IFTHEN - PICKIN' FIGHTS VIDEO BY ARALESS
A truly inventive and fun video accompanying a great song about true power and how one wields it.
THE COMBINE - FOREVER (STASH KONIG REMIX) VIDEO BY JASON RYAN
Witness longevity on this dope remix with Triune and E.Q.!
THE BROKEN PIXELS - ASSASSIN'S CREED ORIGINS VIDEO BY EQUIVALENT EXCHANGE
Gamers and hip-hoppers alike can appreciate the hardness of this brutal narrative!
KING ARTHUR - LIKE DAT VIDEO BY DOUBLE DEE!
King Arthur and his homies running around parking lot scenes with subarus, peep the night life!
DJ SEEDLESS FEATURING PAWZ ONE & L. SCATTERBRAIN - CLOSE TO THE EDGE
VIDEO BY MUDS ONE
Get gritty in the city with some spitters! 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
Another boom-bap classic from East of the River. I love that this video makes Mad Macks' college graduation ceremony look cool. The video is still dripping with irony and working class skepticism of the system, evident in Macks' irreverence while so many students around him are somber but at the end of the day, the video conveys an image of family and loved ones are happy around our protagonist. Muds' eye conveys both the momentousness and everydayness of the situation with Macks gamely playing a Fresh Prince-like vessel for the audience to experience the narrative through. More Mad Macks here
SONG: THE JUICE BY CAM GNARLY AND BRIAN/FOLK VIDEO: NEW CULTURE MEDIA GROUP & CYBERTHUG
Cam Gnarly’s modern polished posi-bangers never disappoint.
Gnarly reminds me of OutKast- each time a new song of his starts, you’re sad
the last one ended and then the cycle repeats. This song is no different and
Cam’s hip embrace of campy on-the-nose video imagery is a stoner’s delight.
SONG: INTERTWINE BY
ARALESS & OK
VIDEO: ARALESS AND
MELANIE WINSLOW
Seattle based hip-hop artist Araless finally dropped the
video for his chill summer love song, “Intertwine”. Set in San Diego, the piece
finds his co-director and he clearly enjoying themselves and each other. Don’t
miss the EP’s worth of remixes that came out with this single and since. More Araless here
BEATMAKER YOHALMO VIDEO: MIGHTY MUDS ONE
Nice clips of up and coming beatmaker Yohalmo, video by the John Romita Jr. of west coast hip-hop videos himself....
DOCUMENTARY WEB-SERIES: EAST OF THE RIVER - ROAD TO PAID DUES VIDEOGRAPHER: MIGHTY MUDS ONE
Yeah that's two monthly video round-ups in a row in which Muds One has multiple entries in the round-up. What can I say? Dude puts out a lot of completed polished content. This chronicle of the East of the River crew’s journey to
their Paid Dues appearance on 09/16/2017 is released in weekly webisodes and is
funny as hell. Looking forward to watching it all as one movie soon!
Tristan "Tanjint Wiggy" Acker is a staff writer for JooseBoxx, youth hip-hop writing instructor with CHORDS Enrichment Youth program (chordseyp.org) 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
Only Besatree would come up with such a musically rebellious
way of reminding the world that he is a f**king professional. These electronic
punk rock raps tell a story of self affirmation of worth, a statement of
purpose and a warning to haters. Besatree creates minimalist metric soundscapes
for him to let loose his humanity on. His humanity usually manifests itself in
the form of razor-sharp raps observing the tendency of society to take
shortcuts and try to get one over on him and his. He eloquently spits and
earnestly croons over his own productions as well as those of fellow CLDMKRS
Noearth and Rokem, who contribute melodic gems that don’t feel out of place
alongside subtle indie rock beauties like “Everything You Wanted”, “Stuck With Me”, and “All Gonna Die”. Rather, these tracks stretch the aural playground the album weaves. Songs like
“Nobody Knows” and “Paranoid” go to dark places but never drag with
despair. Contrasted with the sunny Rokem bangers, the record reflects the range
of someone grown and secure with themselves. The record feels tight; a set of
songs lesser songwriter performers would have tried to stretch into an LP.
Besatree does a solid balancing of including his talented colleagues the
CLDMKRS on the record while revealing another chunk of his own psyche with this
strikingly deft record of eclectic and forward looking indie hip-hop.
2.
Hear No. See No. Speak No by Avant-Garde and Notiz Yong
Notiz Yong sets up a series of seven beatbreaks that he and
his compatriots AwestOne and Atlas, I.E. staples Avant-Garde, proceed
to rock with a youthful energy that makes the record float a little more with
each listen. The MCs display a mastery and love of rhythm that manifests itself
into a constant forward momentum that keeps the EP light on its feet. With
rhymes about stony So Cal life, AG and Yong keep it cracking with strong tracks
that would go well with a workout, a drive or a blunt. The rhythms are so solid
but don’t miss the bars these dudes are exhibiting. Yong’s production palette
is a balance of hittin' drums, occasional samples and effective melodic synth
flares helping the record steer from faster boom-bap anthems like the single
“By All Means” to more modern sounding chill tracks like “Left Coastin’” and
the closer “Til I’m Gone”. The collaborative choruses are nice to hear and I
personally always want to hear more of that from rap groups. Hear No. See No. Speak No stands as
another clear reminder that the Inland Empire
hip-hop community will continue to cook up some gold both as individual artists
and together.
Perhaps the most surprising thing about the essay that is Seattle-area standout Araless’ Proletariat Rock EP is how musical of an essay it is. Araless’ sung
choruses give a window into a deeply rooted funk that he is keeping in control,
in service of the rhythm: “Money makes the man a roooobot!” he stretches on the
record’s opening track. This is a man who knows his tools. His mastery of rhyme
and his own voice is captivating, the sound of one of the most incisive poets
I’ve yet to hear. The catchy deceptive simplicity of choruses of songs like
“Status Quid Pro Quo” and “PR Campaign” are so effective and intuitive in the
way the phrases and music connect it makes one wonder how these phrases were never
put together quite like this before. Araless is brimming with such stanzas and he
makes it seem utterly natural. In the last song he weaves his modern spare
protest-march rhythms into an appropriately climactic reggae-tinged poet ode to peace
and consciousness, hinting at the traditions his subtle but textured and modern
productions are part of. The liner notes on his website's album page say each
track is a perspective but just as an audience member and reader of the text, the songs felt like 7
facets of one perspective; an important articulation of the century’s
burgeoning progressive consciousness among today’s young artists in the west
and beyond.
Tristan "Tanjint Wiggy" Acker is a staff writer for JooseBoxx, youth hip-hop writing instructor with CHORDS Enrichment Youth program (chordseyp.org) 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
