Friday, March 2, 2018

Keep the Feel Fridays: Volume 2 with Turtle

                                             


                               Keep the Feel's Turtle knows his history but also refuses to let his writing be stuck in the past. A frank humorist and agile wordsmith, his new Obselitist album is a chill yet strident screed against late capitalism with Cali flavor. With pensive melodic blowedian beats, Turtle speaks frankly about working class struggle, family, regrets and the love of art culture. 

The features from Namek and Abstract Rude are pitch perfect, the KTF family comes together like Voltron. Turtle balances depth with a wry commentary that never takes itself too seriously and always has fun with language. Long a staple of the so Cal hip-hop community, this album as a statement and as a set of songs is a worthy introduction and representation of the artist that is Turtle.

The title is tongue-in-cheek, implying that society treats real poets and hip-hop practitioners as obsolete when they are actually more needed than ever. As hip-hop heads, we can be elitist at times about the standards we hold proclaimed lovers of the culture to so there we have the two sides to the album's concept. 


Turtle's voice is low and jaded, but his tone always clever and humorous.  His mastery of concepts and confessional poetry shines over sampled hipster songs flipped into boom-bap.  His moments of cynicism are relatable and his artistic explorations inspire.                             
He'd rather die in a cubicle than lie about his crucibles, so fade into him and soak in his truth!

Tristan "Tanjint Wiggy" Acker is staff writer for JooseBoxx, a youth hip-hop and poetry tutor, and member of the Inland Empire nerdcore hip-hop group the West Coast Avengers. Catch more of their work at westcoastavengers.com, follow Tristan on Twitter @Tanjint or e-mail him at tristanacker@gmail.com

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