I’ve been anticipating this ever since Squadda sent the excellent cover you see above. I feel like the image they chose may be a sign of the group becoming more and more comfortable in their own strange niche, and that growing confidence is translating into both better presentation and better music. Hence a kind of polished feeling is prevalent throughout the mixtape, ‘polished’ not in the sense of them embracing a cleaner sound but in the sense of an improved more masterful execution of the dirty weird sound that attracted me to the group in the first place. Mild spoiler… the mixtape makes really good use of the old hidden track gimmick, I wont give away too much but lets say you’re actually getting approximately 1.7 mixtapes instead of 1.
An extra thought on the rectangular shape of the cover – it’s a small and possibly even unintentional detail but this idea has tons of potential for artists who release internet-only material; no cd/lp = no point in keeping the cover art square = lots of interesting artistic possibilities. I wanna see somebody send me a mixtape with a cover that’s a tetrahedron made of dragons and titties, let’s make that happen.
For years Jews have played the background while standing on their tippy toes just trying to get a glimpse. The Jewish acceptance in hip-hop has always been matched against ambivalence. Sure, years ago you had The Beasties or 3rd Bass’ MC Serch, but the reality really was being Jewish in hip-hop wasn’t exactly cool. Ras Kass once said on “Uni-4-Orm”“Record industry rule numbers one, two, and three/Jews run it/Niggas run around in it/Believe me” and he couldn’t have been more accurate.
I would call OFWGKTA the flava of the week but it’s more like of the fucking year and rightfully so. The RZA of the clan Tyler produces the shit outta this Domo Genesis release. No Earl, but he will not be forgotten. Do your part and vote in the Best New Rapper tourney here, where Earl faces off Jay Electronica in the finals.
Also peep the latest Tyler interview done by our homies @ Coolehmag. –Philaflava
Rolling Papers
First Roll
Buzzin
Domier
Rolling Papers ft. Wolf Haley (Tyler)
Dreams
Cap n Crunch
Steamroller ft. Hodgy Beats
Kickin It
Super Market ft. Ace Creator (Tyler)
Drunk ft. Mike G
Clear Eyes
Basic Bitch ft. Hodgy Beats
Last Roll
Remarkable Mayor just make good rap with no predicates. No angle, no agenda, not trying to prove anything, not saving or eulogizing or embalming hiphop, no attempts to go back to the 80 or 90 jump ahead to 2030, no overt politics, no trapping, no anti-trapping, no trying to show these youngsters how rap is supposed to be (I believe they’re both in their early-mid 30s), none of that. They just rap well about everything and nothing in particular, and have a solid ear for beats, and they’re not pretentious dicks about it.
‘The Campaign’ as a whole is very consistent, I had a hard time picking out obvious standouts. So the songs below are more of a general sampling of the album than its highlight reel.
I need to transfer this from one computer to another via Divshare, so I figured I’d throw the link up here as well. This is a classic mixtape, a summer staple for me since it was released, imo slightly better than Waiting Our Turn and way better than the last few Devin outings. The Brothaz pretty much do god’s work for weed music here.
This could’ve been a nice addition to Str8 Killa, maybe replacing that pointless collaboration with Sick Jacken. It might sound sacrilegious but I kinda almost like M$M’s usage of Bumpy’s Lament more than Dre’s take on it. Granted this beat doesn’t bang as hard as the one on Xxplosive but I’m enjoying the looser approach that lets the sample breathe a bit.
(No disrespect to Mazzi but…) FUCK YEA A BREWIN VERSE!! Breezly Brewin appearances are scarce as hell these days, so I celebrate every one of them like my own personal complete double rainbow. It helps that Mazzi and the song itself are pretty good aside from the guest feature.
Some new visuals from Squadda and Mondre. Aurally the song has a peculiar quality that’s hard to describe, the best I can do is this really awkward analogy – it sounds like swimming underwater stoned.
Squadda also sent the cover art for their next mixtape, it’s pretty great:
I’m a big fan of Squadda’s take on Everything is Everything from the Dear America Ep. Now he put me onto another dope takeover of a Cappa beat he did a while back, this time it was Black Boy. I already suggested Run as the next possible candidate, Splish Splash would be a good one too.
