Rhymes & LIfe: Danny! - "Keep Your Head to the Sky"

Yeah, I know this joint has been out since the beginning of 2012, but he posted it on Tumblr again, and I felt it necessary to share some personal thoughts/reflections on Danny!'s music and my life.

I’ve been riding for Danny! fairly hard the past 4-5 months. But damn dude just makes some really uplifting music. I’m in the midst of some pretty hard times in my life currently, and I can honestly say “And I Love H.E.R.” has been one of the most helpful albums for me to listen to the past few months.

Back in May, he allowed me to listen to Payback (1.0), and this was right when all these bad things started to happen. I really wish I would’ve been able to listen to tracks like “Get Up” along with the rest of the album, but unfortunately that wasn’t the way things played out. “Misery” off of And I Love H.E.R. more than made up for it though.

Anyways by the time Payback (2.0) comes out (SEPTEMBER 25), I really hope to be on the other end of this whole thing I’m going through. But if not, I know Danny!’s gonna hold me down with some great, inspirational music. Check this track out and remember to cop Payback on 9/25 via Okayplayer Records.

And if September is too far away for ya'll, he just re-released his 2nd instrumental album, Dream, Fulfilled today.

Life: Mr. 300

What's up my fellow Beets? This is officially BRL's 300th post. It's been a pretty crazy ride and took us just over 3 years, but we are now among the elite blogs who constantly spam your Internets.

But on a more serious note, it's been a while since my last post here, but I can assure you I've been on my grind. I am now writing for 7 (that's right seven) different publications and blogs. As I'm about to graduate it's important to get my name out there as much as I can, so I've started writing with HipHopSpeakeasy.com (which I've already mentioned) and now I'm going to be writing for Supaflymag.com  which is a blog that focuses on culture and fashion right here in Ohio.

My career took another big step with Okayplayer, as I interviewed and published a story on De La Soul. Getting this interview was really amazing, and talking with Pos and Dave over the phone was probably the biggest milestone of my budding career.

And as you can see in the picture up top, I am officially a staff member at RapReviews.com. I have been a frequent visitor of that website since I was in 7th grade and Flash and company sort of shaped my career path long before I knew what I wanted to do. My first review for RR was Mac Lethal's latest album. 

Yupp so that's pretty much it. We made it to 300 with a little help from Taylor (who hasn't written anything on here in years) and Ryan. And of course we couldn't do it without you, our vast and undying supporters.

Life: My Interview with Atmosphere: All In The Family: Left-Overs

Photo Courtesy of R*ch*l W*ckh*m (censored for security purposes)

So last month Atmosphere was in Cleveland and I had planned on attending the show. But being a budding journalist, I decided to ask Okayplayer if they would be interested in a feature story on Atmosphere. They gave me the "okay" and after weeks of waiting for Atmosphere's press people to get back to me, I finally got the interview of a lifetime.

15 mintues (which actually ended up being about 26 minutes, but who's counting) with Sean Daley, my idol. After having a minor panic attack, asking every employee of the House of Blues where Slug was, I was taken back stage. And there he was...

We had met once before (at a concert two years ago, there's an embarrassing picture on facebook as the proof), so him being a little taller than I had expected didn't throw me off, but how down to earth definitely did. First off all he greeted my girlfriend and I by name (because we had been tweeting Atmosphere all day), and instantly I became less nervous (as this was easily the biggest interview I have ever done in my young journalistic career) and more excited to have a pretty candid interview with one of my favorite artists of all time.

After writing the interview, I had a few good quotes and anecdotes that didn't quite fit into my story so I thought I would share them with the world:

More on how Slug and Atmosphere write albums:

When you throw that much mud at a wall, we make probably anywhere from 60-80 songs, some of them start to fall and some of them stay stuck to the wall, and at the end you look at what’s left over and then you go ‘okay, what kind of big story can I tell with what I have?’ And then it might help prompt you to go ‘okay I want to write a song like this cause that would sound good in between this one and this one.

More on the lack of samples on Lemons:

There was no sampling on Lemons but there were certain songs, for… For a song like “Glass House,” there’s no samples, but there’s a synth line that’s mimicking a saxophone line from an old record.

OKP: On the lemons record, you got Tom Waits to do a beat box, I was wondering how you were able to get him to do that?

S: I asked him to play guitar, and got back a beatbox (laughs). We sent him the song and I asked him to put guitar on it and he was like, “yeah.” Then I went on tour, and when I got home from the tour, he returned it. And I opened it, and played it and there was no guitar, there was beatboxing. I was like, ‘this is cool too actually,’ and we just had Nate (Collis) play guitar.

Click HERE to read the whole story.

Rhymes: Grieves and Budo - Together/Apart (Review)

Swiped from Okayplayer.com

Seattle based emcee Grieves signed to indie powerhouse Rhymesayers Entertainment back in late 2009. Since then he has been on the road and working on his third full-length album (and first on Rhymesayers) Together/Apart with producer/multi-instrumentalist Budo. Like on his previous albums, Grieves is extremely introspective and personal in his verses. On the spaced out, piano-driven opener “Lightspeed,” he essentially covers his entire life in less than four minutes.

While Grieves is a sharp writer, can craft good sing-song hooks, and be very relatable, Budo seems to be the top performer on Together/Apart. Arguably the beatsmith was up staged by his rapping counterpart on their 2008 effort, 88 Keys & Counting, but this time around he crafts some excellent instrumentals including a wide range of live instrumentation including pianos, synths, horns and guitars. On tracks like “Tragic” and “Prize Fighter,” it’s pretty evident Budo worked hard on improving his drums, as these tracks will have any head bobbing.

The main drawback on Together/Apart is the lack of variety on Grieves’ end. If this is the first Grieves record you’ve ever heard, you will probably find Grieves’ tales of his loss of women, alcohol and drug abuse, and depression entertaining and enlightening. But if you’re familiar with his work, you’ll probably be a little put off by the redundancy of his subject matter. While there aren’t any tracks that I would categorize as a bad song on the album, Together/Apart does seem to be rather top heavy, with most of the stand out cuts at the beginning of the record. The album also seems to drag a little towards the end of the record, which I think could’ve been fixed by including a few more guest appearances. Usually I’m not one for a long list of guest rappers, but a few more features really could’ve broken up the monotony of the record like the tracks with P.O.S. and CunninLynguists did on Grieves 2010 EP, The Confessions of Mr. Modest.

Overall Together/Apart is a very good record, and a few minor missteps from being a great one. Despite Budo’s hardest beat on the record, both Grieves and label mate Brother Ali come a little weak on “Tragic.” And the record could use more up-beat and lighthearted tracks like the Krukid assisted “No Matter What.” This album features more singing from Grieves than in the past. And like “Cloud Man” from 88 Keys, tracks consisting of just singing result in being some of the album’s best tracks. “On the Rock” has Grieves singing to the lonely ice cubes at the bottom of his empty glass, and the epic “Heartbreak Hotel” is easily the album’s best track.

-Zach Gase

BRL Grade: 8 beets out of 10

Rhymes & Life: Killer Mike - "Burn" (music video)

Here's Killer Mike's latest set of visuals off of his latest album, Pl3dge, which i wrote a review for okayplayer. Normally I don't post a lot of music videos (because let's face most of them suck, and the music video era is dead. RIP video ho's), but this was a pretty powerful video for a politically charged track, which is one of the stand out's on his new LP.

Rhymes & Life: What the Eff is a Custom Made?

Preface:
When I started writing album reviews at Okayplayer.com last November, the second album I was assigned to do was Custom Made’s Hi-Def. I was blown away by this album, and the west coast group quickly became one of my favorites.
I recently had to opportunity to talk with Scoobs of Custom Made for a phone interview. He gave a really great interview, but unfortunately when I tried to upload the audio file onto my MacBook, it erased all of the data on my voice recorder, including my interview.
Luckily I jotted down some notes during the interview, and I have enough to salvage the story:



What the eff is a Custom Made?

Custom Made is an underground rap trio based out of Las Angeles. The group consist of three emcees: Scoobs, Element and Bluff. They have four LPs released on underground powerhouses such as Babygrande, Rawkus, and Coalmine Records.

All three members have a unique style to their rap deliveries and have lyrical content heavily influenced by their L.A. surroundings, Scoobs said. Scoobs, whose delivery has the most energy and aggression in the group handled production, but doesn’t make beats anymore because he wanted to focus mostly on emceeing, he said.

Custom Made features several skilled in-house producers including Abstrakt Soundz, THX, Finesse, and Jayem. Despite being from the west coast, their production style is heavily influenced by 1990 east coast hip hop.

A Las Angeles State of Mind:



The group’s debut album, LA State of Mind took about a year to record during their senior year in high school, Scoobs said.

“We all knew each other from cyphers in our high school,” he said. “Eventually we started to respect each other’s styles, and we formed the group.”

At that point Custom Made was a five-member group: Six, Bluff, Element, Scoobs and Aneek. And their sound was extremely raw and unpolished, but LA State garnered them local buzz and critical acclaim including an 8 out of 10 at one of the most respected hip hop review websites, rapreviews.com.

The album was released on the group’s own Custom Made Records, a label started by Scoobs that has distribution by IODA. This label was the platform for the group to release their Street Cinema mixtape series.

The Street Cinema mixtapes, along with other underground acts out of LA, helped spark a mixtape scene, that was not getting much attention, Scoobs said. He also credits the mixtapes for getting attention from record labels including Babygrande, which they signed with in 2006.



Taking Babygrande Steps:


Upon signing with Babygrande Records, the group was rushed to release a project to capitalize on their buzz they were making with their Street Cinema series, Scoobs said.

He said that they were forced to release Sidewalk Mindtalk, a compilation of their best tracks from their mixtapes, which was packaged with a DVD.

“We wanted to get out there, we just wanted to release new material,” Scoobs said. “They kept making us shoot these videos (for the DVD) and we had an album’s worth of new material.”

Custom Made’s roster also went through some changes in 2006, as Six was sentenced to four years in prison and Aneek moved to the east coast to settle down and start a family, Scoobs said.

He said that Custom Made is still on good terms with Aneek and Six, and Six even appeared on many tracks on their latest LP, in a “Malik B for The Roots type of role.”

C-Made’s relationship with their label continued to grow sour, as Babygrande kept ignoring the group’s wishes to release an album.

“Babygrande is based on the east coast,” Scoobs said. “So it was pretty easy to ignore us out here in LA.”

When Rawkus Records announced their “Rawkus 50” campaign in 2007, a friend of the group recommended that they submit their album to Rawkus, and that’s how their second LP Truth Be Told was finally released.

“Truth Be Told was the album we had recorded for Babygrande,” Scoobs said. “But they didn’t want to release it, and we wanted to get it out there… And that kinda hurt our relationship (with Babygrande) a little.”
After releasing their first proper album on Babygrande, Original Dynasty in 2008, Custom Made parted ways with the underground hip hop label.

“With the knowledge I have now, would I go back and do things differently? Most definitely,” Scoobs said. “But I can’t be mad (at Babygrande). They gave us our start, and I learned a lot (from) our situation there.”



‘High’ Definition:


After leaving Babygrande, the group inked a one album deal with New York-based indie label Coalmine Records.
Initially Custom Made’s fourth LP, Hi-Def was set to be a collaborative album with another group, that’s why there is a lot of guest appearances, Scoobs said.
Hi-Def shows the growth of Custom Made’s sound. The album is a lot more introspective than previous efforts from the group, and it is heavily inspired by drugs. Many songs make reference to drug abuse, dealing drugs and the harm drugs have on their neighborhood.



A Promising, Yet Uncertain Future:



Custom Made has big things in store for their future, Scoobs said. Last March, Scoobs branched out for the first time releasing his first solo mixtape, Trap Star Vol. 1.

Scoobs said he is currently working on videos for his current project, and will likely release the second volume of his Trap Star mixtape series before the year’s end.Element is also expected to release a follow up to his 2008 project, Great Expectations.

Custom Made is also planning on re-releasing their back catalogue in physical format through worldwide distribution, Scoobs said.

While the future is bright for Custom Made, there are many questions surrounding Bluff’s troubles with the law.
Recently he was indicted on 15 counts of wire fraud, and is facing up to 20 years in prison. Bluff is currently on house arrest.

Scoobs said that Bluff is optimistic in getting the sentence shortened and has a good team of workers. He also said Bluff committed the crime many years ago, and that sometimes “crime doesn’t pay.”

Rhymes: What the Eff is a Marz Lovejoy?

(video swiped from Okayplayer.com)
One of my favorite parts of writing for Okayplayer is discovering new artists that I probably would've never heard from. Of all of the albums I've reviewed so far, two artists really stood out to me: Custom Made (more on the LA trio later) and 19 year-old female emcee Marz Lovejoy.

Marz is the total package: charisma, lyrics, style, mic presence, and ability to craft songs. Her 7-track EP, This Little Love of Mine was released last November is a short, but great listen and I highly recommend it.

More info HERE.

Bonus:
Here's a music video from Marz, also my favorite track off of the EP.