New Music: heir MAX - The Moment-20

 

 

The post for this one basically wrote itself while I listened to this album at work. Spoiler is that I loved it, it's great, and you should get the physical version not only because MAX deserves some cash for this but also because the two bonus tracks are fire and include an unreleased (sort of, Progeny's got it on his Soundcloud I think) Alligator Food song (yes that means some of the last Sixo you'll ever hear) and a new Sixo beat.

So the story is this album was written and recorded during the pandemic. It was released digitally on Sixo's birthday, as heir MAX and Sixo came up together and his death rocked MAX as it did many of his fans and so many other artists. It was offered free as an EP or on physical as a mini-album. I bought the mini album which is why I'm reviewing this a few weeks after it first dropped.

Basically this is flawless. There is nothing I would change about it, from the production to the songwriting to the style to the raw emotion on display. What emerges is a proud, loud introvert with a serious love for all music and an ability and willingness to trade complex styles and intricate wordplay for simple, groundbreaking truth. This is basically what MAX says on his Bandcamp, and while I agree that the easy to grasp lyricism and bare bones emotional weight of this is easily apparent making it very relatable, I would disagree in that the starkness of this offers the listener the option to sort of brush off what he's saying and listen to the sound and enjoy it, or dive in and really understand the pictures he's painting.

Take "Cranium Crack". Almost matter of factly MAX is describing a home life where his mother did everything in her power to make his life as wonderful as she could and hide the darkness while dealing with addiction and poverty. The words are brutal, insightful and sad. The song is catchy as hell, well written and displays some very good rapping on the part of MAX.

The whole EP is like this, with very heavy topics being delivered over irresistibly catchy beats and songwriting. "RALPH"'s tripped out, plodding production provides the perfect soundtrack to a four wheeled smoke session (stationary one though, don't blaze and drive please) while telling the story of a neighborhood taking control of it's police problem. Another standout, in my opinion one of the best tracks on the album partly due to Progeny's FIRE beat, is "No Turning Back", speaking frankly of the difficult life of an indie musician. If you don't buy the CD you can't hear it though... :-(

While it doesn't seem like MAX has much of a back catalogue, (I've got part of an album he did with Sixo and Poindexter way back when, and a collabo called Heir J's as well as a three track DOOM tribute thing) he certainly comes across as someone who knows how to craft his own style of rap. He sounds like virtually no one else out there, and backed by a score of damn talented producers he puts out a 5/5 EP for real.

Definitely buy this. Not kidding.

Nabahe - Adidas W/ The 4 Stripes (2008)

 

We're heading to Hawaii for today's post with Nabahe's "Adidas W/ The 4 Stripes" from 2008! 

Nabahe, aka James Barrie, is a left coast underground vet from Hawaii - perhaps best known currently for being part of the Los Feo Faces movement. He's been a bit aloof over the years but when he drops tunes, they're always good. 

To my knowledge, "Adidas W/ The 4 Stripes" is Nabahe's first solo project. Fittingly, the project falls in line perfectly with the Grimm Image (the label that it dropped on) sound - quirky, grimey, melodic weirdness that fans of Project Blowed and Lightsleepers can enjoy alike! I'm not exactly sure what the rollout for this was as it's not available anywhere digitally to buy to my knowledge and I've unsuccessfully been trying to get my hands on a hard copy for years! If anyone has any further info, let me know. [On a side note, what is Grimm up to these days? Used to be one of the top labels imo.]

Nabahe is currently dropping lowkey projects as James Barrie and I believe he resides in Washington State. I could be wrong, but I think he may be cooking up something with Smoke M2D6? One can hope! Enjoy! [The project includes an untitled bonus track not listed on the Discogs page btw.] 

ADIDAS W/ The 4 Stripes

New Music: Awol One - Flying With Bats

 

What do ya'll think of NFTs? As a long-time collector of physical items...and as a long-time music/video, um, pirate...they haven't really caught on with me yet. Of course, I'm also not going to be that dude on the internet who thinks he fully understands the concept and knows of the entire potential NFTs have moving forward.

Awol One's latest EP, "Flying With Bats," is a musical companion piece of sorts to his current line of NFT trading cards known as the "Secret Saviours of Underground Hip Hop" (a collabo with 2Mex.) You essentially buy a "pack" of the digital cards and keep them in your online wallet to admire, sell, and trade. The cards feature artwork of some big underground heads (e.g. Gift of Gab, Eyedea, and Subtitle) and if you're lucky, you can score sketches and even some exclusive tunes. Awol plans on expanding the collection as time goes on.

As for "Flying With Bats," Awol gives us seven songs (everything done by him) in traditional gritty static Awol style. I was a sort of expecting Awol to phone it in with this one, but the tracks are pretty solid, particularly the hooks. There's no real tie that I can see with the NFT cards, but I'll happily take Awol One music whenever I can. Peep it below!

FLYING WITH BATS

The Painkillers - Pret(r)end (2004)

 

 

 Friday again! I wanted to share here a little EP I personally love but that seems to have done the inevitable disappearing act from the internet like so many of these early 00's hip hop gems.

Put together NorCal hip hop hippie and San Francisco Street Musician Joe Dub with the mysterious Topik aka Topic, an emcee who seems to call Hawaii home judging from her affiliations on Discogs (but I don't know for sure) and you get The Painkillers. Joe Dub first worked with Topik on the unforgettable Lovebomb Soundclash album, which you really should already have, and their chemistry is undeniable.

The Painkillers only put out those two EPs before Topik sort of went dark (AFAIK), but both of them are fantastic examples of the culture we all love, and still remain remarkably listenable and relevant 15+ years after their release.

Enjoy!

DOWNLOAD

 

 

A.Hymnz - Second World (2013)

 

 

Just gonna crank out a nice and simple download post this Tuesday. My Monday night is looking crazy. So I did a quick search and was rather surprised and saddened to see that this indie rap gem, Second World by A.Hymnz out of the King City area of CA is no longer up for download anywhere. That may be because the artist doesn't like it, but I'm hoping it's just a simple oversight (or maybe a result of that inexplicable rift that split New Cocoon up around 2015) and that he wouldn't mind if I gave folks a quick reminder of the cool stuff he was getting done back in the 10's.

I can see not everyone loved this one (RYM... there's a familiar face there as well) BUT I do and I can tell you why. A.Hymnz has an incredibly unique voice that keeps things interesting. The production is top notch melodic folky electronica (pretty much exactly what I think you all know I go for at this point). And the roster of guest spots is crazy and ranges from fellow NorCal emcee and producer Variex (who produced Hymnz first official release which IS still available here and there) to 2Mex and even as far as Belgium's resident folk rap weirdo Nomad.

I happen to know A.Hymnz is personally very cool as well. Seems like he swapped music for painting these past few years (he's also very very good at that) after a serious health scare but like I said above, this, his only full length solo album I know of is great and deserves to be preserved.

That said, if you are him and don't want this out there please let me know. And if you have his very very first release Carpe Diem then I'd be stoked to get that one no doubt... LMK!

DOWNLOAD

 

 

Rumble Pac - Ready 2 Rumble (2002)

We're continuing with the Blowed theme this week with 2002's "Ready 2 Rumble" from Rumble Pac.

Rumble Pac consisted of Crow Loc and Cali-Rag, currently known as Mister CR (from The Goodlife Bullyz, Easty Boys, Afterlife, Project Blowed and such.) To my knowledge, this is the only release they ever dropped. 

The sound is very LA G-Funk gangsta mixed with a nice infusion of Blowedian chopping styles (CVE makes appearances.) The content varies but the guys sound fresh throughout. Like many Afterlife related releases, the quality isn't clean, but it adds to the aesthetics.

Mister CR has had a sort of resurgence over the past half-decade or so, becoming very prolific and most recently working with AllCityJimmy (fka Nocando) on some projects. I'm guessing we'll get a Talib Kweli diss from him as well soon lol. Very dope rapper - just needs to drop the homophobic usage bullshit.

Ready 2 Rumble

 

New Music: 2Mex - Talib Cosby

Nothing like online rap beef from 40+ year old underground rappers! 

For those not keeping up, a while back some Twitter drama started over an alleged argument/fight that took place years ago involving Talib Kweli and some of Ellay Khule's/Rifleman's peeps. Words were tweeted, "threats" were made, Rifleman released a pair of diss tracks, and Talib quit Twitter after some serious harassment allegations arose. In between all the chaos, Talib found out that Rifleman, who he claimed not to know, was a Blowedian. Talib thus reached out to his old friend/ex-roommate, Myka 9, and told Myka 9 to publicly rebuke Rifleman. Myka 9 refused to take sides and called for peace. Talib wasn't pleased.

Fast forward to 2021 and the title track from Talib's latest collabo album with Diamond D, "Gotham," - where Talib takes clear shots at Rifleman and, more prominently, Myka 9. This obviously led to a disgruntled Good Life Cafe/Project Blowed crowd (ranging from Equipto to Luckyiam to Epic to Lush One,) specifically 2Mex who has not only released the diss track "Talib Cosby" but who has also started a website dedicated to the stories of alleged survivors of Talib Kweli abuse. 

There's lots of thoughts here. First is the fact that, even though Talib's album dropped early this year and even though the disses are very blatant, people didn't even catch wind of this until a couple weeks ago lol - shows how up people are on Talib's music. Second is the fact that Talib has been going around talking about how he's been one of the biggest proponents of the Good Life Cafe/Project Blowed over the years - yet he had no idea who Rifleman was? Third is the fact that, of all people, Talib seems most angry at Myka 9 for not sticking up for him...even though Talib is a grown-ass man and even though Myka 9 has been way closer to Rifleman over the years. Talib actually recently did a podcast with Open Mike Eagle where he seemed to big up Myka 9 and Project Blowed - despite the fact that he's dissing Blowedians left and right on his IG. 

With that said, as much as I love the Blowed and as much as Talib's boring NYC backpacker rap puts me to sleep, the other side isn't blameless either. Rifleman and Mister CR have gone deep with the homophobic slurs in attacking Talib, and Talib is right to point that bigoted way of thinking out. Additionally, I hope that 2Mex's new site is actually aimed at helping the women that have been abused by Talib...and not just a general Talib smear campaign based on rap beef. 

In any case, check out the track HERE. 

Thee Anomalous & Able Rock - For the Sake of Planets, Vibe

 

 

Our readers may remember a few weeks ago I posted up an album here by Woodland, CA based rappers Dream Capsules. You may also remember me shouting out the guy I discovered them through. You can probably still see his comment in he C-Box because there we only usually get Illogic requesting totally random stuff, Denis dropping completely unknown stuff I usually like and one guy under multiple names obsessed with Planet of the Shapes Vol. 2 (in digital quality rendering only!). Just kidding folks.

But anyway, that dude raps and makes beats. And he's pretty fucking good. He told me his masterpiece is probably this collaboration with emcee Able Rock, over mostly his own beats. So here we have For the Sake of Planets, Vibe. The album art is seriously ill.

Basically the project was originally conceived in 2003 and took years of building, from late in high school to 2009. Lots of revisions, lots of perfectionism and second guessing. Lots of evolving production and lyrics. Lots of fun and lots of disappointment (he tells me about finding a copy on the ground after they distributed a bunch at a festival). Anyway, Thee Anomalous tells me not to quote him directly.... but this little section sums up everything perfectly and I really like it so I just have to ask forgiveness instead of permission ;-)

"About 7 years of work all culminating in 200 or so odd copies being given out for free. A labor of love. I like to call it my "hip hop thesis" as I truly feel like I learned a lot about the art form (writing, beatmaking, overall production, and recording) in the time of making it. I also dropped out of college during those years but continued crafting the album which would net me absolutely $0. Do it for the love!

Much love for listening to it man. That's all I ever wanted - for it to be listened to.

RIP Zumbi."

 

-Thee Anomalous

 

I've had the chance to skim through this, and it took roughly thirty seconds for me to consider it worthy of being posted here. It's easily as good as a lot of the stuff we all listen to, and I think the number one selling point I can name for T.A.'s work is that he's a true hip hop head just like us.

So for the album you might make yourself with the talent, time and desire... enjoy For the Sake of Planets, Vibe.

 

 

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