If you’ve got some time, please allow the Professor of the MPC, IV the Polymath, learn you some beat making. This 8-minute YouTube clip shows IV compiling some record samples and live instruments into an instrumental all with the work of his MPC, turntable, left AND right hands, and some live instruments. My personal favorite, of course, the congas.
This video was actually made last year and IV took to his Twitter account and asked if we’d like to see more. I don’t mind speaking for the collective group of music adorers, but, yes, yes we would. TECB has shown folks freakin’ the MPC before, such as Rhode Island’s own 8th Wundah, which you can watch here, and also when he did it a live battle against AraabMuzik, here. Two totally different styles but both are held in high regard by us in the Echo Lake crew.
Let us know in the comment section what you think and if you would like to show off your producin’-on-the-fly skills, by all means, show us.
The footage ain’t perfection, but you can still hear almost all of the lines. Ironically enough, out of all of the rhymes these two tossed at each other, I think hearing Izma in the background saying K-N-S is wearing “a Freddy Krueger hoodie” made me laugh the hardest. Let me know what you think of the battle… Any favorite lines?
I’ll probably hit this event just because battles happen so rarely around here now. And this MPC battle between 8th and Araab should be pretty dope.
***UPDATE***
This was my first time experiencing Hell, and, aside from the horrific crop-duster that some asshole blessed the building with, I honestly thought the venue was far from the devil’s lair. It had the dingy, yet mysteriously likable feel of The Living Room, and I thought it was an appropriate venue for the event. Both the acapella emcee battles and the main event MPC face-off were heard loudly and clearly, and, despite fans bumrushing the stage to record the Araab x 8th Wundah battle of the beats, I’m willing to bet there will be some good footage to surface — which I hope to continue to update this post with.
Considering the lingering cut-throat atmosphere present at any battle event, there was still a sense of unity amongst the crowd. (At least where I was standing.) Lots of familiar faces were in attendance: Chachi, DJ Therion, Sterbyrock, Sneak Techniks, Lingo, Izma, Jahpan, and Alipone, just to name a few of the longtime locals, were there to observe the happenings. T, now part of P.O.W. Camp, was also at the show. Raise, former battler on the local scene, had his hand in on the event handling some of the hosting and promotional duties for the evening, as well. Shit, even Sneaky fucking Pete didn’t budge from the place with the base after Marshall Law smacked him with a blind-sided bar.
Anyway, here’s what I thought of the show…
Like every hip-hop show since the beginning of time, things started off a little later than expected. That meant a few of the acts weren’t allowed to perform, which was a little disappointing because I was looking forward to hearing some recent material from T – who I haven’t heard or seen since the last Mic-Wars when he was still going by Reality. However, the young MLK Jr. (anyone remember his name?) student on stage representing “for the ladies” was a definite highlight of the evening. (Have I ever mentioned on TECB how Kriss Kross was my first concert? Respect that.) All of the other time was exclusively for the battles and my consumption of The Champagne of Beers.
The first battle put Milez Grimez against KNS (an acronym I refuse to type out), and, to be honest, I don’t know if any of the battles to follow were able to match the lyrical lashing that Milez dished-out. That said, in short, the rest of the battles went like this: The Marshall Law x Hammer Beanz rematch wasn’t as brutal as the crowd was expecting, but was nonetheless entertaining; M-3 took it to the fake C-Rayz Walz pretty easily; And that guy with more plastic cups than rhymes was easily served by a local emcee whose name eludes me at the moment.
