“Playing Jenga with real buildings”? Toki Wright is beastly. If you haven’t heard of the Rhymesayers alum, you’re snoozing and drooling on yourself and looking foolish. 2009′s A Different Mirror gets nice, and, with this little verse right here over a Lord Finesse production, the dude easily smashes on every submission I’ve received so far in ’13.
Filed under: Hip-Hop, Music, Yo! TECB Raps | Tagged: Rhymesayers Entertainment, RSE, Toki Wright | Leave a Comment »
A 2011 version of “Fuck The Police.” It’s disturbing that the fine folks at Strange Famous found so many video clips of police brutality readily available on the interwebs to use in this video. If this record doesn’t sum up 2011 as a whole I’m not sure what does. All the pigs who spray and beat peaceful protesters and cover up their badges with black tape have to be the biggest cowards I’ve ever read about. That includes dead beat dads and frat boys hazing each other. The utter thought that the biggest gang in America can forcefully remove protesters without any repercussions makes us look just like the countries in the middle east that have been over throwing their governments since earlier this year.
Yet we’re supposed to be the most powerful, all knowing, all mighty America. BART Police are straight up murderers, Providence Police are straight up drug kingpins and racketeerers, NYPD is a lowly group of high school educated, overweight, scum bags that break up hip-hop shows because a large group of black people are having fun (look up the Pete Rock & Smif-N-Wessun show from earlier this year if that last one confuses you.)
Sage Francis and his paternal twin B. Dolan, and most everyone else from the Strange Famous camp for that matter, have been showing support for the Occupy Wall Street movement since its inception. Me, personally, I think they need to sit down, reorganize, get a clearer message and set of demands before more innocent people get pistol whipped and/or billy-clubbed. But I agree 100% with their overall point of needing a change and I admire the fact that there still is a large group of Americans who aren’t blindly led by corporate greed and silly religious backed pundits who spew venom each day in Washington. I commend B. Dolan and Uncle Sage for being a voice in the hip-hop community that is rational and progressive, yet still comes across as dope music (this Buddy Peace beat is pretty fucking amazing).
And what really grinds my gears, shout out to Peter Griffin, HipHopDx.com has this video up with NO FUCKING WRITE UP about it. Just the video. They’re the biggest hip-hop related website out there and they have zero journalistic accountability. TECB struggles to get respect from artists we happily write about from our own town(s) and meanwhile these conglomerate ass hats don’t have the wherewithal to write even a single sentence relating hip-hop to the OWS movement under this video. I’m appalled. Shocked, even.
But as I said, I’m grateful to come from the same state as B. Dolan and Sage as they have a soap box that reaches so many and they use it for good. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m getting older and focus more on things that matter around me — i.e. politics, news, beliefs, etc. — but the past couple of years, especially 2011, I’ve gravitated towards progressive hip-hop that has a defined message and doesn’t deviate from their agenda. And it’s 100% okay to have an agenda, if you don’t you’re doing this whole life thing wrong.
Special shout out to Strange Famous records and Uncommon Records. Two indie labels that have rosters filled with artists from all over the globe that all have a common goal; to be independent.
Filed under: 401 Gettin' It Done, Hip-Hop, Music, Yo! TECB Raps | Tagged: B. Dolan, Film The Police, Jasiri X, Sage Francis, Strange Famous, Strange Famous Records, Toki Wright | 2 Comments »
Unfortunately, yes I did. I planned to write quarterly reviews of all the music I had been listening to throughout the year, but I ended up accumulating so many albums that I didn’t even have a chance to listen to them all until the new year had passed. However, an ass-load of what I did hear was fantastic. Since I’ve been procrastinating so much on making a post like this, I’m going to try to bang it out as quick as possible. So, while I may not be thorough in developing some (or any) of my opinions on the releases of 2009, I figure this is better than nothing. Here goes…
Filed under: 401 Gettin' It Done, Album Talk/Review, For All The Broke Willies, Hip-Hop, Instrumental, Music, This Is Not Hip-Hop | Tagged: 1.0.8, A Different Mirror, A Pipe Dream and a Promise, A Strange Arrangement, Aarophat & Illastrate, An Album Called Life, As Fate Would Have It, Beat Konducta Vol. 5-6, Beautiful Music, Benzilla, Big Tone, BK-One, Black Keys, Black Noise, Blakroc, Blame One, Blueprint, Boy Meets World, Brother Ali, By the Throat, Cage The Elephant, Carried Away, Cradle Orchestra, Dame Dash, Days Chasing Days, Diamond District, Double Barrel, Double K, Echo Party, Edan, Eels, El Michels Affair, Elvis 75: Good Rockin' Tonight, Elvis Presely, Enter the 37th Chamber, Exile, Eyedea & Abilities, Falside, Far, Fashawn, Fedd Hill, Finale, Fly Casual Records, Galapagos 4, Glow in the Dark Records, Glow Like This, Hombre Lobo: 12 Songs of Desire, Illmaculate, In the Ruff, j.DePina, Jackson Jones, Jahpan, John Fruciante, JR & PH7, Jump the Gun, Kegs One and Jeff Jabz, Live at Reading, Luck-One & Dekk, Madlib, Maker, Marco Polo, Mayer Hawthorne, MC Esoteric, Mekalek, Never Better, Nirvana, Octahedron, Oddisee, One Eye Open EP, One-Handed Music, Only One, Onra, P.O.S., P.U.T.S., Paul White, People Under The Stairs, Police Brutality, Qwel, Radio Do Canibal, Regina Spektor, Rhymesayers, Right And Exact, Rockwell, Saving Seamus Ryan, Serve or Suffer, Sign Language, So Be It, Sounds From the Skylight, Sterby Rock, Stones Throw, Swann Notty, The Art of Ink, The Black Noise LP, The Grouch and Eligh, The Live Anthology, The Mars Volta, The Prestige, The Punch Drummer EP, The Standard, The Strange Dreams of Paul White, The Truth is Here, Thes One, Toki Wright, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, Torae, Us, Velvet Ballads, Vertygo | 4 Comments »
This article, “Students Get Schooled on Hip-Hop at Minn. College,” inked by Associated Press writer Jeff Baenen, has sat on my computer desk since the day it was published in The Providence Journal (12/06/09). Although it may be old news to some, I think it still deserves a little extra shine. Not necessarily because it’s superbly written, but because the topic of kids going to school to learn how to “polish their MC skills,” become a DJ, and get familiar with “the business” is something I think would be interesting to discuss. Harry Chalmiers, President of McNally Smith College, had a great quote in this article, too: “The best rap is fine art. It is poetry. It is music. It is rhythm. It is color. It is living history. It is of political, societal commentary. It’s significant work. None of that is easy.” True dat, partna’.
So, my unfiltered, spontaneous opinion is as follows. On one hand I think this program will only further infest hip-hop with more people who think they have, but certainly don’t, the ability to participate within a realm of the hip-hop culture. A little snob-ish of me, but true, nonetheless. However, I can’t exactly judge an area that is home to one of the most prominent and truly dope independent hip-hop labels (Rhymesayers) in the world. There’s already a slew of talent coming out of Minnesota and I’m sure there’s more to be heard, so to that I say “school on.”
McNally Smith is also Ice Cube-endorsed. And Toki Wright, one of the newest additions to the Rhymesayers roster, is the coordinator of the 45-credit hip-hop program. King Toki gets nice — he just released an album, A Different Mirror, over the summer and I would say it is one of the better debut albums to have come out this year. Give the title track a listen:
Pretty intense song. Let us know what you think of the Toki track and feel free to give as much of your opinion on the article as you’d like. Peace.
Filed under: Hip-Hop, Music, News | Tagged: A Different Mirror, Ice Cube, Jeff Baenen, McNally Smith College, Rhymesayers, RSE, Toki Wright | Leave a Comment »
