Jazz T feat. Jehst, Zygote & Jyager – The Lesson
Jazz T – Featuring Jehst, Dr Zygote and Jyager – The Lesson. Lifted from the forthcoming ‘Run the Changes’ album.
limited edition vinyl 45 preorder
Jazz T – Featuring Jehst, Dr Zygote and Jyager – The Lesson. Lifted from the forthcoming ‘Run the Changes’ album.
limited edition vinyl 45 preorder
Jam Baxter is a musical oddity, juxtaposed by mystery and popularity. The public go wild for his style of profound rap but the person behind that is not so obvious. …So We Ate Them Whole, produced by the equally elusive Chemo, serves as a tiny window into the twisted mind of one of the most intriguing artists of our time.
…SWATW is a mixture of splattering guts, marinated babies, slipping on human blood and yamming on grubs and worms. It’s also the most experimental foray into production since Rinse Out Friday, where no stone is left unturned in Chemo’s repertoire of beats.
The album is quintessentially surreal and riddled in complexity. Wings Cost Extra, track one of fourteen, is a maddening tour around an extraordinary city. One part overtly imaginary and the other part a slick social commentary about urban society. Ethereal piano keys descend into a heavy, rolling drum pattern where the weirder the narrative the more loopy the music becomes. The beauty comes in the form of Baxter’s storytelling where snippets of bizarre worlds collide and grotesque humans come to life:
‘The smell of crack wafts from the brothel beside the chicken shop/above a sewer teaming with giant beetles and killer wasps/opposite the corner where kids gorge on forbidden slop/and when their stomach’s burst… wipe their innards off’
‘I spat the phlegm out of my mouth and swung a left/past the crowd of braying patriots dying a dozen deaths/and the crazed woman drilling a hole in her lover’s chest’.
Undoubtedly a remarkable way to open an album and in true Baxter fashion what comes next is even greater than the last. Duly achieved in the form of Leash pt I, which harbours all the comical vulgarity of Gruesome Features with the aggressive undertone rife on Rinse Out Friday. Meanwhile Incoming flirts with reality and strange fiction once more, forming an abstract creation of gonzo hip hop set to blow the minds of everyone who listens to it.
Throughout the course of the album there are many staggering moments. One that particularly stands out is the stunning steel drum soundscape Chemo creates on Husk twinned with the rare sampling found on Fantastic Man. Each track is uniquely challenging in its own respect in terms of lyricism and the innovative beats behind the music.
Here Baxter has created an album where the boundaries of what is considered to be normal in hip hop are broken. No track forthrightly tells you what he’s thinking or how he has got there in order to make the music. It’s that specific kind of unknown ambiguity which guides the strength of the vibe the entire way through. If you’re looking for brash and in your face look elsewhere but if you’re after barefaced honesty covered in a psychedelic dust its here. And it’s brilliant.
Review by Louise Brisbane
…So We Ate Them Whole is out now on High Focus and available Digitally, on CD, and Limited edition double vinyl.
Album launch – Friday 19 December @ Brixton Jamm – Click here for tickets.
After a hiatus from hip-hop Inja recently released the heavily anticipated ‘First World Living’ EP, and you can be assured that it bangs just as hard as his prior 2012 project ‘Bass Music Escapism’ where he left off. An artist gradually ingrained at the forefront of both hip-hop and drum and bass culture over the past two decades, his first appearance was on the 1999 ‘Delegates of Culture’ self-titled release, featuring on the Headcleaners mixtape in 2000 alongside hip-hop heavyweights Roots Manuva and Task Force. Just a few years later Inja started his own music label ‘Inja Nu Records’ to drop his first solo LP ‘The Suffering In Silence’. The ‘First World Living’ EP was dropped on Audio Danger Records, a relatively up-and-coming Cambridge based label that releases both hip-hop and drum and bass in the purest underground form, on November 17th.
Sumgii (Problem Child, LDZ) is first to make his presence known in Speaker Attack, dropping a glitchy bass-heavy instrumental which creates a grimey setting for Inja’s incoming verbal barrage, laying down his verses with a flow most artists would struggle to mimic, switching to truly breathless multi-syllable tempo’s to reinstate his reputation as one of the UK’s most relentless lyricists. Following this is Cam Shores, which takes an entirely different tone. 184 produces a sentimental beat with trickling piano keys and a soft percussion loop. Featuring heartfelt female vocals by Kimberley Newell for the chorus Inja self consciously evaluates life and recites his passion for a women with intelligence, a pleasant change from the misogynistic portrayals we’re used to hearing in rap music. Next comes the short and snappy Cooking Song which see’s Inja deliver a rapid recipe for brown stew fish with rice and peas, backed by pacy upbeat instrumental from Swiss producer Pierre Green which demonstrates Inja’s ease of dropping fast and furious bars even on such a contrastingly casual topic.
Greatest see’s another sentimental instrumental from 184, with stirring qualities similar to the ‘Cam Shores’ backing track. Inja questions the aspiration for wealth and greatness, recognising that greed is an undesirable quality because “personal gain with no friends can lead to some forgettable moments”. Inja questions the impact he can make as a “drop in the ocean”, coming to the conclusion that the “glow of happiness can be an infectious light” and citing love as the only instrument necessary to influence how one can truly determine greatness. Inja then winds down in Smoked Out, relieving the antagony off his chest before finding relief in smoking out over another laid back number from Pierre Green. Dan Gresham handles the production of the title-track First World Living, first inducing a dream-like atmosphere before implementing a soft dub beat with melodic guitar and bass instrumentation, overlapped by Kimberley Newell’s harmonious female vocals. Inja confesses the conflicts within his mind, praying for karma to eradicate the world-wide financial hierarchy and expresses guilt for having first world problems despite his privileged position. A really thought provoking rendition. The EP finale is a hectic one; Nothing’s Changed see’s Inja back in his comfort zone with a dark setting provided by a hype Bioviolence instrumental. The clue is in the title; Inja demonstrates the dynamism that he’s built his career on in a hard-hitting bout of bars.
Over the past couple of years fatherhood reportedly became Inja’s priority, however it’s clear that the studio break has not corroded his skill. Whether he’s dissing first world moaners or freestyling his favourite cooking recipe he’s returned with a more enlightening product than what we’re perhaps used to hearing from the Cambridge based lyricist, but backed by the productive might of Sumgii, 184, Pierre Green, Dan Gresham and Bioviolence his lyricism still remains just as raw as we remember. If Inja maintains this matured focus then 2015 shall undoubtedly have plenty in store for him.
Review by Ethan Everton
‘First World Living’ is out now on Audio Danger Records
Spida Lee – Maze of Life, taken from his new mixtape “Life’s A Gamble” out now, available at www.carriacoujack.com.
Track produced by M.Pire”The Sire” & QuiteGroove.
Filmed MKTV
Edited By Muckle Vision
Djs wanting copies of the single contact
www.carriacoujack.com/contact
www.facebook.com/carriacoujack
www.twitter.com/SPIDALEE
www.instagram.com/spidalee
Billy Brimstone has enlisted the help of some of the illest beat-makers and producers from the worlds of Hip Hop and Electronica to remix his 2011 album ‘The Dragon Of An Ordinary Family’ album! The album has been remixed from start to finish and includes contributions from the likes of M-Phazes, Om Unit, Mo Kolours and Mr Thing among others.
The album is available on digital download and a collectable limited edition old school cassette tape of only 250 copies! The cassette version comes complete with a full colour collectable plastic Dropcard with a unique download code for mp3’s of the entire album, full colour fold-out double sided inlay and die-cut vinyl ‘Jehst’ logo sticker.
BUY YOUR LIMITED EDITION CASSETTE NOW
“This is music from the corner… that same corner” announces Chester P on the introduction to the fifth and final episode of the ‘Music From the Corner’ series. Though it might be the “same” corner that Task Force represent, figuratively speaking, the musical terrain is more adventurous than ever before. It might have come seven years since the last one, but the two Coombes brothers have again created some of the most colourful and diverse hip hop you’re ever likely to hear.
We must offer credit where credit’s due of course; Task Force have evolved. This cannot be understated when breaking down a crew that seemed to have, on the surface, written five records on the same themes of isolating and depravity. Volume One is generally considered a masterpiece of UK noir, as respected and revered as Jehst’s ‘Return of the Drifter’. Over a decade later and the landscape of hip hop has changed, and so have people’s tastes. Task Force’s recognition of this is reflected in the beats here: ‘ESP’ is reminiscent of spaced out progressive rock from the seventies, particularly Pink Floyd; ‘Soft Giants’ is aggressive and industrial; meanwhile ‘Shark Fin Soup’ bizarrely recalls a kind of demented European fairytale with its stuttered rhythm and creepy backing vocals.
Task Force certainly know how to make hip hop memorable, and this creativity suits the dramatic storytelling styles that Chester P and Farma G employ. The tales of the London estates that they inhabit are brought to life in more elaborate and peculiar ways than ever before. This can admittedly be disorientating, with lyrical concepts running off in several different directions and the schizophrenic production reflecting this. After several listens, for example, listeners may still be confused at how each skit fits into the narrative. Others, like the sampled ‘Rocky’s Speech’, are so unsubtle that they disturb the unsettled mood. In other words, they have been more evocative on previous efforts.
With that said, Volume Five works because it is fun and tongue-in-cheek. ‘Stanley Doppleganger’ is nothing short of hilarious in the way it parodies their own fanbase – when you’re spotting yourself in the dialogue you know they’ve succeeded. Both emcees are masters at making social observations in a comical way but maintaining a technical standard in their rhymes. Despite their contrasting styles, Chester and Farma both frequently switch up their flows and fit their voices to the tone of a track.
Where does it rank alongside the other volumes? Looking back, Task Force have written five unique and timeless accounts that all appeal in different ways. Though it may present its social commentaries in a more offbeat manner than previous outings, Volume Five is still packed with lyrical and well produced hip hop tracks that will make your head nod. At this point it seems superfluous to make a sweeping statement on this crew’s legacy; you all know Task Force’s pedigree. Time may well prove that every chapter has been essential.
Review by Jonathan Rimmer
Get MFTC 5 and other Taskforce merch here.
Mystro Kicks off 2014 with his 5th yearly rap up, produced by Black Einstein. Summarizing the years events in style.
Check the previous rap up’s on his youtube channel.
Get ‘Mystrogen’ here
Pete Cannon got tagged in by Chief Wigz. See who gets tagged in next.
Video by Dfacer
The title of Nutty P‘s Team Bakery mix tape promises the listener Sex, Drugs and Violence, which ticks many (if not all) of my boxes. I tell Mandy and Molly to hold all of my calls, turn my stereo setting to basshead and prepare myself for a freshly baked batch of Hip Hop, R’n’B, Grime, Trap and Dubstep soul soaked cookies..
The Team Bakery Mixtape which is entirely produced by Nutty P (apart from the ‘borrowed’ beats) meshes many different genres and artists into a rich batter of which the end result is a layer cake made from 18 months of hard work with the producer’s favourite artists, namely: ill Hayes, Wordplay, Dray Delta, Clencha, Splintz, Mai Khalil, Chuck Barley and a feature from Sadam of Mutated Mindz.
Nutty P’s chromey soul encapsulates tracks such as ‘Collide’ and ‘Oddity’ which for me are the stand out songs on the mixtape and sit on top of hard b lines which are torn up lyrically by Dray Delta, Clencha and Wordplay, who compliment each other with variant vocal style and delivery. Nutty’s catchy hooks are irresistible on tracks such as ‘Londoner’ which is a welcome anthem for the capital and will make most cockneys jump and click their heels all the way back to the Bow bells. Mai Khalil’s shrill songbird voice is draped over snappy snares on ‘You Don’t Love Me’ and ‘Ready 2 Ride’ and compliments Nutty P as a female counterpart breaking up the fierce offerings of the rest of Team Bakery.
I thoroughly enjoyed this mix tape, it was a high energy dose of grime and hip hop hedonism and I urge anyone who enjoys their music mashup, experimental and adventurous to cop the free download, it’s a party starter and you’ll definitely be singing along to the sugary hooks whilst skankin’ out to the hard bass lines, whether wavey or sober as a judge, get involved.
Team Bakery Mixtape Vol. 1 – Sex, Drugs and Violence is out on Friday 13th December for free download, click here to get your copy now and jump on the wave.
The Team Bakery Mixtape Launch Party takes place on Friday 13th December with support from DatKid (Split Prophets) and Joker Starr
Review by Theo Specone