No new review or video round-up this week, a lot going on BUT check out this recent iTunes mixtape by Inland Empire staple, Ital Santos featuring Trizz, Cam Archer, King Dice, Slick C, Kidd Dryden, Kordisepz + me, Curtiss King, Noa James, Ireplenish, CJ Simmons, Cam Gnarly, Yung Miss, Young Sincere, Dzyl5k1, Santos himself and more!
Back next week, but in the meantime while you're on iTunes, peep my new single (shameless, I know) !
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.
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.
Both of these whole tapes are dopeness… Kordisepz knows hip-hop but he sounds destined to score crazy films in my opinion. His music will challenge and entertain you. https://soundcloud.com/kordisepz/sets/infekt-beat-tape kordisepzbeats.bandcamp.com
Rejektz was put out by Us Natives, Peep them at usnatives.bandcamp.com
3. SoundCloud Overview: Mr. Sham
Mr.Sham is the artist that not only got me more into poetry and spoken word but also got me into the melding of the two. As one of the main MCs in West Coast Avengers, he provides fun nerdcore paintings in verse form but as a poet in his own right he is one of the most formidable image-machines and expressers of the heart that I have ever come across. His recent works with RasJosh Beats “Prowlin’” (co-produced by GL Kool) and “Robbin’” are dark and spacious in their booming post-society yet urban sound. Others with RasJosh such as “Geronimo” incorporate nerdcore and uptempo bass for a fun and still slick product. As West Coast Avengers (full disclosure: my group!) enter the half year point of promoting their latest LP (The Inland Empire Strikes Back), expect more leaks from their individual members like this… https://soundcloud.com/seanbobo/geronimo
4.
Kaine aka NoEnd MC - "Ramen & Tacos" Teaser & Bad Chemistry EP
NoEnd Emcee AKA Kaine of Institute Esylum is one of those dudes who has
crazy bars and when you stop and listen to his work you realize it’s an
incredibly cynical and razor sharp perspective on society, human nature and
institutions. Check out his Bad Chemistry EP for some ear candy and peep his
new “Ramen & Tacos” teaser and get hyped for his hella IE-repping project
coming soon. http://soundcloud.com/kainetheinsane/bad-chemistry-unbroken-chain
Tristan “Tanjint Wiggy” Acker is a staff writer for JooseBoxx and member of the Inland Empire’s West Coast Avengers. Catch more of their work at westcoastavengers.com, follow Tristan on twitter @Wiggism or e-mail him at tristanacker@gmail.com.
