ATSIC S04E25 - Out of Pocket

Another week of the best rap I can find, mixed by my good friend DJ Baggylean. Independent funding means we get all the freedom to play whatever we like. Frost Gamble nailed it in our Fly in Formation interview last week when he said that I’m a DJ who “chooses music with his ears.” That’s really all I do. If anything, I actually do the opposite of what’s expected of a lot of DJs on corporate-owned radio or doing club gigs. I choose music that has low play counts rather than music that gets 50k streams the first day. I figure some artists have plenty of exposure, they’ll be ok. Sometimes I still play them, but I try to make room in mixes for artists who have blank space beside their newest Spotify single (that means it's under 1000 plays). I sort of try to draw a line in the sand at 10,000 plays; if a song's pushed past that already, we generally don’t play it on #ATSIC. I like to give shine to the lesser-knowns and try to break new artists to new listeners.

It’s a bit of a betrayal to the “documenting the scene week by week” ethos, admittedly. Guys like Merkules get the short end of that stick, I guess. Nothing against Merk, he’s a beast, and I have nothing but respect for his endless work ethic and quality output over the years. It’s just that when his new albums drop, people across the country are listening whether I tell them to or not. By the time I looked at his newest EP “From the Chamber,” the day after it appeared on Spotify, it was already sitting with around 20k plays on 2 tracks, and double that on the third. I’ll still pick something from him once in a while, and I still keep his music on the “ATSIC Radar” weekly playlists (that’s where I put music I need to listen through each week), but it’s less often that he makes the 57-minute radio mix. Tonight is one of those nights; I picked one by him and Dub J called “Nothing Was the Same.” Dub J’s bio says he’s Canada’s DJ Khaled, so I guess that means I’m not, since obviously there can only be another one. This track had 111k plays at the time of writing this.

This mix actually had a couple of other tracks that will get plenty of love on it because, for a second week in a row, I got to play a new Ghostface track to kick off the episode. This time DJ Muggs provided the backdrop and linked him up with Westside Gunn to have a duel of the high-pitched mics. Good stuff. The Soooooooooul Assassins call at the start was dope.

The other American track on this one was a new drop from the Bootcamp Clik, “Wotcha Call Strength” (feat. Ruste Juxx, Rockness Monsta, Smif-N-Wessun, O.G.C., Buckshot & the Arcitype). Shouts to Duck Down for being the longest-standing indie rap label of all time... maybe? It’s certainly one of them, and the whole crew still sounded in top form on this one, if you ask me. Sad that there was no Sean Price verse left in the vault, but the rest of the roster carries the torch.

Getting into the bulk of the mix, the new-released Canadian indie rap: we played 2 from JRoberts, who has an album coming up soon with Imperetiv beats called “Shamrocks & Machine Guns” (Sept 15 drop). I think both the tracks on this one were singles from it; “Sketch a Hearse” and “All or Nothing.” Both are the grimy new age, low-tempo boom bap and bars that we’ve come to expect from the duo. Looking forward to hearing the rest of the album.

The next one, “DESTINATION” from EverythingOShauN, is a simmering single for the last days of summer, slow-cooking some slick talk about flying girls out to see him where he’s at on location. Smooth stuff. I yell something about not taking vacations... I should clarify that I was on all sorts of beach this summer. I was just there listening to 6 hours of new release rap every week, making sure that I could keep #ATSIC on point even while I was sun tanning. It was grueling.

SAYZEE’s been trying to send over some new stuff... it’s just not working for some reason. So I played this one from a while ago from the Toronto spitter. Looking forward to hearing the new stuff.

We circled back to Ol’ Gorilla Bones Revenge Vol2 to play an album cut, one of the only features on the album, “Pillow Head” with Chaka Boy. On his second appearance on Fly in Formation a few weeks ago, OGB shouted Chaka out for writing crazy hooks, and told me that he was involved in the Port Authority projects. I went back and looked, and he didn’t lie. Apparently he’s also known as D-Vice.

One of the few artists I follow from Ottawa, Aspects new single “One Day At A Time” reminds us all to make the most of it with a ballad over some screaming guitars. I need to dig into the Ottawa scene; I have no doubt that there’s the usual variety of underground under-discovered lyricists out there, but I can only really think of one or two off the top of my head. Shouts to Spiegz, another Ottawa artist who’s come through chat over on Twitch a few times.

I got to talk to Frost Gamble this week on Fly in Formation, and he told me about meeting Tone Chop and almost catching a molly whop over “trying to steal his DJ.” This was the first I’d heard about Frost rapping, but apparently he used to do that more often, and back in the day TC thought he was angling in to cherry-pick his DJ. He wasn’t, and they’ve been homies ever since, which is good because the most recent result has been a bunch of the music I’ve played over the past few years. The track on this mix, “Still Inspired,” finds the pairing reminiscing about 30 years in the indie rap scene.

“Nebula” is a new single from Toronto rapper Frankenstein. I can’t front like I know much about the guy, but his Spotify bio says he’s been not only Juno but Grammy-nominated. I just like the solid boom bap and bars foundation that his new drops demonstrate. Speaking of Grammys though; I was on the socials earlier this week typing about how wack the Grammys are, and I stand on that. That doesn’t mean I need to be a hater. On a personal achievement level, I’m still here to congratulate the individuals who have been recognized by what is definitely one of the most prominent music industry institutions in the world. I was just saying that they’ll probably give the Grammy this year to that AI Drake song, which is ridiculous and awful for a lot of reasons. Musicians need a union like the writers for Hollywood have. When they do give that AI bullshit the Grammy, it’s not going to surprise me because the Grammys always do wack shit like that to make headlines and get people to talk about them. It’s one of the reasons I dislike the Grammys. That and that they’ve slept on Hip Hop and some of it’s best artists in a lot of ways, a lot of different times.

This “The Grand Gusto” track from Navi the North, Thrust, and Moka Only surprised me. I like to hear Moka on some high-energy shit like this; it’s a fun switch-up and shows the guy’s immense diversity of skills. Headnod electric guitar sample that amost took me back to the MOP rock rap mash-up album.

Another WORLD PREMIERE with a big-name West coast legend this week! You can’t hear The Game on “Connected” anywhere else until “West Coast Allstars” drops online on Nov 10. Edmonton’s StR8 GUttA & Ol’ Skool are calling in Sept 19 to talk to me for a Fly in Formation interview, so I’ll be asking them how the hell they managed to line up the array of features from people we grew up listening to. Never really thought I’d be dropping unheard music from Snoop or The Game, but here we are. Big ups to these guys, and all the other artists that send music.

Back to Toronto with Tona on his new single “Cookin”. Which finds him still in the kitchen calling out rappers who aren’t telling the truth over top of a fast repeating vocal sample. People act like you can’t make lyrical music that can play in the club, but something like this is a great example of putting bars on top of something that you can still bop to.

After that it’s another Toronto mainstay, Raz Fresco. He’s been dropping new singles and adding them onto this 777 album drop by drop, seemingly re-releasing the whole album every time, but keeping the play counts stacking. I’m not sure how that’s working honestly, I’m not an expert on digital distribution, but I’ve done it a little, and it seems like doing this would require a bit of wizardry and or a bunch of effort and planning. Unsurprising to see that sort of innovative forward-thinking and relentless promo grind from BKRSCLB. There’s no telling if this album is done or not yet. I’m here for all the music from guys with bars as consistent as Raz; so I hope they just keep adding new drops to it as time ticks on.

An artist I hadn’t heard of before "outof10000" has a new single featuring someone I have heard of; “I NEED SOME WEED (feat. Yung Papi Bonito)”. I think both these guys rep Calgary.

We stay in Alberta with a cut from Emprime’s new LP “Hardly Novices”. Dude has bars, and goes wild on “Take a Breather,” casually flipping intricate wordplays around like a juggler does with pins or balls or whatever.

“GMT” stands for Grown Man Talk, and that’s what we get from Detales on this one, another album cut from him and Papasgotbeats' new project “Dr Dro.” This isn’t the first track I’ve played from the project, it’s consistent all across the board.

We finished out with Kryple’s new drop “Nothing Is Promised”. The Edmonton veteran emcee looks back and finds “everything is gone but the music cuz I neglected it”. Real stuff. I’m here for indie rapper confessions. I’m talking to Kryple, making up for the one interview I’ve had to cancel from last season, on Fly in Formation on Oct 3. Should be a good one; dude sounds like he’s got some stories on his mind.

Big big ups to DJ Baggylean for once again blessing us with the mix. I think he does these mixes on the fly like he was doing them live, maybe one day I’ll convince him to get the streaming element going so that we can watch as he does it. Until then, it’s flavor for our ears, and it’s deeply appreciated.

I also appreciate everyone who checks these posts out, who listens to the mixes on Mixcloud, hits like, share, follow, and/or subscribe, and comes by for Fly in Formation interviews live on Twitch on Tuesdays. It’s dope seeing the community starting to come together and meeting new people.

Come by on Twitch on Tuesdays for Fly in Formation. This episode of #ATSIC has audio from a recent talk I had with Epic attached after the music. It’s been fun picking artists' brains and soaking up game. I always feel like there’s a lot of stuff in these podcasts that other artists on the come-up would benefit from hearing.

UPCOMING FLY IN FORMATION

Mighty Rhino & Mindbender Sept 12 (7PM)

Ol skool & Str8 Gutta Sept 19 (7PM)

CXtotheworld SEPT 26

Kryple Oct 3

Zaze Oct 10

Mickey Obrien Oct 17

Stephen Hero Oct 24

DROP LIST

Sept 15 - K-RIZ - One Way Ticket

Sept 15 - JRoberts & Imperetiv - Shamrocks & Machine Guns

Sept 29 - Mathematik - Mathematik Universal

Sept 29 - Mickey O'Brien - OREBODY

Nov 10 - StR8 GUttA & Ol' Skool - Westcoast Allstars

Oct 12 - ToBi - PANIC

Oct 20 - Anthony Kannon & Frost Gamble - Cautionary Tales

Oct 27 - Steven Hero - Paper Flower

No Said Date - Arlo Maverick - Blue Collar

Support the artists you enjoy. Buy music, even digitally just to show support. Go to shows, buy merch.

If you want to support #ATSIC and Fly in Formation, and pay me for the work I do making it, you can donate through http://www.paypal.me/doobyis. Huge thanks to the people who donate; you help keep the show going!

If I’ve made a mistake, let me know. If you know something about an artist that I don’t and you feel like sharing, hit me on social media (@Doobyis on X, @Doobyis_ on IG & Threads). Always happy to chat, come by on Twitch.

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