Benz and a Backpack

No better way to start your day than with Phonte’s new joint “Life Of Kings” featuring Evidence and Big K.R.I.T. as well as production from 9th Wonder. Phonte’s verse is fresh like china white, and if you didn’t catch it when it dropped this week you’ll be pleasantly surprised to see Mama Tigallo rap Ev’s verse like she wrote it. [Via}

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Gangrene (Oh No + Alchemist) starts the year off right and gives us another taste of their upcoming album. The release of Vodka & Ayahuasca is a mere three weeks away and if this is any indication of what to expect, y’all need to strap in. The title track has some of the cleanest and meanest production I’ve heard in a long time and you know the album is gonna have some tight features. If you follow the Alchemist (@Alanthechemist) on twitter, you might have seen him hint that Roc Marciano, Action Bronson, and Evidence will make an appearance at their upcoming show at The Terrace in Pasadena, CA. So if you happen to be out west, be sure to hit that up!

Hit the skip to stream/download the track. Album drops the 24th!

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Esteemed producers The Alchemist and Oh No are once again corroborating under the name Gangrene and I couldn’t be happier. The duo’s first project Gutter Water was a sample-heavy punch in the gut that was as powerful as it was satisfying. This next LP, Vodka & Ayahuasca is set to drop January 24th, so if you haven’t had a chance to hear the former you still have a little time to get wise. Confirmed features for V&A include heavyweights Kool G Rap, Evidence, and  Long Island emcee Roc Marciano, whose lyrical styling graced the group’s Greneberg EP which dropped earlier this year.  Stream the first single, “Dump Truck” below for a  little taste of what’s to come.

Hit the skip for the album artwork and a link to where you can purchase the single.

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This video was filmed in February, in the dead of an east coast winter, to capture the sullen vibe of the song. Filmed with mostly family and friends (and a few strange extras who had no idea they were being filmed), “Check To Check” is an honest look at really real life sh*t.

Apathy is preparing to take his career to another level with the release of his third-solo LP, Honkey Kong, which will be released on 8-23-2011. The Connecticut emcee and The Get Busy Committee (Apathy, Scoop Deville and Ryu released Uzi Does It in October 2010) and AOTP member has undeniably crafted his best project to date and it includes production from Apathy, DJ Premier, DJ Muggs, Statik Selektah, Evidence, Da Beatminerz and Teddy Roxpin among others. Guest appearances on Honkey Kong include Xzibit, Slaine, Vinnie Paz, Esoteric, Ill Bill, Celph Titled, Action Bronson, General Steele (Smif N Wessun) and Mad Lion.

Download: Apathy – Check To Check (Video)

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Apathy is preparing to take his career to another level with the release of his third-solo LP, Honkey Kong, which is due out on 8-23-2011. “Check To Check” is the first single from Honkey Kong, featuring deft production work from Evidence. The Connecticut emcee and The Get Busy Committee and AOTP member has undeniably crafted his best project to date, and it includes production from Apathy himself, DJ Premier, DJ Muggs, Statik Selektah, Evidence, Da Beatminerz and Teddy Roxpin among others. Guest appearances on Honkey Kong include Xzibit, Slaine, Vinnie Paz, Esoteric, Ill Bill, Celph Titled, Action Bronson, General Steele (Smif N Wessun) and Mad Lion.

Download: Apathy – Check To Check [prod. Evidence]

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“Right back to the valley/just to show em how we do in central Cali my home/on the map now, they tell me sit in the throne/I tell em im not concerned with a crown or a robe/just wanted to meet the world become a man on my own/and I did now the names household Santiago/C-A get hot as Iran, I hit Chicago/it’s the heart that guides me, my mind just follows/I go where the wind takes me/samsonite bag full of clothes like jack hit the road/to the next city fuck it let’s travel the globe/luggage already packed who knows when ill be back.” -Fashawn, Samsonite Man

A couple weeks ago, Clutch and I caught Brother Ali, Fashawn and BK-One in Providence on the East Coast swing of their Breakin’ Dawn Tour. Clutch is a big Brother Ali fan, and although I was hyped to see him too I was most interested in catching Fashawn (real name Santiago Leyva), who made major waves in ’09 with his debut solo album Boy Meets World. More than Fashawn’s individual talent and character, the young Fresno-bred emcee has an incredible knack for surrounding himself with great people. At just 21 years old, “The Phenom” (as he is aptly called) already has a resume that rivals many veterans’ credentials.

Clutch and I got a late start on our way down to the Jerky’s for the show, so by the time we got there we could already hear Brother Ali’s warmly deep voice booming through the PA upstairs. Angry at myself for having missed Fashawn, we hung back for a second and puffed down to the labels until we (I) were (was) ready to go upstairs, resigned to the fact that I’d missed my shot at seeing one of the best young emcees around. As we were about to climb the steps, a compact but lively dude bounded down them, fitted slanting up from his sweaty brow, and immediately pulled out a sizable spliff, turning to me for a lighter. Without thinking, I reached in my pocket and handed over my nahbud-light, then asked Clutch if he was ready to head in. Like a ton of bricks it hit me:

“What’s good, Fash.”
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Hip-hop is a game of patterns and cycles. First it’s the mixtape, next it’s singles from the album, then the actual album accompanied by videos for the hit singles, and finally a tour to promote the shit out of the album. Repeat. As Evidence says in So Fresh: “spend six months out the year on my hustle and grind / the other half spent plotting the next.” More broadly, it seems like every six months there is a new ‘it’ artist that captures the spotlight, only to relinquish it when someone else overtakes them or they cannot sustain themselves (exception: Drake). First it was Soulja Boy, then Asher Roth, and now it’s Young Money’s feisty female Nicki Minaj.

No matter what anybody says about her (that her dichotomous flow is annoying, that her lyricism isn’t up to snuff), Nicki Minaj is holding down the game for female emcees right now. Pretty much the only lady in plain sight, Minaj has undertaken the tall task of repping women in a game where feminism is belittled and degraded at every turn. How can a woman who has grown up with hip hop be expected to hold the mic with confidence when the entire genre tells her she ain’t shit?
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Every now and then things happen that remind us of the fragility, preciousness, and complete and utter randomness of our collective life. Recently, two incidents (both involving pedestrians, vehicles, and alcohol) stung people I love so acutely that they’ve been debilitated. It’s the height of irony that someone can serve several years of required military duty in a constantly war-torn nation, and then die when a drunk American driving too fast glances down to change the song on his iPod and forgets to look up because he’s too fucked up.

There are certain truths we all acknowledge: if you work hard in school, you’ll get good grades; if you show love to the people around you, they will undoubtedly show you love back. But many parts of our lives escape our control no matter how hard we try to grasp them. They are dictated either by the coincidental nature of the world or fate, depending on which theory you espouse, and no personal responsibility should be self-imposed by friends and family of victims of senseless tragedy, although it is often unavoidable.

What we can and should impose upon ourselves is an apologetically cliche question that nearly every hip hop artist has had to confront in his or her time: if I die today, tomorrow, or in three weeks, will I be happy with what I’ve done? BIG knew before he was 25 that his trajectory was short, and when the end came he was ready for it. Hip hop was built on the cold, hard foundation of braggadocio, which doesn’t exactly inspire love in opponents, but rather competitiveness, jealousy, and other violence-inducing sentiments. Couple that with the abnormally high presence of guns in poor, urban, largely black communities at the inception of hip hop (gee, I wonder how that happened), and you’ve got yourself a recipe for disaster. It’s no wonder then that death is more than a minor ingredient in the hip hop kitchen.

Hit the skip for 20 of the most recent tracks that you GOTTA have, including Wu Tang’s ‘Early Grave’ and Jay Rock’s ‘Life is a Cycle.’ Other notables: Freeway, Raekwon, & Styles P, Lupe, B.o.B. & Asher Roth, Preemo-produced Evidence, and:

J. Cole – Knock On Wood Freestyle

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Redlight Boogie ft. Sean Price – Heat [prod. Killingskills]

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I am currently visiting the Bay Area, and in honor of my first trip trip to California, I wanna put a few songs together that are some of my all time Cali-favorites.  While the hyphy movement has gone somewhat national, what I really love about Bay Area hip hop for is the incredible flows their artists put together.  More south, L.A. has recently produced some of the most talented MC’s out right now, a la artists like Blu and Evidence.  So, heres more or less a CD’s worth of songs that are all worth checking out.

Love Flowin’ – Hieroglyphics

As the song hints, Hieroglyphics flows hard on this song.  Download their album Full Circle right now.

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’93 till Infinity – Souls of Mischief

A laid back Bay Area classic and a must have.

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So Fresh (Step Brothers) – Evidence

“Everyday I wake to the sounds of wave crashing, make moves, its time to take action”.

A perfect summer song.  EV has a lot of range, and even on a good summer song like this has a dark, gritty feel.

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