ATSIC S05E34 - Vaults

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Below this write up is the tracklist, complete with artists and their hometowns. You can listen at the top and follow along right here or you can listen on your Mixcloud app. Hit the … on the Mixcloud app to see the tracklist while you listen.

It’s another hour of lyrical boombap from the best across the country. I buy something like 20 or 30 songs a week, add them to the vaults, and Dice (or me some weeks) puts mixes together from the resulting pile of tracks. This mix has some songs released 6 days ago, and some from a couple months back, but they’ve all been hand picked by me, then hand picked by DJ Dice. Check back here later for the complete write up, I’ll talk about each track/artist for a sentence or few to add some context.

The mix started with Raekwon, Scram Jones, and Joey majors with a track called “I Thank the Lord”. It was from 2023, because I’ve been seeing fewer verses from Wu the past couple months and I ran out. It might be that the over abundance of struggle rappers buying up that Anno Domini pack of wholesale Wu verses anyone can use for 50 bucks is flooding my weekly release radar with those verses and I’m missing the more authentic drops as a result.. I might have to put the Wu’s names into the search bar soon and see what I’ve been missing. Honestly though, the few times this has happened in the past 4 years, it’s as if they hear my call and the next week there’s a bunch of Wu features in my feeds. Only time will tell.

The Canadian portion of the mix after I do the intro rant starts off with Raz Fresco & Daniel Son from their album Northside, with a track called “WATCH YA MOUTH” that was in the vaults since May and features a Jeru sample for a hook questioning all the rap snitch knishes.

“ANOTHER BOUNCE SONG (feat. Mo’Dirt)” from Desean Jackson has the two Vancouver spitters doing the expected arms crossed lean back bounce for a solid contribution to the sub genre of guys rapping about refusing to dance. I feel like the younger generation is less and less inclined to feel this way, but there’s still plenty of heads in Hip Hop who just want to show up and chill, and I’m here for it

The sample on El-Nuri’s new “Ghosts (feat. Emyhr Rhymes & New Villain)” brought this one to the forefront of last week’s new drops. It hit the weekly ATSIC Radar thanks to the New Villain feature, I don’t know anything about the other two guys except what it says in their bios (El Nuri is from Rockaway Queens NY). New Villain is from the No Face Krew in Toronto and has been really prolific dropping projects that often include a lot of grimy street talk and comic book pop culture references and themes. He’s one of the wildly overlooked lyricists in that TO scene. A guy in the comments on Mixcloud said the song sounded better on ATSIC than it does on Spotify. It’s because Mixcloud is far superior and I pay them yearly to give me high quality audio, while Spotify shits all over the quality. Keep tapping in on Mixcloud.

SAYZEE is another relatively slept on GTA artist who’s just busy constantly dropping high quality music, and this mix features 3 new ones from him, all off his self produced newest album “YFRWNX part A” which just dropped on Oct 15. First off is “Can’t Escape”, a solo track that he promoted as a single a while back. After that, Dice went back to the same project for 2 back to back tracks later - “Rare Breed feat. Jamal Gasol” & “Twin Goat Power feat. Adam Bomb”. Both Jamal and Adam Bomb carry the weight. Jamal Gasol is from the southern side of the border in Niagra Falls, and SAYZEE just did a full album as well, if you wanna hear more of their collabo work, it’s called Smoke Wave.

“Rudimentary” is a new single from Jimmie D, Raz Fresco & Pay$o featuring a sombre string melody and some street stories looking back at the trials and tribulations. I’m always a fan of a good cipher track, doesn’t always need to be aimed at being a crossover hit single. Like one of the last bars on th song says, bring the trap back without autotune, lyrics about trapping don’t hit right when it’s so melodic that the 13 year old girls are the target audience.

Don’t get me wrong tho, I’m not above enjoying some melody. The next one has plenty - “MINIVAN” from Edmonton’s Little Man & Di$tinct. I’m fairly unfamiliar with either of them, but I remember hotboxing minivans with the bros back in the days, so this one got nostalgia points and does what it sets out to do.

“My Brother Boogz” is a eulogy for a fallen friend from Quake Matthews. Too many dying too young, left and right, day by day. Looking back at the good times like this might be the most positive way to push onward and keep their memory alive. Give your homies flowers while they’re still here.

After the back to back SAYZEE tracks, we go on to back to back Guardians of Boombap tracks. I’ve started spelling boom bap as one word since this album dropped last month, but on further reflection, maybe it’s the British spelling, since the album did drop on UK based The Get Down Records. Self is always super dope, with introspection and poetic elements that I think have always set dude apart from the pack. We played “Breathe In”, which really reminds me of a past Liberators song and features a bar that his homie Dee and I had to ask for clarification on about which blunt wrap he prefers (Phillies). To follow that one up Dice picked one of the songs that featured cuts from good friend and sometimes collaborator on ATSIC, DJ Baggylean - “Let’s Put It On” which pays homage to tradition and the fallen who walked these paths before us.

We kept it locked in with Edmonton for the next one, a posse cut combining some of the various crews that helped shape the early 2000s scene in YEG. Deuce Fantastick, Arlo Maverick, Yak (formerly Yak Dollaz, I think), Jay Bangarang, and podcaster/emcee RJ Cui, who’s been putting on for the city with “Face to Face” interviews and a string of singles featuring local emcees.

A remix from Toronto DJ’s MiLKCRATE is up next, “Turn That Shit Up” featuring London based emcee Sum-01 and Toronto rapper J Shiltz. It’s off their new project MiLKCRATE in Shangrila, which you can’t hear anywhere but Bandcamp as far as I know, other than ATSIC of course.

It’s back to the money getting on “Paypal feat. Mic Gutz”, new new from Dre Specz, a rapper who looks to be from Toronto as well. I’ve got a paypal going if people want to support the show. Relatable content on this one.

Es & Shark’s new project Reflections is out now, and I’ve had a few singles from it ready to go in the vaults for a while now, they just keep hiding from me when it’s time to make a mix. Since I’m talking to Es soon (Oct 29), for Fly in Formation it’s good that Dice put one of them in the mix, “Razor’s Edge” chronicles the precarious tightrope walk artists are all making while we bring art to the world over top of a really nice beat from Nec Nymbl.

The final track of the mix is “Morning Star” from the upcoming Magick Show project “Samhain” EP which drops on Handsolo Records on Oct 25. It’s horrorcore, so it gets the standard eye roll that all the other phycho killer raps around this time of year tend to get from me, but I did dig the production, and I learned a new word and some history about Halloween, so props to the guys for keeping the content as fresh as 2024 horrorcore can be. My thoughts on horrorcore made the following interview a fun one for me.

After this episode, catch a new Fly in Formation with Magick Show, a Sudbury super-group consisting of Mickey O’Brien, Max Moon, & Johnny Bizness. I talked with 2/3 of the group, and we spoke about their upcoming album, their solo projects, horror influences, and more. You can find this interview and past episodes on YouTube in the FiF playlist.

Check out the “Making of #ATSIC” video below. Catch me live on Twitch weekday afternoons while I listen to a ridiculous amount of indie rap digging for gems, game, record my own music, or talk to artists for FiF interviews. Join the chat, share your thoughts, or just vibe.

Fly in Formation is back to weekly episodes. Tune in every Tuesday for interviews with artists across the country as I dive into local scenes and creative processes. Tuesday Oct 22 I talk to Brampton emcee Spitty for his second FiF appearance. He’s fresh back from a trip to India and has an album called “Motherland” that just dropped, so it should be plenty to talk about. Come through, hit subscribe on Twitch, skip the ads, and chat live while we stream.

I buy every track I play on ATSIC unless it’s sent to me directly. Streaming barely pays, so it’s essential to support indie artists by buying their music, tickets, or merch to keep them creating. Listening to #ATSIC on Mixcloud is free for you, and makes sure that each song you hear pays the artist at least SOMETHING. Spotify pays 0.006 CAD per stream, and only if the song hits 1000 plays in 3 months. Assuming a song gets 1000 spins, that means it takes around 125 Spotify plays to earn an artist the same .76 cents they earn from my 1.29 cent purchase on iTunes.

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