The typical inclination of a Southron rapper would have one expecting, high-caloric beat patterns, heavy-ass bass, minimal instrumental influence and ignant-as-fuck subject matters, but not from Krit. The Mississippi-born rapper and producer has always been consistent with his message, with his knack as a producer and with his releases. Krit’s experience as a producer, and as a rapper, has helped mold his own unique sound which is currently reflected by his latest self-produced mixtape, 4evaNaDay.

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•  9 March 2012

Odd Future affiliate, Vince Staples, who appeared on Earl’s Earl doesn’t have much going on about his career. Out of all of the OF members, he has the greatest veil of mystery around his persona.

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•  10 January 2012

5. Nostalgia, Ultra

Experimental R&B. Good vocals. Unique samples. Out of all the Odd Future affiliates, he has received the most acclaim, even earning himself two guest features in Jay and Ye’s Watch The Throne. Definitely looking forward for more of Mr. Ocean’s work.

4. Let England Shake

Let England Shake is a wonderful Alt-Rock album from PJ Harvey. No song sounds the same; vocally dynamic and hitting lots of unexpected ranges. Epic guitar work and composition. English patriotism in it’s purest unrefined form! 

3. Section.80

Kendrick’s debut studio album, Section.80 is a well-produced album that feature’s Lamar’s raw lyricism and general truth-shouting antics. He speaks his mind and he doesn’t leave anything out. The Spiteful Chant still receives daily plays to this day! Actually, the whole album is still on the daily rotation. Bless up to Mr. Lamar for the good music.

2. Strange Moosic

A band originating from France, Israel and Sweden; a folk band that is known for their catchy melodies and heartfelt songwriting. Strange Moosic is their most recent efforts on an album. Strange Moosic speaks to the heart! Cop it! (They’re coming to Toronto on the 18th of January !!!)

1. Covert Coup

Spitta and Al’s collaboration featuring hazy instruments, smoke breaks, psychedelic patterns and stoned reveries. The tape that dropped on 4/20. The perfect tape for such occasions. Curren$y put in a LOT of work this year and Covert Coup is THAT album that stuck out the most. Props to the Hot Spitta.

•  3 January 2012

Common has never failed to put out some good music. A veteran of Ye’s G.O.O.D music, a rapper known for his poetic execution and conscious lyrics, Common has established himself as one of the most talented MCs of his days.

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•  2 January 2012

Better late than never.

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•  22 May 2011

An LP with great potential that suffers from production blues.

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•  22 May 2011

The historical entry of mainstream experimental rap.

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•  18 May 2011

Spitta’s latest side project with the famed Alchemist dubbed ”Covert Coup” dropped on 4/20. All 30 minutes of this LP stands on it’s own without the need of the 420 hype (LOL SMOKE MOAR). After teasing us with leaks I was quite pumped for this one to drop so much so that I even saved the first roll of the day on this free LP (not that you need to be high to enjoy it).

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•  6 May 2011

A good handful of meaningful songs that come straight from K.R.I.T’s heart

It has that southern sound but it does not neglect lyrical content

Listen to this and fall in love.

8.6/10

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED || AOTY CONTENDER

DL LINK: Official

FAVE TRACKS:

R4 Intro

Dreamin’

R4 Theme song (forevaevaFOREVAEVA)

Rotation

Highs and Lows

Big K.R.I.T, a XXL freshman of 2011, has recently dropped this free 21 track mixtape/album called the Return of 4eva. Not much of a K.R.I.T listener since this release but damn, this guy smashes all of my preconceived notions about southern rap… maybe it’s my lack of forte in the genre, maybe I’m not listening to the right artists and if there’s anyone out there like K.R.I.T then please point me in that direction. 

So right off the bat K.R.I.T tells you about this movement, the R4 or the Return of 4eva. He describes that feeling of waiting in the back of a concert as the DJ brings the track back to rile up the crowd. Then you hear the crowd chant his name as the hype man well, does his job and hypes the crowd up. You get that feeling that you can’t help but cheer for him too. It’s something about southern rappers that makes their songs so live and energetic. The track leads to a nice build up and hits the climax when the trumpets start to swell up as he goes out to the crowd with the mic and starts performing. Then a blaring alarm clock reveals that he was only dreaming. I mean just from the intro of this album I couldn’t help but listen to it. So I hit the Loop One Song and blasted the Intro about 5-10 times. 

K.R.I.T comes off as a rapper that is in that mid point between still trying to make it big and has somewhat already made it. There’s that sense of humility about him.  Though he’s attained some success, he’s not quite there yet as he describes it in Rise and Shine. Big K.R.I.T put a lot effort in making his meaningful songs, really meaningful. He talks about the struggles of keeping it real as opposed  to simply being all about flash and swag. But this album does have songs about cars, money, girls and a bunch of Country Shit. A song that I particularly liked was Rotation, “I’m just rotatin my tires, rotatin my tires, rotatin my tires”. Shits catchy as fuck.

You bet this free album is recommendable, well, because it’s good music and it’s free. I didn’t have to many gripes and problems with this album, nothing worth complaining about. And you know, some songs you just might not like because it doesn’t click to you, but in my opinion, though not all songs here are great, they had that certain appeal of genuine realness and that what this guy says is straight-up real, no fake label pressure (he did produce the album himself) and it’s coming from K.R.I.T himself, no strings attached.

•  6 April 2011

Unique instrumentals that draws influences from ambient and electronic sounds.

Creative, wordy, slow but elegant rapping.

LISTEN: 

Against The Wind

DL LINK: emayzin

8/10

I didn’t know too much about Emay until about a week ago when he followed my tumbleblog (I wonder what he searched to get to my blog?). I promptly checked out this aspiring Canadian Hamilton-based (fuck yeah Canada) artist and was caught off guard. His self produced EP Incorruptible was quite a surprise.

This guy has a particular ear for beats that is quite different from your typical rapper. Bars is straight up ambient-ish, with some eerie organ like synth sound that haunts the track. The drums are almost too quiet, too soft, but they promptly swell up near the end. I really like the two instrumental bonus tracks he included in the EP especially Dove For Tara. I’m a sucker for good strings and pianos in a hiphop beat.

His flow is wordy, monotonous for the most part but there’s a sense of elegant slowness in his spitting that works for him. His delivery maybe monotonous, hardly memorable, and in the case of your average rapper, that would be a bad thing, but not for Emay, it works to his advantage, especially in Against The Wind.

For bedroom production budget, it’s not half bad. There’s no audible production errors or anything. It’s pretty apparent that he draws inspiration from a lot of different genres. Incorruptible has ambient and electronic influences that makes his beats quite unique. I haven’t checked out his older stuff (which I shortly will) but I feel like I started off good with Incorruptible. Now is his stuff recommendable? To the average listener, some beats, particularly Incorruptible “We Shall Be Changed” maybe too inaccessible. But certainly they can follow his creative lyrics and maybe ride out the beat along the way. Nonetheless I urge you check Incorruptible out. Emay is definitely making some of my lists this year.

•  31 March 2011