With the constant attention last year’s XXL freshman class continues to get, much abandonment has befell on the original 10 that were knighted as the wave of the future. While most have relinquished their buzz, Atlanta rhyme animal Gorilla Zoe continues to King Kong the game with his unique brand of Hip-Hop. Still rattling cages from his latest album Don’t Feed The Animals, Zoe breaks down his grind which includes a movie by the same name as his album, his humanitarian work and why you can never write him off as a gimmick.

As Zoe speaks with the Crew’s TC, read to find out why the animal is still hungry.

TSS: So you made a noticeable 180° with the new album [Don't Feed The Animals] from “Hood Nigga” and some of your other material. What inspired the turnaround?

Gorilla Zoe: Well everybody wants to make better music, you feel me? I can make “Hood Nigga” in my sleep. But it was more like “Can I make real music? Can I create subject matter? How far can I stretch?” Anybody can make hood music or club records, that’s not hard. But can you make music that touch people’s souls. That’s what I was out to do. I have a new lane I’m creating.

TSS: Are you worried about alienating your established fanbase with the new directions?

Gorilla Zoe: Hell nah, they’ll just have to play catch up.

TSS: It’s safe to say “Lost” took everybody by surprise. You actually have days like that?

Gorilla Zoe: Oh yeah, I think it’s safe to say everybody has days like that.

TSS: Why did Lil’ Wayne get cut from the song?

Gorilla Zoe: Politics. Little label shit. They choose and pick want they want to release.

TSS: And the title Don’t Feed The Animals doubles for the album and the movie. What does that mean exactly?

Gorilla Zoe: It basically means don’t give them niggas no money. It’s a post warning. Feed as in food actually means the money. And it’s post because I already got the money but once you taste success, you want more success and that’s what it is.

TSS: The [Don't Feed The Animals] chain is one of the most creative pieces we’ve seen in a while but the buzz on the Internet is everybody’s curious what it’s made out of and some were saying it was just plastic. Read the rest of this entry »

Real talk…I didn’t know how my interview with Krispy Kream and Rah Almillio, the siblings collectively known as The Knux, was going to go. Usually, an artist’s music is indicative of their personality (or lack thereof). But musically, the duo from New Orleans is refreshingly unpredictable. For many Hip-Hop interviews, I chug a shot of espresso and brace myself for yet another drug kingpin-turned-rapper background story.

Not so with The Knux. Their self-produced debut album, Remind Me In 3 Days, is in stores now (courtesy of Interscope Records) and it’s just as colorful as my Q & A session with them turned out to be. Growing up in the gritty hood of N’awlins, The Knux listened to a diverse mix of rappers like Nas, Mobb Deep, Wu Tang, A Tribe Called Quest, Geto Boys and 8-Ball & MJG. To lure them away from the ever-influential streets, Krispy and Al’s mom enrolled them in their middle school’s marching band where they learned how to play instruments. The young brothers may not have stayed out of trouble, but they did hone musical abilities that would prove invaluable later on. Live guitars, bass, keys and drums play a heavy role in The Knux’s funky and futuristic beats; a perfect backdrop for their inventive lyrics.

So here’s the chat that I, Khalid Strickland of the Almighty TSS Crew, recently conducted with The Knux, who have earned a spot in my coveted, tough-to-crack MP3 rotation.

TSS: What would you like to accomplish with Remind Me In 3 Days?

Rah Almillio: Hopefully some more artists behind us will have the courage to do what they want to do with their music and not have no outside influences changing their shit; whether it’s the label or cats you hang with or whatever it may be. Basically, open the lane for more creative artists who want to do what they want to do. If we got to bear the burden for that…if we got to sacrifice album sales, you know what I mean? That’s basically what we want this album to be. Just that bridge for Hip-Hop cats and other genres. We have such a large buffet of different sounds on this album.

TSS: What can the uninitiated expect to hear on this album?

Rah Almillio: Really, you can’t expect nothin’ but what you could know is it’s gonna be some original shit. It’s some shit that’s going to bend your mind a little bit. It’s going to be some hard, hard, hard; our rhymes are something serious on there. We like…jump in the stars on our rhymes, you know what I mean? And you can find some very heavy production; not the beats, but like, production on a whole…some good songwriting. This album in particular is going to be the soundtrack of two hood motherfuckers from New Orleans being in Hollywood and adapting to the Hollywood atmosphere, so that’s what the album is about.

TSS: When did you guys start playing live instruments and what inspired you to do so?

Rah Almillio: Real, real young…as fuckin’ kids in middle school. And our mom started us playing these instruments because…In New Orleans, let me explain this to you, if your kids don’t really have nothing to do, they’re going to probably wind up selling drugs or fuckin’ shooting somebody. That’s just real and that ain’t even me over-exaggerating that. So my mom, she comes straight from the projects.

My mom is a good, good hood motherfucker so she knows she never wanted her children to be like the motherfuckers she knew when she was coming up, you know? So she put us in that shit early; in a marching band in middle school to keep us out of trouble and shit. It ain’t really work, but she tried the best she could to keep us out of trouble. So it was our mother who basically got us into playing instruments and shit like that. Playing in a jazz band and stuff like that, it’s not really a big deal in New Orleans because it’s a known thing. You got cats in the hood all day that’s like crazy on trumpet and all types of instruments. It’s like the norm in New Orleans to play an instrument.

TSS: Since Black folks pretty much invented and pioneered Rock & Roll, why don’t we acknowledge it the way we should? Why do niggas act like they’re scared of guitars? They see somebody pull a guitar out and they start buggin’. Read the rest of this entry »

Even though the year still has a entire season left to extinguish, DJ Green Lantern’s racked up enough ’08 credentials to solidify his status as one of the year’s top crate diggers. And guess what? He’s not done.

Still fresh from producing for one of the hottest mixtapes (The Nigger Tape), albums (Untitled) and video games (Grand Theft Auto IV) of the year, Green’s set to invade the market once again with a new Royce Da 5’9 street album as well as a custom mixtape for the most popular Presidential hopeful. The Crew’s TC checks the math.

TSS: You’ve had a pretty intense 2008 so far. Would you say it’s your most exciting year so far?

DJ Green Lantern: It’s been pretty exciting so far. I don’t know if it’s been the most exciting but it’s up there. That’s what you grind for, to stay busy right?

TSS: Of course! Now how hard was it to get to this level where you’re involved with some of the biggest names in Hip-Hop?

DJ Green Lantern: It really wasn’t that hard, and that wasn’t the goal to be this big star. I just wanted to make some really hot shit. I think if you set that as a goal like “I’m gonna work with the biggest names in the game…” it’s not gonna happen for you. You just gotta “do you.” Probably each one of my situations came to me, except probably rocking with Jay-Z at his shows.

TSS: So with all these new ventures, what’s your company Future Green Entertainment got going on?

DJ Green Lantern: Future Green is really just starting. I’m just signing artists right now. I got my first artist, he’s a left field guy named Johnny Polygon and he’s not your normal rapper…

TSS: He’s on Nas’ “Black President” right?

DJ Green Lantern: Yeah he’s singing on that song. He also raps but he’s not a rapper or a singer. He’s just a unique individual. Definitely nothing you ever seen Green Lantern messing with before. We’re finalizing his mixtape right now, it’s got a real crazy presentation. It’s called Wolf In Cheap Clothing (Laughs). Like I said…he’s a unique individual.

TSS: In the wake of this upcoming election, would you say “Black President” is one of the most important records you’ve ever done?

DJ Green Lantern: Oh hell yeah! Real important!

TSS: How did that collabo with Nas come about?

DJ Green Lantern: I already had it done with a couple of people for that Barack Obama Mixtape that I’m working on. So I sent it over for him to add a verse and he was like “Yooo, I need that!!!” So I thought for a second and decided that could go on his album and the original version could become the remix. So that’s how that’s going to play out.

TSS: Did the Obama camp ever get wind of the record? Read the rest of this entry »

“Skill Recognize skill, with lyrics that define ill./ Keep your naked eyes peeled, and open. Get your spines chilled.”

It would be a grave injustice to weigh Invincible’s talent on a scale of gender, so set no double standards for her. She isn’t just a great female emcee… she’s a lyricist whose skill set far exceeds most everyone in the game, including some of your favorites.

Her talent garnered attention from Talib Kweli, De La Soul and Jean Grae among others, years ago when she left her Michigan home for opportunity in New York. This was while she was part of the all-female ANOMOLIES, before she cut off her braids. Before she met with major labels and turned down deal after deal. Before she left BK and dedicated her time to the betterment of Detroit. Long before she recorded her first solo project, ShapeShifters, which finally hit shelves in May.

What pushes Invincible into the hierarchy of ability is she chooses beats to back her that are matched raw for raw with the bars she spits. From The Lab Techs turning flutes dirtier than you ever knew a wind instrument could get on “Sledgehammer,” to Black Milk pulling an orchestra of strings through a hard-snare mud puddle on “Recognize,” to Waajeed splattering the up-tempo title track with a filthy organ and acoustic guitar, Invincible is laced high and tight with the grimiest soul the D has to offer.

Beyond the beats, Invincible’s lyrical agility and construction are without definition. The emcee, who spent part of her childhood in Israel-Palestine, warrants play-back, play-back, play-back status and covers subject matter past the classic spectrum of Hip-Hop, delving handily into issues on intimate and international levels.

Far warmer than a 40 degree day, ShapeShifters burns 4.5 cigs – easy – on strength of pure, unadulterated Hip-Hop.

TSS Crew member LC Weber spoke with Invincible about the wait to put out the right project – an album that might be one of the best, most well-rounded ones you’ll hear in 2008.

TSS: What made you move to New York? Did you move for the ANOMOLIES, or did you meet them out there…?

Invincible: Basically I went out there to join the ANOMOLIES. I had met the ANOMOLIES on a visit and it just instantly clicked and they were like, really supportive of me. In Michigan I really only knew maybe three or four other female emcees that were really consistently on the scene. We were really few and far apart, you know? And so, to me, ANOMOLIES was just an ideal situation to be around a lot of dope female emcees – and not just emcees, because it is all elements we went into the visual aspect of it with art – but it was just a really nurturing environment for me to be in, and I just decided to move out there to work with them. And we did shows consistently. At that time, ANOMOLIES was doing shows every week in New York.

Basically I wanted to be around more female artists. Like I said, in Michigan we were few and far apart. By me moving to New York, I could be around a whole community of female artists – the ANOMOLIES as well as others that we were working with. And because of that, we became more acceptable and it gave me time to focus on my craft. It allowed me to be who I am and just focus on the art form.

TSS: How did you fall in line with Kweli and them? Just from being in the scene together? Read the rest of this entry »