinda suck at coming up with titles.

VS: The I In Team is of the one-MC-one-producer mold that, if Chris and I at TECB can speak for all, everyone enjoys. Do you have a preference of working with one producer over working with many for one project?

M: I can’t say I prefer it over working with many producers for the simple fact that I get in moods where I’m really diggin’ a certain thing for a certain amount of time. I’m what some would call a “hip-hop purist”. I like the consistency of working with just one producer for a project, but I also like the variety of sounds you get from working with a number of producers. Just so happens that I have three solo projects coming out this year, all of which are just one MC/one producer. I will say, it’s a whole hell of a lot easier to work with just one producer.

VS: To me, it seems like there is a greater chance of cohesiveness with one producer on one project, but on Service Entrance for example, the handful of production credits didn’t deter from the album.On that album you worked with Nubbz and now X3M, two overseas based producers, how does a Carolinian hook up with a Dutchman and a Serbian?

M: Yeah, it’s definitely easier to get a consistent vibe, working with one producer. I linked up with Nubbz on Twitter. I have no idea how we ended up following each other. I just remember the album being almost finished, and I was wanting  an intro track to set it off. I got at Nubbz and asked him for something with horns to open up the album and that was that.

X 3M actually contacted me first, last year, through Myspace of all places. He worked with my man, Big Hop on a couple of projects and I guess Hop told him about me. Normally, when I get an email saying I have a Myspace message, I’ll just delete it right away but I happened to check the message that day. The first joint we did together was a song called “The Way That It Is” on his album, titled Junkyard. Then he came up with the idea of doing an EP together and I loved that he had a different sound than a lot of other producers so I was more than down to collab. We exchanged email addresses and started working.

VS: Damn I should check my MySpace to see if it has any messages. Hip-hop is definitely global, there is no denying that, but closer to home is AMSOC, The First In Flight State’s rap coalition that you call family. Is the Alpha Male Society like a Wu-Tang Clan, guys that came up rhyming together or more of a Slaughterhouse, guys that got together later in their rhyming lives to form a Voltron-like unit?

M: We come together like Voltron, and Gza just happens to be the head, nahm’sayn. Nah, but we’re a collective of emcees – in the same vein as Native Tongues, DITC, Juice Crew, The Gangstarr Foundation, etc. There’s actually a duo within the collective called N’dangr Species. Alpha Male Society is Big Hop’s brainchild. He hit everyone up around September of 2011 or so and explained his vision and we were all down to combine our talents and resources. Everyone in AMSOC is from a different place – I’m in Raleigh, but I’m from a small, northeastern NC town called Harrellsville, Big Hop is from Newport News, Va, Luse Kanz is from Brooklyn. The crazy thing is, Big Hop, Luse Kanz, Maf Maddix and I all went to the same college together but we never linked up while we were there. I had my little crew, Big Hop had his and I believe Luse and Maf were soloists. I knew about Diablo Archer from an old NC based hip hop message board back in ’04 and I was introduced to H2OKZ and Don DiGiorgio from checking out their collabs with Big Hop. So yeah, we rep Raleigh, Greenville, Rocky Mount, Greensboro, Newport News, etcetera…etcetera…etceteraaaa. I might be the only rapper to use a reference from The King And I.

VS: Rogers and Hammerstein were the Lord Tariq and Peter Gunz of their day. Wait… what? With AMSOC projects, your own projects, and a 9-to-5, is it hard to go from working-stiff mode to rap-mode? Since I’ve started blogging and interacting with tons of artists I’ve been humbled by the fact most artists are regular folks just like me. When I wasn’t blogging and was “just” a fan, the thought of artists needing to pay rent, mortgages, car payments, and Girls Gone Wild subscriptions never crossed my mind.

M: You love the combination of steel drums and drunken, co-ed boobs too, huh? Balancing a day job with my music isn’t too hard, considering the fact that I don’t really do a whole lot else. I’ve never been the type to hang out a lot, so unless I’m at a show, I’m at the crib, writing rhymes, watching movies or chilling.

It is frustrating, however, because I’m broke as hell; working for someone else and their vision when I could be broke as hell, working for myself and my own vision. Everyday I wake up imagining me telling my boss to kiss every ass he can find, but I think about these bills and student loans…then I clock in and zone out for eight hours.

VS: Telling a  boss to kiss an ass or many ass is a dream of mine. Another dream of mine is dropping an Echo Chamber LP featuring Kool G Rap on every track. And yet another dream of mine is to grow most of, if not all of my hair back. But more importantly, it’s the second dream. If Mallz found a magic rap-genie lamp, who would Mallz rap with if cost was no option and was just about making music?

M: Man, it could take me all day to answer that question. There’s so many guys I would be honored to trade bars with so I’ll cheat and name a few of em. Rakim and Big Daddy Kane are at the top of the list. They were, and still are my hip hop heroes. Black Thought, Pharoahe Monch, the entire Native Tongue crew, Elzhi, Jean Grae, Skyzoo, Phonte, Heltah Skeltah and just for the hell of it, The Rapping Duke.  His infatuation with Aretha Franklin bordered scary.

I guess that’s more than a few, huh?

VS: Duh-ha, duh-ha. I have a similar infatuation with Lois Griffin. I’ve been told she’s not real. Mallz with Ruck n’ Rock would be dope, so when that TECB album gets in motion I’ll make that happen. I’ll just need to sell a couple of kidneys and livers and ovaries first.

I could have gone with a hundred different Beastie Boys videos or tracks to lead this post off, but I decided “No Sleep ‘Til Brooklyn” was fitting for a couple of reasons. The opening skit they perform embodies their entire career. They are 100% hip-hop but have blended many genre lines since their inception. Plus this is arguably their most recognizable song of their vast catalog.

I can remember back home in Rhode Island almost never hearing Beastie Boys records on the rap stations, maybe when I was in high school and they’d throw this song on the lunch-time-rewind shows. But WAAF in Boston played their fair share of Beasties, as did WHJY in Providence, both stations predominantly rock-based. There is no editorializing here, it just always struck me as odd that it worked out that way back home. But, that’s radio. And they do fucked up things.

My best friend from elementary school through high school and I would rock his brother’s Beastie Boys tapes until they wore out. I remember buying him Paul’s Boutique for his birthday one year. At Strawberries for probably $19.99. I remember he got the Anthology for Christmas the year that came out and we made his mom play it in their Suburban. We would listen to the Beastie Boys and stare at his posters of Jenny McCarthy scantily clad for hours on end. The trio was on in the background during our first halfies, that’s for sure. Shout out to Jenny McCarthy, where ever the fuck you are.  My brother and I would blast Ill Communication at inaudible levels whenever we had the house to ourselves. The liner notes had lyrics in those days so “Get it Together” was one of the first rap songs I can recall reciting. I can’t believe I can still remember all the lyrics. Whenever someone says “the phone is ringing” to this day, no matter the instance, I finish and say “Oh my god!” in my best Q-Tip voice.

Fast forward to this morning, May 4th, 2012. I slept in because my insomnia kicked in full speed late last night, so I hit the snooze at 9:00 A.M. I briefly checked my phone as usual and saw all the nonsense I get every morning from Living Social and random Twitter updates. Nothing of any importance. Back to slumber I go. When I got up for good about an hour and a half later I checked my phone and saw a text from my close friend Angela who knows of my love for Beastie Boys, or at least my appreciation of them, and a fellow huge music fan herself. It read: “Adam Yauch what the fuck.” I asked,”Adam Yauch what??” in reply, but why else would she have texted me that exact phrase.

I knew as soon as I read it. My heart sank before I had a chance to get out of bed and drink a glass of water, before I could get the shit out of my eyes, before I even sat up. I immediately hit my Twitter time line to skim all the up-to-the-minute reports and cats where already quoting MCA lines and saying R.I.P. “Rest In Peace?,” I was thinking, “how can we be saying that already, I JUST found out. Let it sink in for Christ’s sake.” I scrolled through more trying to find a glimpse of hope, wishing it was another “Twitter-death” that some sick fuck somewhere started. But HipHopDX.com’s account verified it and then AP and all the other news outlets. Fuck. It’s true. The first actual words out of my mouth today, ten minutes after battling the news in bed, telling my girlfriend who was at her desk working already; “MCA died.” She of course already knew.

I see the public outcry when celebrities die all the time and I almost always find it foolish. I’ve never once been sad when someone in the public eye passed on. When Guru died I wasn’t sad. I was extremely angry, but not sad. I get sad when his anniversary comes around each year now, but I think the anger out weighed the sadness at the outset. Mainly because he was victim of a “Twitter-death” himself before his passing, so it took awhile to set in. Then all that bullshit that Solar put out seemingly five minutes later. That dude needs to be in the ground, not Guru or Yauch.

But there was something different about MCA. He was there in rap-form with me and my brother, with me and my best friend Joe, for so many years. And he was with me well into my blogging career, always in heavy rotation, many years later. Songs and albums almost as old as me, still spinning in my car, computer, and headphones. It finally hit me that he was gone once I tried to open the ‘fridge and get my day officially started. It made me realize that a piece of my childhood died. Which is the most cliché thing I’ve ever written but that’s the only way to explain it. I was in a funk all day, removed from my reality and distant.

I got emotional a second time when I texted my friend Susie about it. I knew her and her husband Michael, who looks a lot like MCA, are big fans too. Beastie Boys had come up numerous times throughout our friendship and she mentioned to me one of the first times she got in my car, I had one of their albums playing. “That’s when I knew you were awesome!,” she said. Which was easily one of the nicest things someone has said to me, and, hyperbole or sincere, I cried in a god-damned coffee shop upon reading it.

MCA, Ad Rock, and Mike D, and a little later Mix Master Mike, grew up with me. Whether that’s fanboy-dom, or being a “Stan” (that pains me, by the way, that Eminem of all people has is credited with that popular hip-hop vernacular … I digress) or whatever, it’s true. Through puberty, first all-nighter, first drink, first joint, first drive with my own license, first car, first apartment, my trip across the country, the pages of my blog, and most certainly my wedding, whenever that jump-off goes down. Oh and can’t forget karaoke. Yikes.

My thoughts are with Adam Yauch’s family and everyone’s life he’s influenced. A girl chasing, Brass Monkey drinking hoodlum, to a non-swearing, non-violent mostly vegan Buddhist, MCA transformed before our eyes and never once lost a fan for it or lost hip-hop credibility. These guys were and are my heroes and Adam Yauch will be sorely missed in the music world. And from now on, every time I hear a Beastie Boys song, more than ever before I’m going to revisit their time spent with me over the years.

One of the illest examples of cover art right there. That’s actually a split cover of the two latest singles from the good people over at Reservoir Sound, both courtesy of 11:00A.M, the group comprised of MC Eleven on the mic, A.M. Breakups creating the music, and Shortrock with the ill cuts. “Forrealism” and “Mother Earth” are available for your downloading pleasure over at the brand new ReservoirSound.com. If those songs sound familiar it’s because you heeded my advice and downloaded MC Eleven’s M-Theory mix tape. If you need yet another reminder, “Toast” and “Elevenocalypse” are right underneath our year-in-reviews.

Now if those song titles don’t sound familiar, here is your chance for a reprieve.

and…

Each “single” is actually 3-tracks. “Forrealism” comes with a remix by Willie Green and “Mother Earth” comes with a remix by Jeff Markey. These tracks are all fresh and it would behoove you to spend your free.99 on them. All it takes is mouse clicks. MC Eleven and A.M. Breakups are true innovators and the Boston-based Shortrock can scratch better than Johnston, Rhode Island guidette fight.

Please let me know what you think. Hit the comment section, ya dig?

Brother Ali is one of those cats that I’ll stop whatever it is I’m doing to scope out their latest work. Luckily I don’t do many important things for this to be a detriment to society. “Not a Day Goes By,” the latest song from the Street Preacher’s upcoming album, is the latest in such events. Mourning in America and Dreaming in Color should be out relatively soon, and, since Jake One and Brother Ali is a combination where no one loses, the wait will be justified.

Chris had forwarded me this video a few weeks back, mainly because he knew I liked Zumbi (Zion I). I’ve had the pleasure of seeing the O.G. One Be Lo live but DJ Twelvz and Tableek are new to me. But from what I heard from this track, they’re pretty nice.

One Be Lo, Tableek and DJ Twelvz have an album in the works, Clutch Life, which should drop later this Summer. It’s pretty dope how these guys stretch from all points of the country, geographically speaking. One Be Lo from Michigan, DJ Twelvz from Oakland and Tableek from Springfield, Mass; these guys could represent the U.S. at the next G8 Summit. Or could make music, either way.

As always keep it locked to TECB for more from the trio and other rappity-rap raps.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine — TEN.

No, I’m not going to rap the “Ten Blog Commandments” to you. That’s my way of saying I’m done for the day. It’s Saturday, I don’t want to feel like any more of a lame-brain, and I’m about to hit the first keg party I’ve been to since the passing of Danno the Clown on last year’s Independence Day.

That said, let’s wrap this up. Here’s the new Regina Spektor joint that was shipped-out to the internets moments ago:

It’ll be on What We Saw From the Cheap Seats, her sixth studio album that will make its way to shelves and all major digital outlets on May 29. In case you missed the first two singles, “All the Rowboats” can be watched and “Ne Me Quitte Pas” can be heard by following those respective links.

Regina. Tweet.

Remember a few minutes back when I posted about Odditorium, the new EP from the double-threat of emcee x producers Alan the Chemist and Dr. No? This is their new video.

Creek it.

O.C. is a boss on the mic, and, when he’s over some quality production, it’s not even a debate — dude is easily one of the best. He always has been, and his latest project with Detroit beat-maker Apollo Brown proves that nothing is stopping him from continuing to be a dominant figure in hip-hop.

Give a listen to “People’s Champ”:

Dwayne Johnson co-signs the shit out of that track, which is featured on O.C. and Apollo’s recently released Trophies. You can buy it from Fat Beats or UGHH; mp3 geeks have the options of BandCamp or iTunes.