As you know, I’m prone to the occasional UK hip-hop post, but I tend to keep it fairly chilled out because understated beats and cathartic lyricism is what I loves yo. That being said [rap battle judging joke], here’s Cruger with an introspective discourse of unrealised ambition and general regret. It is, however, accented with a hint of optimism because what he’s essentially doing is acknowledging his personal flaws and proposing solutions, no doubt with a view to ultimately fulfilling them.
I’m pretty sure it will strike a chord with a lot of you because I know you tend to sit in your room and quietly sob while pretending to laugh so your parents/housemates don’t know you’re genuinely insane. Or is that just me?
For those of you who know me, you may be aware of the fact that I have an addiction to battle rap. Honestly, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who watches quite as much as the man sitting here. I usually keep it fairly separate from the blog — although I do have a ‘Best Battles of All-Time’ post planned — mainly because Oldsy sees it and swipes at me, but I invariably manage to slip away like a cartoon rabbit. Today however, I can’t avoid it. This is the trailer for Don’t Flop’s international event, Blood in the Water 5. The fifth and final instalment in the BITW series, there are some serious match-ups here and when the uploads start, I’m going to be rinsing them. For now, I’ll just have to make do with snippets!
The beat’s a little loud so you may have to strain for a few of the punches, but it’s worth it.
I should probably be plugging his Lord Knows freestyle, which surfaced last week, but I’ve been listening to Soul Khan’s ‘Soulstice III’ on loop for the past few days and its genius propelled it up to the top of my priority mention list. No beat, just piano and Soul’s cerebral rhymes surprisingly combined with the man himself rather tunefully crooning the hook makes a fudge sundae of a track. In other words, it’s amazing. The scheme in the last verse makes me sit back in my chair and look around at imaginary people to show my appreciation. “Damn people,” I say, “this crazy.”
I rued the day when he quit battling but the quality, consistency and frequency of his recent output indicates that it was the right decision for him as an artist. I thought Soul Like Khan was a beast but bloody hell, after he mentioned on Twitter the other day that his next album would sound like this but with drums and a bit of robofunk, I’m more excited than a fat kid before his monthly happy meal treat.
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Manchester’s Star Slinger seems to deliver quality more consistently than my current postman delivers letters and as postmen go, he’s really good. The latest in this sequence of exquisite offerings is ‘Moet & Reese’, a fairly tranquil affair which draws on an old soul sample for inspiration and exudes the chilled out hip-hop vibes that seem to soundtrack my life.
In terms of the title, I’m not really familiar with either item because I’m too poor for the Moet and I don’t think any of the musty corner shops round these parts stock Reese’s products. I suppose if I had been drafted in to name the tune, it would be called ‘An affordable bottle of Aldi wine & a small bar of Dairy Milk’. So, it’s probably a good job I wasn’t asked…
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Taken from his forthcoming EP, Nagasaki Youth Club, ‘The Monster With 21 Faces’ is an absolute killer from Salvo Mifune and his pal Ramson Badbonez and the pair of them destroy this beat like Sergeant Bash trying to eat a peach. In terms of the title, I can’t quite envision a monster with 21 faces, but I can imagine you heading over to grab the release for free from Bandcamp. See what I did there? Yeah, it wasn’t very subtle…
To mark the launch of his forthcoming album DFD, set to drop on November 1st, Cali rapper Dumbfoundead has opened a Facebook contest urging his fans to decide what DFD stands for. There has been about a million entries already, but it can’t hurt to add one and you just have to comment on his Facebook wall to enter. If you can’t think of any, I came up with a few: Don’t Fondle Dragons, Do Fondle Dragons and Decide (Whether or Not to) Fondle Dragons…although I’m not sure if the last one counts. Anyway, watch the video below for a better explanation and head over to the Knocksteady shop to pre-order the album. If you don’t know who Dumbfoundead is, head over to YouTube and watch some of his battles and listen to this song.
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