In a time where Twitter followers and Youtube views are more important that lyrical skills, hip-hop’s obsession with social media and marketing leaves little room for true gangsta rappers. However, this hasn’t stopped Freddie Gibbs. Breaking through in 2009 (with projects like The Miseducation of Freddie Gibbs and midwestgangstaboxframecadillacmuzik) due to sheer technical ability and lyricism, Gangsta Gibbs has gone from strength to strength, securing an XXL Freshmen spot without the use of a co-sign, signing a deal with Young Jeezy and at the same time working on albums with legendary underground producers Madlib and Ski Beatz.
I had a chance to chat to Freddie whilst he was out touring the US, to talk about his new deal with Jeezy, this year’s XXL Freshmen, his upcoming projects and how he developed his intricate flow patterns…
“I’m really, really impressed with the girls in the UK; Lady Leshurr is dope.” Ski Beatz told me of his time working in London on a UK version of his ’24 Hour Karate School’ album, and introducing me to the work of Birmingham rapper, Lady Leshurr. Since being tipped off by the man responsible for a large part of Jay-Z’s classic debut, I was intrigued to listen to Leshurr’s work, which at the time was mostly freestyles over US hip-hop beats which displayed her incredible skill and diversity when it comes to rapping and singing, which she has gone on to develop since via her Off The Lesh EP and her latest effort 2000 And L with DJ Whoo Kid.
I caught up with her for a quick chat last week when she was out on the Mobo Tour in Newcastle, UK. We discussed her introduction to rap, her unique style, love of Lil Wayne, her latest mixtape and more…
A$AP Rocky Meets Rakim… (Video)0
Posted In Interviews
While at Hot97 earlier this week, Angie Martinez set up for A$AP Rocky to meet the man he takes his government name from, the God MC; Rakim.
Hit the jump for more from the interview…
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HipHopFiend Interview: Chuuwee & Sundown – The Millennium Falcon0
Posted In Interviews,Uncategorized
Say what you want about this social media age, but without it we’d never have two completely unrelated emcees from opposite sides of the US teaming up to make collaborative albums about Star Wars… And given how great Chuuwee and Sundown’s new collaborative record The Millennium Falcon is, that would be a real shame!
Back in the middle of last year when Sundown (of Actual Proof, part of 9th Wonder’s Jamla family) told me about the project, I hadn’t listened as extensively to Sacramento rhymer, Chuuwee’s, back catalogue as I have now, but I had listened to his Hot N Ready album with Lee Bannon enough to know that something exciting was on the horizon.
Last September when Chuuwee was over in North Carolina visiting Sundown, for the first time, to wrap up (and it turns out, re-record most of) the project, I was able to Skype in to catch up with them about what they’d been working on, and to listen to the album in full, talking through the tracks one by one: gaining an insight into the making of an excellent new project, that people really aren’t anticipating enough in my opinion!
Last year something sat on my end-of-year list that I’d never have expected to a year before. Having admittedly never really listened to Scroobius Pip other than having heard a few guest verses and the odd single; I’d been following him on Twitter pretty much since I signed up to it, sharing his love of language and enjoying his quips (I’d recommend giving him a follow @ScroobiusPipYo). I’m not trying to put down his previous work, as I know that it’s great, however the beats didn’t really click with me for whatever reason. With the new punk/hardcore infused direction of Distraction Pieces I found myself feeling the excitement of when I first started listening to P.O.S (and the rest of Doomtree), Sage Francis and others along a similar vein.
As well as having greatly enjoyed his record, I had the pleasure of catching his live show, which also pleasantly surprised me. Complete with an outstanding support slot by B. Dolan, the overall night was the best live show I saw all year, and I made it out to a lot of shows! It was there where I caught up with Pip for an interview; one that came completely out of the blue and I was completely unprepared for (after having received an email from his publicist asking if I could meet up with him in 30 minutes time).
After listening to the lyrics of one of the standout tracks from the album, ‘Death Of The Journalist’ a few dozen times by this point I was petrified, and would have completely understood had Pip taken offence at how unprepared I was, given the gauntlet he’d laid down for bloggers and writers already. However upon meeting him, this certainly wasn’t the case, the humble spoken word poet, rapper and hardcore enthusiast sat down with me to discuss journalism, releasing the new album independently, his relationship with Sage Francis’ Strange Famous label and his live show.
I must also apologise again to Mr. Pip, for being a terrible journalist and taking literally months to get this transcribed and posted; at least I didn’t rush!
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HipHopFiend Interview: The Ting Tings on how Hip-Hop has influenced their music…0
Posted In Interviews
Whether it be in different lifestyles or background, musical genres or mediums, hip-hop music and culture has become a wide spread art form and mind-set that has gone on to influence artists working beyond simply beats and rhymes.
Recently, when given the chance to interview genre-merging double act The Ting Tings, known best for their number one new-wave hit ‘That’s Not My Name’, I wasn’t entirely sure how to approach keeping it relevant to the site. However, as I researched more and more, it became obvious that the rhythmic pop band who have recently found themselves under the guidance of Jay-Z’s Roc Nation management company, have taken a lot of influence from hip-hop; from drum patterns, to vocal arrangements as well as their attitude to constructing material.
I met up with them before their recent show in Newcastle to talk about their love of The Beastie Boy’s Paul’s Boutique album, the influence of hip-hop on their music, the ‘playlist mentality’ of consuming music and their deal with Roc Nation…
In a time when artists seem like they blow up out of nowhere into instant stardom, it often feels like there is no middle-ground. Sadly it appears that the music industry operates on a basis of luck; you happen to come across the right person with the right contacts, or you have a video that for some reason goes viral and suddenly everyone is listening. However this is not the only way to tackle the music business, and can be proven by Minneapolis hip-hop collective Doomtree, who are slowly but surely climbing the indie ladder, focussing purely on writing and producing great records drawn from their d.i.y ethos and hip-hop roots resulting in elusive longevity; spending last ten years producing and releasing a consistently excellent catalogue of records, including an array of mixtapes and some genre-bending solo albums.
2011 has been a great year for the crew, starting out strong with rapper Sims collaborative effort with in-house producer Lazerbeak, Bad Time Zoo, then finishing up with the surprisingly engaging Castor, The Twin (a collection of reworkings of existing songs by the crews only female member, Dessa) and their new crew LP No Kings an onslaught of well written and produced posse cuts that really demonstrate how far the group have come since their early releases.
I sat down for a chat with producer Lazerbeak via Skype to discuss the process behind making the new record, and how it has differed from previous releases, as well as what the future holds for the crew…
On the night that Jay-Z and Kanye West finally dropped their highly anticipated collaborative LP, Watch The Throne, an underground rapper from Sacramento known as Chuuwee was writing rhymes and scouring the internet for an instrumental version of the track ‘Niggas In Paris’ which he would use to air his disappointment with the product that he, as a fan, had received from the artists he looked up to.
This idea developed beyond a freestyle and became an album which would be entitled Watching The Throne and would deal with the artists disappointment with the rap game in general, how the people at the top are, in his opinion, being lazy and not pushing themselves.
Despite the album being comprised of entirely original production (other than the aforementioned freestyle,) the title of the album has caused its doubts amongst some fans, Chuuwee explains, “it’s not only a shot at Jay-Z and Kanye’s album but it also follows the theme of a king guarding his throne. It’s an analogy of a young artist coming up in such an industry.”
I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Chuuwee for a while, since he started working with Sundown of Act Proof on their Millenium Falcon project (also coming soon,) and am therefore lucky enough to have heard this brilliant new album, which aside from the title, is completely removed from anything that Jay and Kanye have been doing. The album almost follows a medieval storyline, which literally refers to throne’s, crowns, sieges and tyrants, and should be treated as a new body of work, rather than the response to any other album that might have spawned it.
Now with an all important co-sign in place (from Alchemist), DJ Booth as the distributor and Fly Society on board as a clothing sponsor, things are definitely moving into place to project Chuuwee’s work to the next level. To many this will be the introduction to the Sacremento emcee and his crew The Usual Suspects who have a number of exciting new projects on the horizon, and what a great introduction it is.
I caught up with Chuuwee via Google Talk last night, to get his take on the concepts behind the tracks on the album…
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In a time when it’s becoming increasingly difficult to be original, it only feels like a handful of artists are really bringing a fresh perspective to the game; and as a 31 year old skate-boarder from Alabama, arms adorned with tattoos of Western movie legends who he takes his government name from, and citing rock-and-roll as much of an influence as the Southern rap he grew up on, Yelawolf is definitely bringing a fresh perspective!
Kicking back and playing some XBox on his tour bus before preparing to support Wiz Khalifa on their third tour together, Yelawolf has come a long way. In the past year he has been named XXL freshman, announced his new record deal with Eminem’s Shady Records (recently getting a lot of coverage for his verse in Shady’s B.E.T Cypher) and is now preparing to release his first album on the label, Radioactive.
Talking to Yelawolf about his music is very interesting, just like in his lyrics, he draws in elements of culture from all around him; the things he’s seen, people who have inspired him and the things he has done. Unfortunately due to an error with an Ipad app, the recordings of the interview were deleted, so I was forced to take to the notepad app and scribble down as much of what he was saying as possible. Therefore, what you get here is not a direct transcription of the conversation, but as close to what he said as I could manage from memory. Nonetheless the content here is all accurate, and suggests that we have an excellent record to look forward to in two weeks time, from an inspiring artist who will be a mainstay in hip-hop for many years to come…
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Some artists really embody the spirit of hip-hop culture, it’s largely unexplainable and can’t be forced, but Evidence is without a doubt one of these emcees. From first picking up a copy of Dilated People’s Expansion Team (which I oddly stumbled across whilst doing work experience in the city library when I was a teenager, shortly after having heard their Kanye West assisted single ‘This Way’) I felt the culture oozing from Ev’s laidback flow, from the constant graffiti references and re-appropriation of classic lyrics right down to the picture he paints of a side of Los Angeles that lays below the surface of the gangsta rap and Hollywood that we are usually exposed to.
As a solo artist Evidence has been very succesful in forging a career that is different enough from his work with Dilated People’s but similar enough to keep fans happy. His debut solo project The Weatherman LP has felt fresh to me since the day I bought it four years ago, and has pretty much had monthly plays since it’s release and I have a feeling that his latest album Cats & Dogs, released last month on Rhymesayers, is going to weather the storm of the next four years plus in exactly the same way.
I got the chance to hook up with Ev on Skype recently after he returned from touring to talk about the album, his creative process, Dilated Peoples and more…
Hit the jump to continue reading…
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