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.
PURCHASE: L’ORANGE – ORCHID DAYS
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.
PURCHASE: L’ORANGE – ORCHID DAYS
Production from Paul White and from the record White Sands available through Stones Throw Records. So soulful. So Homeboy. So good. Buy the album, support that real.
PURCHASE: HOMEBOY SANDMAN – WHITE SANDS
Preorder iTunes – Compact Disc – VINYL
As Substantial’s Mello Music Group debut Home Is Where The Art Is nears release, the DMV MC can’t contain his excitement. In anticipation of the release, Substantial joins indie powerhouse Homeboy Sandman and up-and-coming DMV wordsmith Javier Starks for the high-energy track “ReLOADED”.
The track doesn’t appear on Substantial’s own album but is instead a bonus cut from Javier Starks’ upcoming EP, executive produced by Substizzle. and produced by Joe.D, (the main producer for Gods’Illa). The cut packs a punch in the instrumental alone. The MC’s spit accordingly, the always amazing Homeboy Sandman references a wide array of 80’s video games in the opening bars and Javier Starks hits the track running with the flow of a veteran. Substantial might take the cake though, combining the technical efficiency of his peers with a substance few else achieve, name checking Steve Bitko and the streets of Baltimore a few bars apart.
If you’re on the eastern seaboard, this Thursday, August 23rd, Substantial will be celebrating the release of Home Is Where The Art Is at Liv in DC. The star-studded affair will feature appearances from album executive producer Oddisee as well as XO, Gods’illa, yU, Javier Starks, DJ Roddy Rod, Grap Luva and more. Don’t miss the chance to witness one of world’s finest underground MC’s live and in his element. Home Is Where The Art Is drops September 4th on Mello Music Group.
Dean switches it up a little bit on his latest offering on Mello Music Group. A laid back, melodic track featuring the United Kingdom’s Olivier Daysoul on vocals. The song is available on the b-side on the 45 for “Ramseses” which features 7even:Thirty & Homeboy Sandman. In case you missed it, below is the “Ramseses” joint, which features blistering raps and the boom bap that Gensu is known for.
Look, I won’t sit here and tell you what you should be listening to and what you should like. But if you don’t like this track your musical tastes are terrible and I just don’t see how we can be friends……EVER!!! In all seriousness, hellova track right here……
“Ramesses” is a term for ancient Egyptian royalty, Pharaohs to be specific. If Hip-Hop was Kemet, The Imperial Gensu Dean would be among the regal few. At a time when the music is drowned in a sea of thin synths and weak stock drums, Dean consciously keeps it analog, relying on the tried and true SP-1200 and stacks of records.
For his newest single, “Ramesses”, Gensu Dean enlists two up-and-coming rhyme kings in their own right, the dexterous Homeboy Sandman and the ferocious 7evenThirty, to compliment his apocalyptic beat. Matching a mean guitar riff with gunshot drums and a wailing vocal sample, Dean provides intense energy, allowing 7evenThirty to wild out and rap about busting through the side of mountains, mummifying opponents and riding on the back of the Sphinx. Homeboy Sandman provides a good counterbalance; rapping with equal lyrical intensity but taking the everyman route, reminding us of when he would drink water to quell hunger and lie about cutting McDonalds out of his diet.
Gensu Dean has emerged as one of the most formidable and relevant links between the Golden Era and today.
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