Metal Lungies

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I’d tell you what I think of Kidz in the Hall’s new album The In Crowd, but Naledge has made it perfectly clear that he "doesn’t give a flying fuck, like if you put some wings on Halle". Fair enough, but the party last night was knockin’ and Metal Lungies was in the house by way of your boy Knobbz. I got there around 7:45 which gave me an hour and a half to stare at people googly-moogly from across the room before the show started. Tim William and the Arcade Stars opened up, for which a lot of the screwface hip-hop-heads in the building had little patience. After four songs with little crowd response, a disgruntled Tim William dropped his mic and stormed off stage like a real rock star. I was paying more attention to Just Blaze setting up on the 1’s and 2’s.

Just Blaze rocked it for a little more than an hour, starting off with his hits (PSA, What We Do, etc.) then moving into classic New York shit. Just Blaze joints are a thing of beauty at full blast – they really fill the room and the crowd was definitely feeling it. Double-0 came out and worked the crowd a little bit too. A classic moment came when Just Blaze gave Double-0 his chain and put on Chain Hang Low. 0 bent down and hung the chain as low as he could, mocking the Jibbs hit; "they ain’t feelin’ that" went Just Blaze before going back to some explosive M.O.P. That wasn’t the last time mainstream rap would be shat on, either – Blaze quipped before finishing his set, "I don’t have any Lil Wayne".

Naledge finally came on and him and Double-0 went into songs off the album, starting with Black Out. After a couple of songs, they brought on Phonte and did Paper Trail. After the song, Phonte confessed that he’s the biggest zSHARE, RapidShare user there is, but everybody should go out and support the album. That’s the first time I’ve heard zSHARE get a shout out.

A few songs later, they brought on Skyzoo, my personal favorite artist in attendance last night, to do Let Your Hair Down.  I would’ve liked if they let him do The Necessary Evils, but that would’ve killed the party vibe. And people were having fun – there were some expressionless guys in the back with their arms folded, but most people were dancing and head-nodding.

Travis McCoy from Gym Class Heroes came on for Lucifer’s Joyride along with Tim William who was still on after doing The In Crowd.

Then Naledge and Double-0 launched into the single, which they had been proudly touting as landing number six on TRL, Drivin’ Down The Block. Halfway through, they stopped and brought everybody back on, including Tim William and the Arcade Stars who took the song to another level. This dude with the mullet and the Hello Kitty guitar threw some guitar riffs on the hook of the song which were awesome.

A few songs later, the Kidz went into campaign mode. They talked up Barack Obama, and forced everyone to put their hands up before they went into Work To Do. No, he’s not throwing up the Roc.

The highlight of the night was the surprise guest, Estelle, who’s been running the charts in the UK for a minute. I got some face time with her before she went on, because I was standing by the steps leading on stage. Needless to say, I snapped some obnoxiously close-up pictures.

I didn’t notice in the darkness of SOB’s, but Ms. Estelle has braces. Crooked teeth might fly in England, but not over here.

She did Love Hangover and then did American Boy which brought the house down and brought everyone back on stage to get a piece of the action.

They wrapped it up with another go at Drivin’ Down the Block. Unfortunately, Bun B and Pusha T didn’t show up to do the remix, as was hyped on the SOB’s page. Instead, Double-0 dropped the beat and Naledge did Pusha’s verse slowed down to some heavy drums. With his parting words, Naledge took a moment to comment on the state of rap music: "I’d rather brainwash you with a Low End Theory tape than Soulja Boy."

You know we’re impressed with EL here and we want to continue to push this talented cat. EL sent me two new songs, both off his upcoming free promo album, A Major Minority, out this summer. I’ve been impressed with everything I’ve heard by this budding MC so far and ML is going to continue to post new material by him as he sends it our way. Black ELement’s official site for the album is now live so there’s no excuse to not get familiar.

Download: Black ELement – Human (Produced By Kush Klien)

Black ELement – Keeps it Rawkin’ (feat. NAV) (Produced by Rami Afuni)

Straight out of Hopkinton, Massachusetts, emcee Black ELement contacted me about a feature. I’m picky about the unsigned cats we put on here but this guy filled all the prerequisites for my submission policy. Black sent me “I Can’t Call It”, the first single from his upcoming LP, A Major Minority. Produced by Ryan Durkin, the song sees BE flexing some supreme lyrical ability over knocking drums. I was impressed enough to immediately look the kid up. You can listen to some older tracks at his label’s site, Empire Records.

Download: Black ELement – Can’t Call It (prod. Ryan Durkin)

Here’s the bio from his MySpace:

Labelling has become common in Hip Hop, audiences classify MCs after one song and place them in one of two categories: mainstream or underground. Black Element can only be described as otherground; something refreshingly melodic, and just as much entertaining as he is innovative.

In the age of the mailman and the guy at McDonalds claiming to be rappers, the MC is no longer taken as seriously as he used to. Black Element is an MC who is the true definition of what an MC should be. Someone who cannot be defined in a couple of tracks, someone who desires more from his listeners in order to fully grasp his mission. Black Element is not afraid to use all the different colors on his palette to paint on his canvas. He is not afraid to take his music in any direction, and feels that Hip Hop has to grow as an art form by taking chances.

Growing up in middle class America in New Jersey, Element found Hip Hop through his older brother who introduced him to the likes of Nas, The Roots, and A Tribe Called Quest just to name a few. Black Element then relocated to the suburbs of Boston for the remainder of his adolescence where he focused on perfecting his craft.

In 2002, he met Talib Kweli who left him with the simple message “Do whatever you feel, don’t worry about what everyone else is doing”. Ever since then, Black Element has been living by the credo “Do You” and has not looked back. Now he looks forward to change Hip Hop one listener at a time.

We’re going a little international with this one. Our man Niklas who’s laced ML with some dope graphics, tipped me off to a very unique artist by the name of Menteroja. He is a Spanish born Swedish raised rapper (don’t worry, he raps in English). Check out a track from last years EP Street Art & Street Science (which you can buy on his site in vinyl.), with a very mellow saxophone feel:

Mp3: Menteroja-Street Art (Produced by Robin Banks).

Check out Menteroja’s Myspace.

Youtube video after the jump:

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m always happy to feature great unsigned or independent artists on ML, especially when they not only reach out to me, but I dig their shit! Soulbrotha is an MC based out of Houston, TX. SB rocks a speedy, almost Bone-Thugs sounding flow over really smooth, soulful beats, mostly produced by his collaborator, DJ Roeg Du Casq. Here’s a snippet of his bio as an introduction:

Born and raised in Nigeria, and being exposed to diverse forms of music from folk, 80’s pop, reggae, rock and hip hop music inspired a young Soulbrotha to choose hip hop above all other genres as a means to impact his community and the world at large most importantly. This emcee is always bent on “moving the crowd” and makes no excuses for his faith in Jesus Christ, whilst refusing to be pigeonholed into a particular kind of sound. His music can be best described as spiritual, conscious, emotional, and soulful. His first interest in hip hop sparked back in 1987, “when I was first taught the lyrics to the song by Eric B & Rakim’s “Paid in Full,”” he recounts, as he emphasizes that this was his first true encounter with music of this genre. Fans can thank his cousin for introducing him to hip hop, as SB recalls that his cousin was the one who always rhymed the words to the song “Paid in Full.” At that moment when hip hop graced its presence into his life, he knew that he would never be the same. The rise of Yo! MTV Raps spawned an even greater interest in hip hop for SB, where he then discovered artists such as Slick Rick, Doug E Fresh, LL Cool J, Run DMC, Audio Two, MC Lyte, Salt N’ Pepa, Big Daddy Kane, Father MC, Queen Latifah, Lords of the Underground, Naughty By Nature, Snoop, Dr. Dre, and many more that influenced him as an artist.

His first record, The Ezekiel Hanani LP, dropped last year and he’s currently prepping a new mixtape, called The Exodus. Cats like Soulbrotha, Lifesavas & Ohmega Watts threaten to give a good name to Christian hip hop.

Here’s a couple tracks to give you a taste:

From The Ezekiel Hanani LP– “Dedication”

So very fresh sounding. Love the CL Smooth sample.

From the Music for Agony mixtape – “Realize (ft.Mint Condition)”

You can cop the whole mixtape for free here. ML-approved dopeness.

From the upcoming The Exodus mixtape – “Illuminate” (prod. by Ivan of Hip Hop Is Read!)

Some links:

Soulbrotha’s MySpace, where you can stream tracks off all these albums and purchase The Ezekiel Hanani LP (iTunes link/CD Baby)

Soulbrotha’s Website

So the idea behind these posts is to highlight unsigned artists or artists on independent labels who deserve more exposure.

Today I’m profiling Poizunus, a vocal DJ and beatboxer from my hometown of Toronto. Here’s a little bit of the bio from his site:

As a child, Poizunus struggled with a speech impediment but after speech therapy, he learned to control his voice while speaking. Overcoming this obstacle has been a great achievement for this talented MC who is now mastering beats and creating all types of sound effects with his voice.

Amalgamating the new and old world of beatboxing, Poizunus has been spitting beats ever since he was a curious young boy who stumbled upon his cousin’s hip-hop tape collection. Music has always inspired this Toronto native who is influenced by his parents collections of soulful music.

Last year Poizunus won first place in Scribble Jam Beatbox Battle. I saw him perform at the Frosh concert at my university with Bedouin Soundclash and the Stills, among others. He did some very dope routines, including vocal beat juggling, completely stole the show.

He also recorded an “beatbox instrumental album”, called A.ctive D.reaming D.isorder, that’s he selling online. The tracks I’ve heard on his MySpace are dope. He’s basically recording his beatboxing and sequencing it on an MPC. Some of the tracks are instrumental while others have some decent MCs whom I wasn’t too familiar with. You can listen to some tracks at Poizunus’ MySpace or stream it from CD Baby (where you can also buy a physical/digital copy of the album).

You can see some video of his routines on YouTube here. Here’s one of my favourite routines, Poizunus doing the sound effects for the NES version of Donkey Kong:

Hey, he’s on “the Tweeter” as well (what up Travis?) as PoizunusLive.

A Bay Area duo, Bash Bros, that I don’t know a whole lot about shot a video for their great song “Joy Riden”. I was hipped to it by the excellent GRANDGOOD, who first put up the song on volume 28 of their regularly posted audiocast.

I’m diggin’ the production on this, by a cat named Style MiSia. He’s currently set to produce the entirety of their upcoming album, “Main Event”, due out next year.

This song is the street single off “Main Event”, which also features appearances from Sean Price, Pumpkinhead, Big Pooh of LB, among others.

You can check out more material by the Bash Bros at their official website or their MySpace and download songs by the group, including “Joy Riden”.

LA-based rapper Blu (here pictured with Detroit rapper/producer Ta’araach) is going places. His collabo with Detroit producer Exile, Below The Heavens, is probably my favourite hip-hop album of ’07. It’s gotten accolades all over, from HipHopDX to Okayplayer, where it’s been nominated for three Okayplayer awards, including Album of the Year.

Exile’s productions are super soulful, reminiscent of Pete Rock or Jay Dee in places. And Blu raps about stuff everyone can relate to, from girl troubles to working blue collar jobs for a little cash. And dude sounds hungry on the mic. I’ve got high hopes for this cat.

I’ve embedded a video for one of my favourite tracks off the album, So(ul) Amazing, below:

BTW, you can stream the whole record off Blu’s MySpace too.

And he’s got more stuff coming down the pipe for ’08. I got tipped off by one of my favourite blogs, When They Reminisce, about another Blu album, this time with producer Mainframe. Together they are Johnson & Johnson, and they’ve got a full-length LP on the way, at the moment set to drop in April ’08. From what I’ve heard from the record on their MySpace, the album’s got a more quirky sound to it (I’ve heard it compared to Madvillainy by some people and the comparison holds up). I like what I’ve heard so far.

Here’s a video they put together for their song Bout It Bout It (No Master P):

The other project Blu is working on for ’08 is an album as C.R.A.C. Knuckles, which is him and Detroit producer/rapper Ta’araach (pictured above). Not too much info on this album yet, but you can listen to some songs on their MySpace page.

Don’t be surprised if you see Below The Heavens as one of Metal Lungies’ picks for the best of ’07 (our round of 2007 coming soon!)