2 Fire Tuesday with Matthew Golden the Vision

I've talked about my admiration for the G.I.A.N.T.S. Music crew in articles on this website before but it can't be overstated. Vision aka Dr. Knox aka Medicated Music is probably the best freestyle rapper I know but that doesn't cover what makes him a veteran crowd-pleaser of the community by a long shot. 

He's a beast on the mic whether it's off the dome drunk as fuck outside of the beat showcase, rocking with his Grizzly State counterpart Os One, making beats with Mando the DJ or hosting an event with artists and stoners, at the tender age of 30 Vision aka Matthew Golden is an MC's MC who has garnered respect from OGs far and wide.

Being a nerd for content by the Giants squad, I couldn't help but notice the uptick in work from Mr. Golden as of late, firstly with his new battle with Taz on King of the Dot...truly a brutal sight to behold. He spazzes but stays in control, he goes psycho but stays intentional and most importantly he raps his ass off while being funny as hell. You don't want to battle the Vision, trust me.

Secondly his new single with Beazie Beats and Young Freaza "Flippin' Packs" goes hard af, is also stony and chill, and most importantly is supposed to the single to his upcoming new EP?? Make sure you peep that and the EP to come, this I.E. vet doesn't disappoint.  

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

It Was The World: Review in Brief of MC Lyfe's Efyl EP

                                         https://soundcloud.com/mc-lyfe-the-herbalistics/sets/mc-lyfe
                     
                                                        "This music brings you life."

         Anyone that knows me knows Herbalistics was the group that pulled me into fervent study of and participation in the Inland Empire hip-hop scene so I was delighted to see MC Lyfe played to his core audience when crafting his long-awaited debut album. Lyfe weaves his fence-hopping blunt-smoking show-rocking tales over handpicked boom-bap delicacies by local masters like Skuse Beats, Pigeon Do, Kordisepz and more.

          Joined by masterful practitioners like Notiz Yong and Greaseball, Lyfe’s work drips with Riverside directness and earnest vulnerability. More than alot of up-and-coming artists, Lyfe understands that it is the personality he and Greaseball of ‘listics exhibit that addicts his audience after Mando the DJ's prime cuts bring them in. The melodies are on-point and infectious. The album delivers the culmination of the leaked tracks and demos the Herbalistics crew have let slip in the years between the release of Greaseball's Bad Cat EP and now. The lo-fi sound is still very charming, creating a warm blanket for the earworms within.

         Mixing engineer Suplex does a hell of a job making sure the aesthetic doesn’t obscure the clarity of a single lyric while also keeping the snares crisp and bass drums emboldened. I love that Lyfe's fantasy about having children with a girlfriend in “Love this Life” takes the form of painting poets coloring walls, shattering the expectations of the gray-brown palette socio-economically pre-selected for Inland Empire kids. “All This Time I’m Wasting”, a Kordisepz track Lyfe has been previewing for some time now, catchily solidifies his brand as the Bart Simpson of rap, expressing a relatable stony brattiness, further ensnaring the listener in his simple but extremely amusing personal mythos.

       The album delivers an arc in the sense that the stony adventures then veer into girl problems which culminates in “Taken Out My Anger” where Lyfe unleashes some of his hardest bar patterns that I’ve ever heard. After this release, the album sails out smoothly and nostalgically with its sole Herbalistics song, "The Rain" and damn, it delivers. Our young scalawags are sounding jaded; wise but still effervescent and wide-eyed about life as they sing to the audience about controlling the moodiness of the rain in your life and in your city. The song is a beautiful cap to a fun, chill and endlessly listenable debut project from Lyfe.

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.