Yes Hip Hoppers and any UK Happy Hardcore fans who’ve accidentally navigated to the site. Welcome back to the second of our newfangled weekly Round Ups of whatever has slapped us in the face with the jeeez-that’s-some-dope-shit stick. Strap in for a scatterbrained, rapid fire rundown of everything we thought was cool/interesting this week.
Kicking off with a list of congratulations/accolades… Godzilla sized props have to go to the always prolific Leaf Dog for the gargantuan feat of having already released 5 fucking albums this year. To be fair this isn’t exactly breaking news as he’d actually released all of them by the 6th of February (all can be found on bandcamp). Which actually just makes it more nuts that he almost put out 5 LPs in a month. Anyone’s guess as to whether he’s going to just put his feet up until 2026 now or whether he’ll have put out 30 albums by the end of the year. We’d be inclined to suggest this must be some kind of record but last time we ventured to say a Leaf Dog feat must be a record we were forced to post a retraction. If anyone knows of any UK or otherwise hip hop artist to ever drop more than 5 albums in a month let us know.
Secondary congratulations go to sunny Canada. Because for more than a minute a Dad from the other side of the pond has been showing a level of support, love and promo for the UK hip hop scene that frankly puts a lot of UK heads actually located in the scene to shame. (If you’re not aware of Canadian Dad/CDR check the channel here). Sick to see that in taking the leap from support to full immersion, under the producer alias Crooked Digits, he’s immediately smashing out genuinely high quality contributions to the culture. Check out his first two collaborations ‘Black Matter Cadillac’ ft ill Sykes and ‘Appetite’ with C.o.N-Vers!
New music this week worthy of keeping an ear peeled to the ground for, if such a thing can be done…
Quick on the heels of 2023’s Three Winters, UK legend Dotz dropped another full length project of heaters under the name of Sometimes Crawling, Sometimes Walking in collaboration with Lewis Sumisu. Nottingham’s Juga-Naut added to his consistently dope streak by dropping the video for the gloriously old school ‘Flat Pack’. Lifted from his new album Bem II.
In the HF corner Alecs DeLarge dropped an animated reminder to check out his LP Alecs in Wonderland. Meanwhile in Blah land Sly Moon dropped his second Stylin bars following the release of his rags to riches casino opera No Gamble, No Future.
While still on the topic of new strains of illness circulating the populace… Latest from Kieron Boothe and ToluShorts, ‘Agenda’ is a moody banger worthy of rewinds.
In terms of interesting news within the hip hop world, it’s been a bit of a shit week. Locally, Mercury Winner Speech Debelle lost a racial discrimination case against Arts Council England who are now taking her for £40K in legal costs. A course of action (one ACE have never pursued before) which Debelle states is sending “a message that the might of the organisation will be against you if you dare to stand up to them”, you can donate towards case costs here. Globally, RIP to the first woman ever signed to Def Jam Records, Detroit born Boss. After years of health complications, the rapper died of kidney failure on Monday at the tragically young age of 54. For the uninitiated, check out her 1993 album Born Gangstaz.
In the live sphere. HF new gen kings CMPND are kicking off their first UK tour (dates here). New details are also surfacing about the Hip Hop @ 50 5 City Tour in April touching down in Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, Leicester and London. With each leg boasting its own unique line up of guest speakers, panelists and performers, the event is a bit like Comic Con for B-boys, DJs, MCs and hip hop obsessives. With talks and workshops in the daytime covering the four elements and after parties boasting some veterans of the scene, it’s one for the heads.
Finally… Is this guy a genius? Is he terrible? Is he both? Is any attempt to form an opinion on his style immediately hampered by the fact that bro looks a bit like if a young Hitler was a dealer/rapper from the valleys? Does any of that matter if it slaps? Which it does. And is trying to make my mind up on all the above questions why I’ve banged this tune about 10 times at increasing volumes, now know a bunch of the lyrics and have checked out the rest of his music? Pretty sure at this point that Boyo might be a genius. Answers on the back of a scratch card please.