Last weekend, DonChe (pronounced Don-Shay) did the dang thing during his production set at The Basement Vol. 3 in Jackson, MS. DonChe, who is a featured producer on the soon to be released album No Good Nick by Jaxx City, plays some funky throw back joints that got the crowd moving. With the Blackploitation theme running through out the set DonChe takes the listener on trip down memory lane. Although some of the listeners were merely a thought before a thought before a thought when these joints were dropped. Enjoy.
Producer
Producer Illastrate recruits Rozewood, Hus Kingpin, and Boog Brown for “Shibuya Shrine” from his upcoming album. Not a bad threesome of emcees to put together. Keep tuned for more information on the release
Oh Genius is a producer from the United Kingdom with diversity in his production styles. Lost In A Dream displays several different sounds and features equally diverse vocal appearances. “Dis So Funky Man” featuring Sky Blew and “I’m Out” with Ellis rapping and both tracks feature singer Shannon Ramsey providing melodies and support on the hooks. The former is an ode to The Whispers if you did not know immediately, I should not have to explain that. While the latter is a little darker and has a more dramatic sound. The stark differences in the two songs is indicative of the rest of the album. Download it and decide for yourself though.
L’Orange’s album Orchid Days is infused with prohibition era samples and colorful melodies. The album is mostly instrumental with a couple well thought out vocal appearances. Homeboy Sandman drops vocals which enhance the scene. With a fresh fedora, low lights, thick cigarette smoke, and Homeboy on the mic at your local speakeasy.
Okay people, let’s get this out of the way real quick. This song is not going to die. It will be around forever, ever. Forever, ever? Forever Ever! Pharrell knew exactly what he was doing with “Happy” and has indeed created a movement. It has received MULTIPLE mixes, from all over the world, people have even made their own videos, which brought Skateboard P to tears on the Oprah show by the way. I’ve heard several dope mixes, the Keith Sweat one that got played for me the other night is one of them. That was a great mash-up. Here is another GREAT mix from Procussions’ producer/emcee Stro Elliot. It embodies a lot of the same hand clapping head nodding elements of the original while bringing it’s own vibe and style to the track. It works so well that if it were played in a room full of people nobody would probably even notice it was a mix, they’d most likely treat it like it was the actual track. That’s pretty impressive.
Detroit producer, Apollo Brown releases a short 3 track instrumental EP today in anticipation of the full length project Thirty Eight, which drops on April 29th via Mello Music Group. The Cigarette Burns EP, features 3 tracks from the project which Apollo describes as taking place somewhere between the heroin laced 70s and the crack filled 80s landscapes. It is also free to download, so you have zero excuses for not grabbing this. I can’t think of a better way to describe it. I’m looking forward to this drop as you should probably be doing too. His reworking of the Gensu Dean x Planet Asia project titled Stitched Up was great.
L’Orange and Mello Music Group have teamed up to bring to us The Orchid Days. A project which makes use of prohibition style samples to tell the story of a man in love or as L’Orange describes it, “A man fell in love. Then the world was destroyed by an ever-growing nothing in the sky.” The album could very easily be the soundtrack a movie made based on the Fallout III video game. My gamers know what I’m talking about, Nuka-Cola for everyone. Bolstering contributions from the likes of Homeboy Sandman, Blu, Jeremiah Jae, and others this conceptual album is a must have.
Producer Imperial has linked up with visual artist Agnes & Lupus for a visions and rhymes project which Illect Recordings. The visuals and beats are accompanied by quotes from everyone from C.S. Lewis and Chuck Palakniuk to Christ. The video is dark and raw, a play on the duality of man. The project will be called Triptych, more information coming on the release as soon as we have it. I’m really digging the video, everything works really well together, the quotes, the beats, the video works in splendid harmony. So much so, you’ll need to watch it several times in a row, concentrating on each individual segment to take it all in.
“You don’t have a soul, you are a soul. You have a body.” – C.S. Lewis
PURCHASE: IMPERIAL x AGNES & LUPUS – AMONGST WOLVES (BANDCAMP)
PURCHASE: IMPERIAL x AGNES & LUPUS – AMONGST WOLVES (iTUNES)
Here is a sampler of Philadelphia native producer Wes Pendleton’s newest instrumental release Renewal. As expected it’s birlliantly soulful. He has a distinct sound, he recaptures the soul of the 60s and 70s and bottles it up in musical form, releasing it at his own discretion.