Grownheadz : For adults who love hip-hop

from live cypha.com

I have concerns… And my concerns are for the culture in which I was raised. I’m not speaking about the state of black America nor am I speaking of the state of the black union; it’s bigger than that. You see, I have had concerns for a long time, and have never voiced them, assuming things would get better, but they didn’t. My concerns are now becoming worries because I’m now hearing reports that the culture that once raised me is either dead or dying, so this is my state of the hip hop union address.

Hip hop, as I once knew it, was an urban style of music and culture that was birthed with intentions of getting the urban voice heard creatively. It was similar to an artistic protest. The theme of most songs concentrated on social issues, and discussed the harsh realities of inner-city living. Hip hop gave us an innovative way to poetically vent, protest, and express ourselves. It was also the voice that provided other cultures and social classes with an understanding, to some extent, of what inner-city living was like. Songs like Grand Master Flash’s “The Message,” KRS-1’s “Love’s Gonna Get’cha,” or Tupac’s “Brenda’s got a Baby” took us on a journey through some interesting stories that were either true or not far from it. These were issues emcees dealt with and they earned the respect and praise of fans world-wide for sharing their lives and experiences.

 This is the culture that raised me…

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from nerbanite.com

Since 2006 Fashawn has released six mixtapes and has hip hop fans anticpitating the release of his debut album later this year. Gaining the respect of hip hop legends Mick Boogie, Terry Urban and Planet Asia, whilst also being supported by Orisue, OnSMASH and NahRight. This West Coast rapper is set to help bring life to a new generation of Hip Hop. Here is our exclusive Q&A with Fashawn.

Born Santiago Leyva, in Fresno, California. What was life like growing up?
Growing up in Fresno was rough, but i loved my childhood. Reality was handed to me very early in life. I guess that’s why I started writing heavily at the age of twelve. By then I felt like I had seen it all already. There’s no place in the world like Fresno. Trust me! (laughs)

What inspired you to start writing lyrics for the first time?
My older brother bought this Goodie Mob cassette home back in 96′ and it had an instrumental on it. He would always write raps and leave them around the house. I would pick them up and try to rap them. It sounded like garbage, but eventually i would start writing my own rhymes. I’ve written a few songs since then.

You grew up with The Golden Age of Hip Hop, which artists do you feel have influenced you the most?
Tupac Shakur as far as content and subject matter. Nas and Big L as far as word play and metaphors. Chuck D, Rakim, Krupt, Black Star, Black Moon, Black Thought… the list goes on. That’s the era i come from. The Golden Era.

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If you do the math you’ll get the title. Anyhoo some things we’ve been meaning to get out of the “interweb” storage.

8 hip hop songs that could be movies (we guess).

13 over the top hip hop money moments for you to peruse.

18 rappers that went to college AKA 18 rappers that might be frontin

Just some things to see while you’re out and about on the superhighway doing that last minute shopping.

These folks have a alot time on their hands but its its interesting. 10 hip hop sleeves /recreations/reenactments/brought to life/just somethin.

Tired of seeing the same ole thing on every rap cover? Check out the  top 10 Hip Hop Album Cover Cliches

Finally,11 honest to goodness biters.  These MC’s TRULY believe imitation is the truest form of flattery.

from the Willie Isz MySpace page, on their sound, inspiration and name:

“My dad’s name is Willie Gilyard, and his dad’s name is Willie Knighton. And they’re both from Georgia,” explains Jneiro. Meanwhile, the “Isz” comes from the 90s MTV cartoon The Maxx, where little carnivorous monsters called the Isz plague the titular superhero. It’s inspired by Khujo’s trademark growl: “Khujo’s got a monstrous type of approach where you’ve got to take him seriously.”

They both hail from Georgia, but Jneiro currently calls Philadelphia and Los Angeles home. It’s their mix of sensibilities – Jneiro’s urban futurism and wildly unique vocals alongside Khujo’s classic Southern rap – that powers Willie Isz’s Georgiavania.

“We definitely want to keep that Dungeon, Goodie Mob, OutKast vibe. A lot of hip-hop is lacking that soul that Dungeon Family used to bring to the table. We’re holding on to that,” says Jneiro.

“But we’ve got some new elements. When we put out that ‘Georgiavania,’ man, people were like, ‘Man, I can’t believe Khujo spit on a beat like that! He’s snapping on the beat, too!’ I want the people to see Khujo in a different type of way. This dude is incredibly talented. I want to showcase his diversity.”

“It’s that vibe,” says Khujo. “The type of music that JJ is blessed to sit in the room and come up with is the vibe that music is going to go.”

Georgiavania’s title track, a Gothic mix of bounce-rap and that crazy “Rrraagh!” sound from De La Soul’s “Ego Trippin’ (Part Two),” is definitely on some other ish. But it only hints at Willie Isz’s eclecticism.

“It’s very musical, and it’s very electronic,” says Jneiro. “You’re going to hear guitar and live instrumentation, and there’s only one sample on the album. It’s a whole ‘nother perspective of my approach. People know me for being extra weird, but I bring it more down to earth with this record. It’s a good balance between the two.”

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by Wreck 1

The worst thing about all these 30th Birthday Hip-Hop retrospectives is how many of them are perpetuating the “real hip-hop=political hip-hop” mythology. Like this one from Kristi Turnquist of the Oregonian:

Hip-hop Has Transformed Pop Culture — and Vice Versa
When it first boomed out of New York’s South Bronx more than 25 years ago, hip-hop was bare-bones but expressive, made by young men too broke to buy instruments. With turntables, microphones and words, they made music that, at its best, spoke out against poverty and injustice. Early milestones such as Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five’s “The Message” and Public Enemy’s “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back” established rap as a new form of protest art…

…But now, with a few exceptions, mainstream hip-hop is more party than politics, defined by videos featuring artists rapping about their cars, their jewelry and their booty-shaking women — the all-American materialism of Madison Avenue.

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Underground hip Hop is Dead

from Benz and a Backpack.com

Yea, I said it.

It’s an empty genre and an even emptier phrase. For those of you who know me, you probably think I’m crazy at this point. I swear by this “genre”, bump it constantly, and have even DJ’ed it on the radio. Yet, I have my reasons.

The internet has changed the world in infinite ways. You can literally search anything in Google or Wikipedia and find out everything you wanted to know about it and more in seconds. Thats basically where my argument begins and ends.

With the internet, it is absurdly easy to be in touch with what is happening in the music world at all levels and genres. Seriously. When I go through my daily rotation of blogs and websites I use to find new music, it is just as easy to find a leaked track from Brother Ali as Fabolous. The internet, especially in the music world, is the great equalizer.

For the past 2 months, I have been living in Cuba, which has given me perspective on a lot of the things I love in my life. My family (I miss them), friends (are family), school (greatest opportunity ever), country (God Bless America), and basic day to day habits (like shitting). But more specifically it has made me think about how underground hip hop functions in a country that is more or less isolated from the rest of the world. I met this guy the other day at a party some American students threw named Francis. My boy Andy started a conversation with him about hip hop and got me in on the cypher. The guy is OBSESSED with MF DOOM (all caps baby). Hip hop runs so deeply in his veins that ever since he was 12 he couldn’t listen to anything else. The guy doesn’t even dance salsa, which is truly an identity crisis in this country. He is studying English right now and lives off a 2 dollar a month stipend from the government. I gave him 3 bucks one night to buy four DVD’s so I could give him some music. His face lit up like a little kid with Santa’s credit card as I browsed through my I-tunes and dragged and dropped 18 GB’s of music. And still, he was able to give me three MF DOOM and two Jurassic 5 albums off his memory stick I didn’t have.

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LEFT - rapper Geologic RIGHT- producer/DJ Sabzi

 

 

NOTE – Since we are featuring Bayani, an ealier release by Blue Scholars, we figured we’d link to an interview they did for Brolin Winning  of MP3.com
 

MP3: So I just wanted to talk a bit about the new album. Bayani is coming out. This is your second full length and third release. What can you tell us about it?

Sabzi: Well what particular angle would you like to know about?

I mean, for the cats out there that are completely unfamiliar with you guys, how would you describe it?

Man, this is really—it’s a record where the beats and the rhymes really, really cooperate with one another. I mean, it was produced together. It’s a definite departure from the standard format of underground hip-hop records where you have somebody who goes around collecting beats and fits their hot 16s to it. You see what I’m saying?

Right, right. You’re not just like IM’ing each other tracks.
 
Yeah, right. The beats were crafted for the verse and the verses were crafted for the beats in that dialectical one DJ one MC relationship. “Bayani,” itself, is a word that we kind of made up that is a nod to both of our cultural and political heritages. Bayan in Tagalog means ‘the people’ and Bayan in Persian, which is an Arabic root word, means ‘utterance.’ So a quick translation would be like “voice of the people.” And the record itself is kind of a collection of stories…we have a song about the war in there, a song about the WTO protest but they’re all told from the perspective of different individuals. So the war song, for example, tells a story of what it’s like for a mother and child to be left at home while the husband goes off to fight. Oh, and there’s another one about what it’s like for an immigrant to come over here and try and find work.

Geologic: With this album, on one hand we wanted to kind of distinguish this body of work from the previous one, but at the same time not deviate too far and kind of build on the strengths of the first two releases. It’s pretty much a simple formula, man, just beats and rhymes and then obviously there’s the political angle that we’re trying to get at.

And then also the whole underlying thing about the Northwest coming up and we really identify with that. And so it’s—you’ll hear a lot more big ups to the area here, stories about what’s going on in our city and the region. And just in general I think it’s a more mature album. I’m glad that we didn’t come out the gate nationally with the first two records. It kind of gave us some time to polish up a little bit so that our actual first release nationally would be where we’re at now. I think it’s good timing for us and also for the scene.

Yeah, what is the scene like in Seattle? I mean, I know there’s a lot popping off but nobody has, since like Mix-A-Lot, nobody has really like blown up on a big scale from out of there. Is it real competitive? Is there a lot of other acts in the mix or what?

Oh, yeah. There’s a whole lot, man. And I think what typifies Seattle is that all these different folks that are hustling to make it, They’re not so much in competition with each other to be the ones to make out the town. If anything, we’re at competition with ourselves to just overcome a lot of barriers that we see in the town, one being that we’re geographically isolated from other parts of the country. Like you said, I mean, the major music industry doesn’t really look at Seattle as one of the priority markets.

But I think while some people might complain about that, I think it’s been a good thing. I think it’s given us an opportunity, all the folks here in the scene to try to establish more of our own identity and at the same time we kind of borrow from a lot of other areas. So up in Seattle you hear a lot of West Coast influence, a lot of East Coast influence, you know folks even from—even the hot sound from the South that’s out right now, there’s some folks that are doing that. But I think that’s all slowly coming together into what will eventually be a Seattle, I wouldn’t say a sound, like a signature sound of Seattle, but the fact that Seattle is so eclectic I think is going to be our identity when it’s all said and done.

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from ILLROOTS.com

First and foremost his album “First of All” is fire and by far one of the better albums of the year. Shout out to Jon Kim for everything. Shawn is by far one of the hottest emcees coming out of the Left Coast this year. Honestly I wish that more people came out with these types of albums. Tracks one through 13 are more than just a problem they are masterpiece, the song with Guilty Simpson is fire. Tres Records is slowly making a name for themselves first with Blu and then with this guy. So without further adue…..Enter Shawn..

illRoots.com: First thank you for the time of the day and I hope every thing is well, the album is a great collection of songs. Why the title “First of All”?

Shawn Jackson: First Of All has a triple meaning…First off, this is my opening statement…kinda like taking the podium ya know?? “First of all yada yada”….Secondly, this is the first of all of my OFFICIAL albums to come,and Last, I want this album to be the first of all of your fav’s lists in 08.

illRoots.com: What made you come into Hip-Hop?

SJ: Freedom. Coming up in the 80’s with no siblings, I was very dependent on the music and the culture. I’m not a hip hop geek though, I just let it manifest in the swag.

illRoots.com: The first album you bought, what medium(cassette, cd, vinyl, etc…), and why you got this album?

SJ: Well, technically I think it was The Show from Doug and Slick and it was an import..I don’t even know how I had that,but the one I saved up my allowance and had to have was NWA & The Posse’s Dopeman single, the one where they were thug deep on the cover with 40’s n shit.

illRoots.com: A Hidden Gem where your from as far as person/place/or thing?

“SJ: I’d have to say my man Bricks from Pasadena. Dude’s a problem!! Just think of a modern day Royal Flush…”I know right?” Both him and my man Beloved from LA featured on the album(Gold Medal Kids).

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Okay, okay it’s not actually a long list of 75 things about hip hip. It’s more like 25 + 25 + 25. But anyway take your choice from the list, we believe in options here at Grownheadz.

Let’s get physical, physical. Its hip hop’s 25 Best Workout Songs

Ready to be outraged? Check out the 25 most preposterous trends in rap.

A topic to argue about at the bar, beauty salon, or the barbershop, the 25 best rap groups of all time.