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The Up-Turn

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Category Archives: Hip-Hop

05/22/2012 Video: Vince Staples & Michael Uzowuru- Matlock

Most buzzing rappers these days make it after one of their videos goes viral on the blogosphere and is able to show off their unique style and image.  Now the incredibly talented Vince Staples has his own ‘Purple Swag’/‘Yonkers’ with this video for ‘Matlock’.  Listening to Vince’s deadpan and rich flow is paired perfectly with the grainy, black and white style of this video.  The dark vibe of the video is taken even further as a clips of riot footage are projected on to Vince and Michael.  Shyne Coldchai Vol. 1 has already proved Vince to be one of the best rappers making music right now, hopefully this video will help more people realize it.

-PK

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05/22/2012 mp3: Trap Arnold – EndersGame

I don’t know if you read the novel Ender’s Game when you were a kid, but I sure as hell did, which is why I had to listen to this when I saw it.  Luckily M|O|D member Trap Arnold made a track that is just as awesome as the book was.  With “EndersGame” Trap Arnold has done a great job of maintaining his distinct Future Trap style with rolling high hats etc. without drawing too much attention away from the song’s beautifully spacious chords and delicate melodies.  If I were ever to be floating in space, controlling a giant army with my brain, I would want this song to be playing in the background.

-TC

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05/22/2012 Enjoy It While It’s Fresh: Sidewalk Kal & Mattron

In one of my recent trances where black out for an extended period of time and end up finding many awesome tracks by awesome artists on my favorites list on Soundcloud with no recollection of how they got there, I stumbled across Chicago rapper Sidewalk Kal and his work with New York producer Mattron and had to share.  Although, it’s a huge party foul in the hip-hop community, I’m going to compare their work to Illmatic because to me the comparison came to mind right away.  Sidewalk Kal has a smooth, gimmick-less flow with wise beyond his years lyrics that remind me of Nas, and Mattron’s boom-bap beats remind me of the beats Nas collected for Illmatic (especially DJ Premier and Pete Rock’s) with an added hint of the modern abstract element of hip-hop popularized by beat makers like Madlib.  I don’t know too much about either Sidewalk Kal or Mattron, but I think their music speaks for itself, so listen below and link to their individual Soundcloud pages below that.

-TC

SIDEWALK KAL’S SOUNDCLOUD PAGE

MATTRON’S SOUNDCLOUD PAGE

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05/19/2012 mp3: Jamie Foxx – Blame It (Groundislava Remix)

When Jamie Foxx was making the pre-YOLO blackout anthem “Blame It”, I doubt he was intending it to have anything close to a personal, introverted vibe.  Fortunately, we have Groundislava to change it into that for us.  By pitching down the vocals a little bit, and creating a new understated back drop with simple production and beautiful melodies, Groundislava has turned every drunk girl of 2009’s favorite song into a beautifully dark and solemn ode.  If you haven’t yet wised up to Groundislava or WEDIDIT Collective (which includes Groundislava, Earnest Blount, Shlohmo, RL Grime, and Jonwayne among others) you are missing out on some of the best electronic music you will find in 2012.

-TC

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05/17/2012 mp3: Main Attrakionz- Greenova to the Top (ft. Shady Blaze) (prod. Friendzone)

Today I tried to download every piece of music ever released by cloud rappers Main Attrakionz and I was pretty psyched to see this new track that was only released a week ago.  Although the Friendzone produced beat takes some of the haze away from the typical Main Attrakionz ambient style, the “best duo ever” still sound great over the lush, cali-funk inspired beat.  Friendzone was the same producer responsible for ‘Perfect Skies’ so he has a knack for bringing the best out of the duo.  Mondre and Squadda can’t do much wrong in my opinion and Shady Blaze is a nice addition with a quality verse of his own.

-PK

05/16/2012 mp3: Dead Royautes- Spentagon

Hanz is an experimental beat project that already focuses heavily on the experimental side of his music, however, when Brandon (the mastermind behind Hanz) wants to just be plain experimental he makes music as Dead Royautes.  His latest track under that project demonstrates this nicely as ‘Spentagon’ sounds like a typical Hanz track if you threw it in a blender and stopped caring at all for standard song structure.  With ‘Spentagon’ we get three second clips of synth music and punk rock, disorienting sample collages, cats meowing and probably a thousand other sounds that aren’t easy to fully digest upon the first listen.  It’s really nice to hear an artist, who’s already still really early in his career, branch out with an experimental project like Dead Royautes.

-PK

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05/15/2012 The Up-Turn Presents: Tako Tomago- Silver Serums Mix

After hearing his remix of Earl Sweatshirt’s ‘Drop’, I knew that I wanted to kick-off our new mixtape series with a mix from Jonathan of Tako Tomago.  His Hydro EP is still one of my favorite surprise releases this year as it is probably one of the most convincing examples of a (I honestly never thought I would say this) ‘post-genre’ release.  Although he’s making some left-field, r&b tinged, synth-pop, Tako Tomago decided to make a hip-hop heavy mix with a lot of edits and mixing thrown in.  To keep the mix fresh, Tako Tomago made sure that “pretty much every song on the tape is an edit so even if you’ve heard the song you’ve got something new to enjoy.” On top of the edits he even throws in an ASAP Rocky remix and an original demo to close everything off.  This tape is the first of hopefully many to come and we couldn’t have asked for a better tape.  Hit the jump for the download link, track list and a quick interview we conducted with Jonathan…

Continue reading this article ›

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05/14/2012 Enjoy It While It’s Fresh: C.Z.

Future Trap is a very interesting idea.  It’s easy to dismiss a bunch of young producers who most likely belong to the middle-class trying to breathe new unique life into a genre born out of dangerous Southern slums and crime culture as a soon-to-pass “hipster trend”.  Although this may be true, I think the young genre has more merit and value to it than that.  Future Trap producers like C.Z. or Lil’ Texas are taking the rolling hi-hats, and more importantly the extremely high energy style of Trap music like Waka Flocka and introducing the synths, intricacies, and extreme attention to detail of electronic genres such as House and Bass Music to it, and I don’t see anything wrong with that at all.  C.Z. is one of my favorite Future Trap producers right now.  His aggressive behavior-inducing remix of Ace Hood and Rick Ross’ trap anthem “Realist Livin'” is simple yet energy filled and showcases an intricately and incredibly produced drum track, and his song “Wheezin Ed” shows how beautifully Trap beats and James Blake-esque synths can blend together.  Below you can stream C.Z.’s “Realist Livin'” remix and “Wheezin Ed” and link to his Soundcloud page below that…

-TC

C.Z.’S SOUNDCLOUD PAGE

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05/14/2012 mp3: Aaliya- Are You that Somebody (Nvthlss Remix)

Arguably the most sampled artist ever, Aaliyah and her music have been a major source of inspiration for the current music scene.  Taking on her track ‘Are You That Somebody’ which has been sampled in plenty of songs recently, Nvthlss just dropped one of the only proper Aaliyah remixes I’ve seen.  Replacing the Timbaland produced beat of the original with a much some laid back guitar work, Nvthlss manages to make the song all his own with plenty of new textures and sounds.

-PK

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05/13/2012 mp3: Chris Villa- 30 Deep

Pillage Vatican City is a mixtape that every fan of hip-hop needs to listen to.  For better or for worse, the current hip-hop scene is focused heavily on features, crews and image.  Chris Villa managed to drop a mixtape with no guest MCs at all, and it doesn’t hurt the quality of the album at all.  Although most of the best beats on the mixtape come from Hanz, Villa is a formidable producer himself which is demonstrated nicely in this bonus track ’30 Deep’.  ’30 Deep’ has a shuffling electronic beat which is quite different from some of the harder beats that were featured on Pillage Vatican City.  His flow is really developed on that song and the result is possibly one of my favorite tracks from Villa yet.

-PK

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