Trawling through my music collection to pick one album that has had a deep and meaningful impression on my life is a near impossible undertaking. 90 percent of my CDs are hip hop, and that is what I have listened to since I was 12 or 13. I love hip hop day in and day out still, and plenty of hip hop artists have had an impact on my life. Their words have sculpted me, taught me how to creatively use language, and made me understand the crazy concepts of love and loss.
I applied everything hip hop taught me and it took me across the world to America on a basketball scholarship; I saw the streets of LA that I had heard about, driving very quickly down Crenshaw Blvd and to a place where a man in a green suit told me ‘white boys don’t belong’. Then I moved out to the sticks of Nebraska, Corn Husker territory, and that’s where I discovered country music.
A friend of mine told me that according to research, music will never again has the same impact on you as it does when you’re first developing your own taste in music, at about 12-14 years old – this is the music we love for life. I agree to the extent that I will always love hip hop, but I would argue that the strong emotional connection I found to country music is the same, if not greater, than my response to hip hop all those years ago.
I spent 5 amazing years in Nebraska, and in this time I experienced about 10 months of absolute darkness. But that’s where country music saved me, finding me right at the bottom of a bottle of rum and a dozen $1.50 pots of Budweiser. Being borderline homeless with no CDs of my own, I would just rummage through the music choices of the people’s couches I was sleeping on and early on I found a real gem from the couch of a guy called Chad. The album was Steve Earle’s Live From Austin, TX with Steve Earle on guitar and vocals, Ken Moore on keyboards, Bucky Baxter on guitar, Ron Kling on bass guitar and keyboards, Harry Stinson on drums and Mike McAdam on guitar. The album was recorded in September 1986 but was for some reason not released until 2004.
The first song that grabbed my attention was track 3 on the album, Guitar Town. The opening line goes “Hey, pretty baby, are you ready for me?” I didn’t think I was, but it turned out that at this point in my life, I was oh so ready for Steve Earle.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AINUPFbFpqg]
I was intrigued by Steve Earle’s approach to song writing. Some of his songs don’t have a standard chorus, but use a simple line to great effect throughout the song in different contexts. This is most apparent in Angry Young Man where he uses the phrase “angry young man” to connect the verses, with a different scenario each time, saying: “There ain’t no peace for an angry young man,” “This ain’t no place for an angry young man” and “The only way for an angry young man.” It just runs so smoothly, connecting each verse.
Angry Young Man grabbed me right from the opening line; the song resonated with me: “Got a lot of memories tied up in this place/So much time spent in so little space,” was exactly the thoughts I was having after 5 years in small-town America was taking its toll on me. “Kind of closes in on you after a while” was the most accurate description of how all of a sudden, a town 15 streets by 15 streets was the tiniest place on earth – especially when you’re trying to avoid someone. Everywhere I went I saw her, every time I did something, she saw me. I buried myself deeper into a hole, became angrier and angrier at the world, at society, at religion, at anything at all I could rail against, and especially at love and lies and the bitterness leftover. Alcohol started to be the only thing that made sense to me, and Steve Earle had seen it all before. Chad’s house was my own “cheap hotel a long way from my home;” every night the bar was pack but I really understood how somehow “So many people make you feel so alone.”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzc8tnC6lV0]
Every line in Angry Young Man pulled at the strings of my situation. My dreams had “die[d] easy out here in these streets” and as far as “hearts grow cold in the city heat,” well, I had that too. I no longer had hopes of making it pro in basketball, and the girl that I’d pinned my next dream on had also shattered. I wanted to go home but I was afraid to move back to my mum’s, so afraid for her to see me in this state. My man Steve knew this feeling exactly: “Mama if you could see me right now/You’d be so sure you failed me somehow/Mama you never could understand/ There ain’t no peace for an angry young man.”
I balanced out the raw anger of Angry Young Man with the quiet desperation of My Old Friend The Blues. This was my night-time song, and I would take a few pain killers after a long day of writing sports news and drinking, lay back on my kid-sized bed and just listen to that guitar line. I would let it flow through me, seeping into every capillary of my soul; I would leave the song on repeat and drift off to sleep. My Old Friend The Blues still calms me if I am feeling depressed or anxious, or am just having trouble sleeping. Like Steve himself says, “I know I can always count on you, my old friend the blues”.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdTvDQnCqrg]
After around 10 months of listening to Steve Earle day-in-day-out, I finally started regaining a grip on my life – I even met a girl. Although she couldn’t be my San Antonio Girl (she’s never even been to Texas), I started spending all my time with her. When I would set off to drive the hour and a half to work a week at a time in the countryside, I would miss her, and Steve Earle’s words popped into my head: “I’m out here on the highway goin’ crazy without you.” Once again, he knew what I was thinking – Steve Earle’s music had seen me right through and to the other side of my darkest days. So I took a chance, and played her the now very beaten up CD, and, luckily, she loved it.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GW0c16yUI9o]
Her favourite song was Fearless Heart, and when she listened to it, she also had a little darkness in her eyes. I never asked her, but I think she made a strong connection to this song – it was about both of us at the time. “It’s kinda soon to fall in love again/But sometimes the best that you can do is just jump back in” was how Steve summed up our situation. Neither of us really wanted to go down that road again, but we trusted to Steve Earle and eventually took his advice when he says, “I can’t promise this’ll work out right/But it would kill me darlin’ if we didn’t even try.”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzDGvtJ2pgI]
I still throw on Steve Earle in good times and bad. I don’t have to be in need of a pick me up, or have dark emotions to work through. I just get the feeling I need to hear some Steve played loud for the pure and simple joy of the music, the clever words, the fun he has with the performance. Guitar Town was the first song that grabbed me and is still a song I love to play when driving down the highway with all the windows down. It is a live album, after all, it’s meant to be loud and you can really feel the crowd’s energy.
I was lucky enough to be part of the crowd myself when Steve Earle came out to Australia and played at the Forum in Melbourne last year. Tickets were a little steep, but honestly, I would have paid anything to see not only the legend in country music but also my saviour. I took my girl with me and sang along to almost every song – except the ones I’d known from listening to on Live From Austin, TX. For those, I stood quietly holding in my arms everything I held dear, and let him play. I didn’t sing a word, I just smiled, I was happy.
In 2015, Talib Kweli released two albums: Radio Silence and Fuck The Money. The latter was a complete surprise and offered for free – I guess he really meant what the title said. Talib has now teamed up with producer 9th Wonder for a new album titled Indie 500 and everyone is excited as hell.
After a recent Complex article negatively characterised Talib as someone who ‘raps off beat,’ the New York native seemed unaffected by the comment. Talib spoke to HipHopDX following the Complex article, saying: “I’m really happy about the place I’m in creatively,” and announcing the new album he’s working on.
Talib revealed details of the upcoming Indie 500 album on Monday’s HipHopDX “Daily Daily” video segment: “That album’s got myself, Brother Ali, Hi-Tek, Khrysis, Bad Lucc, Problem, Rapsody, Planet Asia, Nico, Pharoahe Monch, Slug from Atmosphere.”
We had a taste last week of what the project holds when Talib and 9th Wonder dropped Pay Ya Dues featuring West Coast rappers Problem & Bad Lucc and produced by Eric G. Have a listen as these three emcees rap about paying their dues in the industry. They have set the standard high for Indie 500 but if this first track is anything to go by, I am sure the album will not disappoint.
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/225052068″ params=”color=ff5500″ width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]
Talib Kweli will be visiting Australia at the end of October to perform at Soulfest, both as a solo artist and alongside Mos Def as Black Star
More: “Hip hop was always meant for you to turn up the the club” – read our conversation with Talib Kweli
There has been plenty of debate lately over the question: what is, and what is not, hip hop? At the forefront of this debate is R.A. the Rugged Man, a New York-based MC who has long believed in the time of the ‘Golden Age’ of rap. This includes rappers such as Rakim, Kool G Rap, and the GZA, and R.A. has recently been looking for someone who might be able to carry that torch.
With this in mind, R.A. last year presented the Definition of a Rap Flow competition. Here was was where he first heard the rhymes of a rapper named A-F-R-O (All Flows Reach Out), real name James Gutierrez, a teenager from Southern California (who, in case you were wondering, does indeed sport a decent afro). R.A. knew that he was hearing something special – A-F-R-O’s voice and flow are strong, his vocabulary is impressive and he has a deep, bass voice not seen since Biggie, Chuck D and lately Jurassic 5.
A-F-R-O seems to fit into the vision that R.A. has for the future of hip hop. “[A-F-R-O] makes all of us feel good, because a lot of 17-year-olds only know a lot of garbage that they’re being spoon-fed on the radio,” R.A. told Uproxx. “They don’t know the Rakim, DJ Premier, Kool G Rap, the GZA. So, when I introduce him to GZA and Kool G Rap and Premier in person and he knows their entire biography – stuff that they’ve done 10 years before he was born – they’re like ‘Wow, there’s youth out there like this. We’re not going to be forgotten. We’re being reborn into another generation, our music will live on through dudes like this.’”
A-F-R-O is 17-years-old and has that awkward teenage exterior, but this disappears when you hear him flow – there is no question that he has a endless vine of talent. He also radiates modesty and he really is just a young guy trying to stay humble and pay respect to those who he has admired in the rap game all his life, which includes R.A. the Rugged Man. So you can imagine A-F-R-O’s excitement at winning R.A.’s Definition of a Rap Flow. Check out his winning track below.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-c3X91Ld-GU]
To celebrate the young man’s win, R.A. got A-F-R-O to record a freestyle for R.A. The Rugged Man TV. It is phenomenally fast and witty – so much so that people started doubting that it was done off the top of his head and rumours began circling that he actually planned his raps. Check out the first freestyle as well as his response to the haters, below.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0rdjMjBa4A]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctlo9e5MDOg]
So if at this point you’re thinking, ‘this guy’s great, so why aren’t we seeing more of him?’ – it seems that you’re not the only one. Just this weekend, Honda released a feature of A-F-R-O on their Uncharted: Power of Dreams web series, created in partnership with digital studio Woven. This aims to find the next big music stars, spotlighting up-and-coming musicians who are on the quest to hit it big.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVRi5IgwNfY]
Time will tell if A-F-R-O will live up to his mentor’s hopes for where hip hop is going – for now, he wants to make good music while paying tribute to the legends who came up in the game before him. Regardless of R.A.’s expectations, I particularly love the newcomer’s raw talent and flow, which certainly satisfies my nostalgia for new examples of classic hip hop music. Keep an eye (or ear) out for this one – he’s a force to be reckoned with.
Mac Miller continues to show that 100 Grand is about to be chump change, with his major-label debut GO:OD AM debuting at number 4 on the Billboard Top 200, and now this weekend’s killer freestyle.
Pittsburgh’s finest is currently gearing up for his North American tour. During his promotional run, Miller stopped by Big Boy’s morning show on 92.3 REAL in Los Angeles and showcased his crazy freestyle skills. Rapping over Biggie’s DJ Premier-produced Ten Crack Commandments, he compares himself through the list of religious figures to “a young Moses” then jumps into an undeniably dope flow: “Who’s hot? I moonwalk the jungle gym/ do not try to stop ‘cause you not gon’ fuck with him/ I’m rumblin’ with countrymen, do it for the USA/ First get the money, then the fame, then you get paid, Ali Bumba Ye.”
Big Boy gives Mac a few seconds’ break, chanting “don’t stop,” before thrusting him into Yeezy’s College Dropout track “Get Em High. Mac handles it with ease, claiming “Bitch I want it all, I will not give you not a cent here/ this is not pretend I’m tryin’ to pay some pricey rent here.”
Mac is then given another quick water break before the next session over Timbaland’s Put You On from The Game’s Documentary. The whole freestyle session lasts nearly three minutes – check it out below.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DV23h-tyZ4]
Still not convinced of Mac Miller’s skills? Check out the Chase N. Cashe-produced Speed Racer, a new track that was left off GO:OD AM.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3l3BussHco]
When a guy called Micky Williams created a tongue-in-cheek meme of rapper Ice Cube being an ISIS soldier dressed as a Syrian refugee, it was shared over 20,000 times in a matter of hours. The meme was posted on his Williams’ Facebook page and according to the creator, “a good 10 percent” of those who shared the photo thought it was real. Perhaps not so obvious a joke – what was intended as offhand and playful ended up enraging a number of activists, and the image has since been pulled from Facebook.
But perhaps Williams’ satire hits a little close to home – anyone familiar with the rap group Westside Connection and their album titled Terrorist Threats might be forgiven for doing a double-take at the meme, which also features a picture of rapper-turned-actor Ice Cube taken from the family movie Are We There Yet.
The group’s 2003 album uses all post 9/11 buzz words, from Osama bin Laden to the Taliban and Saddam. In Westside Connection, the rappers used the names The Gangsta (Ice Cube), The Killa (WC) and The Dope Dealer (Mack 10) and called themselves old-school terrorists who posed ‘a bigger threat than Al-Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah combined’. During the tracks Terrorist Threats and Lights Out, the trio refer to themselves as “the young Osama with that al-Qaeda drama”, as well as, “Saddam, bin Laden and O.J. in a Chevy”. Considering that these are still considerable political issues, it’s a lot to have forgotten about such well-known public figures, even if their group, Westside Connection, has been broken up a while.
The west coast hip hop super group of Ice Cube, WC (Dub C) and Mack 10 first appeared together on Mack 10’s self-titled debut in the song Westside Slaughter in 1994. They came together as an official group in 1996, and from then on, the trio were a non-stop assault of threats, disses, macho braggadocio posturing, and disturbing narratives of west coast life. They were the personification of ’90 era west coast gangsta rap; the gangsta rap group that defined my generation.
Their first album Bow Down was a relentless, chest-beating, dick-measuring, tough guy album posing gangsta rap in its most authentic form. It is arguably the greatest hip hop record to come from the west coast during the decade, and some of the greatest work Ice Cube has ever put forth. Through the album, Cube, WC, and Mack 10 never take a second off from informing us of their alpha dog status through astonishing flows, with scolding verses and catchy hooks.
It has been 10 years since Westside Connection disbanded, after Mack 10 left the group due to a conflict with Ice Cube in 2005. Ice Cube has said that while the group could get back together and anything was possible, for him to even consider it, Mack 10 would have to “kiss the ring first.” So, basically, the group is over – forever – since the pair haven’t spoken or worked together in years. The last we heard about the group was 2011 in an interview with Vibe Magazine, when Mack 10 said: “I don’t know if we will ever speak again. I haven’t given it much thought. It’s all about Hoo Bangin’ [Mack 10’s record label] now. Outside of that, I can’t really think about it. That’s the way you have to approach this business right now. This is not 1995 anymore.”
And don’t we know it. I can’t be the only one pining for ‘90s era gangsta rap, and I am not just some hipster pretending I loved gangsta rap before the NWA movie came out this year: I actually did love it. I was a Westside Connection bangin’, Geto Boys blastin’, Mobb Deep poundin’, Wu-Tang lovin’, Bone Thugz rappin’ type of kid with a Snoop Dogg hair style who was called all of the ‘W’ words (‘wigger’ and ‘wannabe’ mainly) for these choices. Nobody in my year level knew or cared about gangsta rap, except me and my homie D-Dubbs, and not one of my peers or English teachers ever noticed or called me out for the NWA lyrics I recited in my creative essays.
But enough about my poor English grades – why don’t we revisit a classic. Get yourself a drink, turn up the volume, and bow down.
Kanye and Jay-Z are the bestest of friends. Sometimes when I can’t sleep, I picture myself and my best bud and I compare us to Ye and Z and, mostly, I come to the conclusion that we aren’t too far off them in best friend status. But then something like this happens, and I realise that my own bromances are far, far from the status of theirs.
Bianca Bosso from The Interns has decided that Kanye and Jay-Z have one of the cutest relationships in rap history and, to reflect this, has created a picture book adaptation of the duo’s popular song, N****s in Paris. Four years ago, the song was everywhere – it was being rapped along to by everyone, and even featured at number 98 in Triple J’s Hottest 100 2011. You shouldn’t find it too hard then to rap (or in this case, read) along as the story unfolds.
Titled Friends in Paris, the picture book is a 32-page, PG-rated story of a kindred friendship in all its glory. You can watch the two rappers gallivanting around France with cameos from Drake, Beyonce, Kim Kardashian and, possibly, a sexy Taylor Swift video store attendant.
The idea of a hip hop picture book seems to be becoming a real thing, and Friends in Paris is the second to be released after Grandmaster Caz’s hip hop pop-up book.
You can buy the book at The Interns’ Kickstarter page.
Just when you thought there couldn’t possibly be any more Run The Jewels action, the hip hop duo are once more owning the headlines this week. First, they have collaborated with TV on the Radio to perform their song Angel Duster on Late Show With Stephen Colbert. Check out the clip below.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vr3i8P0R8k&w=560&h=315]
As you can see, it’s quite an impressive collab. Even Colbert thought so, and got Run The Jewels back in the next day for a bonus comedy sketch. “Excited to announce that I’ve signed [Run the Jewels] to a multi-album deal!” Colbert tweeted along with the clip.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nAgWNUenuk&w=560&h=315]
The sketch sees RTJ playing with a parody of their remix album, Meow the Jewels (a good-natured Kickstarter-funded album which will feature the duo rapping over cat noises). The boys are good sports, and in the sketch El-P and Killer Mike preview Squawk The Jewels before moving into Couple Arguing Outside A Party The Jewels and ending with Fire At The Old Henderson Place The Jewels. At the end of the sketch, a variety of other interesting sounds and remix projects are promised:
- Bubble Wrap The Jewels
- Mambo The Jewels
- Wilhelm Scream The Jewels
- Malfunctioning Pinball Machine The Jewels
- Nixon Tapes The Jewels
- Leaving A Drunk Message On Your Ex-Girlfriend’s Voicemail The Jewels
- Windows 95 Startup The Jewels
- Tree Falling In The Woods The Jewels
- Seagal The Jewels
- The Apartment Sounds So Empty Without Her The Jewels
- The Entire Soundtrack To Saturday Night Fever Without Modification The Jewels
- Jewel (The Singer) The Jewels
- Racist Uncle The Jewels
- Squawk The Jewels 2
And to top off all this Run The Jewels action, the pair brought out a number of guests during their set on Saturday at Music Midtown festival in Killer Mike’s hometown of Atlanta. Fellow ATLien Big Boi came onstage to perform Banana Clipper, T.I. and Bun B came out for Big Beast, and Gangsta Boo rapped her parts on Love Again. Watch a few clips below.
FUCKING T.I. @KillerMike @therealelp pic.twitter.com/DxL5A9eM8j
— ✞ (@DevonManaugh) September 20, 2015
The only downside to all this great Run The Jewels news is that with Colbert’s supposed multi-album deal, Run The Jewels 3 will only be completed “once [they] finish up with all this other shit, So, it should take ‘til 2029.” But Colbert was only joking, right? Right?
Rappers have always had run-ins with the law. Some have been put behind bars, some have been banned from entering countries and some, like Chief Keef, have been deemed an “unacceptable role model,” in a statement issued by a spokesperson for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. The comment is in reference to the Chicago rapper facing an arrest warrant in Illinois for allegations that he failed to pay child support. Keef has been unable to return to his hometown of Chicago for a full year for fear of being arrested.
It is a surprising statement, as since the warrant was issued Keef has done nothing but make music and try to put on a series of concerts by hologram. The concerts were meant to be benefits to raise funds for the families of Marvin Carr, a fellow Chicago rapper and friend of Keef’s who was gunned down in July, and Dillan Harris, a 13-month-old child who was killed by a car fleeing the scene of that shooting. Being unable to perform in Chicago (in person or by hologram), Keef moved the concert to Indiana. The performance was billed as ‘Stop the Violence’.
But it seems that even in Indiana, Keef’s presence still “posed a significant public safety risk,” as the concert was shut down after the opening song. Police stormed the stage and tackled the hologram version of Keef, only to find themselves face down on the floor in embarrassment when they passed straight through the body of light.
Well, that’s not exactly how it happened. It’s just kind of hard to imagine police shutting down a hologram if they didn’t mistake it for the actual Chief Keef. Can ‘allegedly’ not paying child support really instil such fear in officials that even his likeness is guilty? But somehow, Chris Brown’s constant and public disrespect and violence towards women is ignored? It makes no sense – and now, suddenly, several other venues have cancelled the hologram shows.
Personally, Chief Keef strikes me as a stand-up dude (lack of child-support payments aside) – the concerts were, after all, to raise money for the families of two people killed in a shooting. Keef will not be deterred from the aims of ‘Stop the Violence’, putting on his futuristic concert last Friday night at Henry Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles. For a holographic show, there were some very real speed bumps, and the show had to pull out of its original venue at the last minute after a producer reportedly “was hurt” during a walk-through.
The Theatre’s parent company AEG cancelled the show, forcing Keef’s reps to move the benefit concert to a new venue (a parking lot next to the Fonda theatre). Keef’s reps have also filed a police report of their own regarding the situation, and called the venue’s actions a “cover-up [of] brutal assault by its security forces.” An AEG rep disputed these allegations, saying that the cancellation was due solely to “concerns for the safety of our employees and the public”.
Not all attendees made it to the new venue, which might have been a big deal but ultimately didn’t matter because the Keef hologram was again shut off after only one song. An organizer told everyone in the audience to meet up at a nearby club, and security guards started forcing people to leave. Billboard tracked down a police officer and asked him what happened, and he explained that Keef didn’t have the proper permits for this holographic performance.
Seemingly backing Keef all the way, Alki David, CEO of FilmOn and Hologram USA, was very disappointed by the decision made by AEG and the venue, blaming the Mayor’s laissez-faire politics:
AEG and the Fonda Theater have continued the shameful cycle of blaming hip-hop and the artistic expression of urban youth for their own corporate malfeasance. This follows on the Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s attempts to silence Keef and scapegoat him for his city’s complete inability to solve the war-zone like crisis on the South Side, and on the Madison Square Garden Company’s bumbling attempt to back out of a tri-city peace concert to benefit the family of a murdered baby.
Keef has also responded eloquently to the events:
“fuck Henry Fonda and fuck jane Fonda too”
— AlmightySo (@ChiefKeef) September 18, 2015
And, somewhat less colourful, here is my official response:
Australia probably won’t let Keef in to perform, but I think we should at least allow his hologram.
Since it seems we won’t be seeing Chief Keef perform anytime soon, you can stream his new album on Spotify.
The Adelaide Crows are a force to be reckoned with, defeating the Western Bulldogs in a hard-fought semi-final on Saturday night… I mean, releasing a killer EP. Forgive me if that happens throughout this piece – it’s a little confusing having a band named after a football team. I’ll admit the name had me ready to dismiss the band outright, but last weekend I found myself in the band room of Abbostford’s Yarra Hotel, drawn by some of the most emphatic live drumming I had ever heard. I had stumbled into The Adelaide Crows release of their EP Strained Conversations to a packed venue.
Strained Conversations is The Adelaide Crows’ second EP, a follow up to their 2013 debut Ornithology.
The Melbourne band are a 4-7 piece (depending on the night). The core consists of: Owen Virtue (lead singer, rhythm guitarist), Kirk Ballantyne (lead guitarist), Owen Bennett (drums, guitar and vocals), and Robin Leppitt (bass guitar); each of these features on the EP. The Crows also have three part-time members: Will Bracks (part-time keys player), Ellie Vallier (part-time saxophone player) and Daniel Parsons-Jones (part-time trumpet player).
Drummer Owen Bennett was the stand-out performance of the night; not only did he completely slay the drums, but he also took over lead guitar and vocals during The Love Affair (from the Ornithology EP), swapping with lead guitarist Kirk Ballantyne for the song. I have seen musicians change out their instruments, but have never before seen the guitarist and drummer entirely swap roles. Totally unique, totally cool.
Being such football lovers as to name their band after a team, you would imagine the band were quite hyped after the footy Crows’ victory, so it was unfortunate that two of the band members are actually Bulldogs supporters. Despite the disappointment that these two must have felt after their flag prospects were cut short, the band was able to channel a higher love for the music they create, sticking together to produce a wicked set.
The Adelaide Crows showcase everything that we loved about Aussie ‘90s alt-rock blended with a bit of Paul Kelly. You can also hear the influences of Dan Kelly, the laid back sound of Dick Diver, and the heavier backdrop as in Jebediah. The second track on their EP, Newstart, is soulful and catchy and best shows their Paul Kelly influence. The line “Baby I’m looking for a new start/Puts pressure on my little heart” sung in Owen Virtue’s melodic tones is particularly reminiscent of Paul Kelly’s Won’t You Come Round.
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The band’s impressive performance turned what started as just another Saturday night footy into a truly memorable evening. Fans will surely hope for a similarly stellar performance by the band’s namesake in the footy final.
Check out The Adelaide Crows’ EP on their Bandcamp.
Ghostface Killah and DOOM have teamed up to form DOOMSTARKS (named in keeping with the Stones Throw Record label’s naming combinations for joint collaborations) for Lively Hood, a new track produced by DOOM and released as part of the Adult Swim Singles program.
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Listen to it above and grab a free download of it here. Soon, it’ll also be available on 7″ via DOOM’s new Gas Drawls site (in conjunction with Metalface/Nature Sounds).
Almost ten years ago the two teamed up and were supposed to release a collaborative album which never happened, but apparently it is finally set to drop this year, and now we’ve got a song released under their pseudonym DOOMSTARKS. Doom had also been previously featured on Ray Gun from Ghostface’s album with BADBADNOTGOOD, Sour Soul.
Lively Hood is full of Ghostface’s gritty raps and DOOM’s signature production and unique flow, and is complete with laser sounds, horns, and explosions as you would expect from a DOOM track. The track comes off as a hard, one verse each, straight to the point rap, with just enough time in the barely two minute track for a quick hook. It is definitely one of the hardest NY tracks recently put on wax and makes Jay-Z’s New York tributes sound like he grew up in a safeguarded gated community.
The duo are set to perform together at III Points Festival, which takes place October 9th to 11th in Miami. But this won’t be a typical performance: DOOM will appear on a live screen “from the other side of time.” He’ll be “transported Star Trek-style directly onto the III Points Festival stage,” according to a festival press release. The press release also says they will be debuting music from the upcoming DOOMSTARKS album.
Released as part of Adult Swim’s series of 19 tracks over the past few weeks, Lively Hood is certainly standing out as one of the best. Other released songs have spanned multiple genres and artists, including Skrillex, Sia and Danny Brown. With only four more singles remaining to be released, the forthcoming tracks will have to be harder than steel and iron to be any better than the DOOMSTARKS offering. Unlikely.