Our friends at Creative Loafing my have said it best – A3C “is not so much a revolution as it is a renaissance” and it’s one we’ve been looking forward to for month’s now. Still, there’s always a ton of work leading up to these events that drain the heck out of you, to the point where getting there means more than just arriving. It means all the labor and hard work are essentially done lol. Read the rest of this entry »

Words By Prop Jay

Some people see circa 2003 as a dark period that passed through Hip-Hop: The Jansport Era.

I gave a chance to the music many people were either oblivious to or quick to dismiss through ignorance. While I can’t front and pretend it was the best of times for H.E.R., it was a breath of fresh air from the Shiny Suit era. In fact, some memorable music came out of it and there are quite a few tracks that still get play if I have time to do some reminiscing. Here are a handful taken from my Jansport…

Atmosphere – “Onemoresphere”

Slug kills this intro by Ant. Off their God Loves Ugly LP it made for a welcome opening track then and seems to perfectly fit the spot here. Ant’s slow production matched by Slug’s crafted cadence captures the essence of nerd-rap.

Murs – “Making Music”

Living Legend member Murs was famous among backpackers far before his collabo with 9th. Here Murs slows it down and shows why Read the rest of this entry »

Words By Prop Jay

On a slow day, I reverted to digging through some classics. Therefore, I present you with this old Bay Area Latyrx jam. The Solesides crew is simply legendary, and Lateef and Lyrics Born through their group Latyrx generously helped contribute to earning this title.

This jam is exactly how I got turned on to the crew, and it was this track that later led me to hearing DJ Shadow’s classic album Entroducing. It’s off their second release Muzzapers Mix EP from 1998, but strangely enough the song was released a bit earlier (1996) as a single only to be left off thir first release Latyrx: The Album. Therefore, as Lateef and Lyrics Born give praise to what seems to be the perfect woman, the jazz and funk infused beat hooks you early on and seems to only let go enough to make you pay attention to what is being said about this lost vixen.

Musically, both easily wrap their voices around the melody like no other and I mean that literally; no other rapper/artist is able to duplicate their sound. It is this variation, or play-on, of our beloved genre (Hip-Hop) that has been what has always kept me intrigued enough to follow them. Today, not many Hip-Hop artists truly bring something new to the table when they finally get their break. This track is a perfect example of the simple innovation that I often feel we are missing within the genre that once was prevalent and promoted in the past.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download — Latyryx – “Lady Don’t Tek No”