ATSIC S04E39 - Here for it
This week it’s a boom bap grab bag filled with the best new music coming out of underground Hip Hop. DJ Dice is back, and we’re taking you through another hour of unedited new release rap.
This episodes traditional Wu Tang starter song finds Raekwon joining Q-Unique on a track called Cup of Tea, barring up over a vocal and key driven soul sample. Sounds like Rae was hyping his Vatican series of mixtapes at the end, so I have no idea if this was actually a recycled verse or not, I remember that series from sometime around the Cuban Linx 2 era.. but not well enough to tell you if this was on something there or not.
I spend my talk segment telling you to come hang out and talk shit on Threads. When I was talking to Touch for Fly in Formation, he mentioned that he avoided Twitter, and now Threads, “because it was too easy to get bars off and feel like you’re cool.” His complaint is my reason to be there. I launch thoughts into the ether at random, sometimes worded more inflammatorily than in a typical conversation. I talked last week about how I can’t really understand the draw of vinyl, and how it seems old-fashioned and sorta wasteful.. and called in a wave of responses telling me how much everyone loves to hold music in their hands, as ridiculous as that sentence is. Of course I know vinyl is cool and that people love it and that it sells. Ultimately, great, any listeners buying anything from the artists is a good thing, of course. All I really wanted to do was encourage more artists to think about promoting digital sales, but I stirred the pot and I was there for the responses. I love learning other people’s perspectives. Even when they call me “complaining old geezer”… I thought that was a weird insult choice for a guy wanting people to use digital instead of vinyl.
The mix proper goes straight into full flight, with metal guitars driving a single from cee.reality’s newish solo album “Know the Ledge.” This one has Lee Reed on it, and his cadence and wordplay worked perfectly to keep the track from careening too far into the rock side of the rock/rap genre. I can do tracks like this depending on subject matter and lyrical prowess. I hear a lot of emcees trying to mash up these genres lately, more and more often, and this one is one of the better ones by far, bar for bar.
After that Dice got real sexy with the mix, taking it to the farthest end of the spectrum mood wise, with Edmonton based artist Just Moe recruiting Mattea & Jaylin January for “TRU”. After discovering Just Moe on a feature he did on Arlo Maverick’s new album, I went back and listened through his solo work, and this is a new single he dropped mid Nov.
McGyver is a Netherlands based artist who told me he was born in Canada. I think on the East Coast somewhere, most likely Halifax I’d imagine. He told me all his family are still here, while he’s “stuck in the Netherlands.” I saw him on Holands Got Talent on his socials, so it looks like things are going well overseas too. I liked the bilingual wordplay on this one, the beat and cuts are dope (by DJ DNS), and RJ Paine kills his verse too. When I heard this track a few months after msging with him about his music, I noticed McGyver rhyme about suburban nerds in Alberta being culture vultures and raised an eyebrow. Then I bought the track to play for free promotion to a new audience on the radio in Southern AB twice a week as well as to people around the world on Mixcloud.
Es is a Toronto based artist who always delivers, this week we played “Just What You Need”, a feature on a track from Akompliss; as well as one later in the mix called “Is It” where Es featured on a track from Profit. Both of those guys are now on the radar thanks to Es sending these over. Profit is an emcee who I would guess is from Toronto, who has 9 monthly listeners and just released a project called “Own Worse Enemy.” It has features from guys like Es, LeZeppo, and E.Smitty, who are all names I’ve played on ATSIC before, so now I’m following him and I’ll have to make time to check out the whole album. Akompliss has work with Moka Only, David Strickland, and E.Smitty, and also 9 monthly listeners, and he too just gained another follower who will be watching for the next drop.
I’m surprised I didn’t already play DK’s “Back in the City” featuring Justo the MC and Red Inf. It’s from his Atlantic Rap Vol 1, and I think it’s my favourite track on there. The backdrop sounds like steam on the cold streets of Queens. I’ve only been to Hip Hop’s Mecca once, but this sound brings me back there more than that Alicia and Jay anthem we all know. There’s something about the soaring and ascending horn melody on this DK instrumental that reminds me of that track for some reason. Glamourous but gritty NY feel.
Young Buck was always an engaging lyricist in my opinion. I was fully on board the G Unit hype train in my last years of highschool, and I remember liking solo work from both Lloyd Banks and Young Buck, at least for some span of weeks when the album dropped. Haven’t ever really went back to either of those artists output since then, so I honestly have no idea if YB has a bunch of albums between then and now or not. This track he did with Quake Matthew’s recently, “Learn As I Go” has him sounding like he’s been rapping every day since 2004 for practice. Quake is always sharp, and both emcees looking back at the path to where they are today is a nice contrast sonically.
Copywrite called in Mickey Factz to help him out on “Mixtapes in My Sleep,” where they both rhyme verses about fantasy collabos and mixtape exclusives. The whole song is an homage to the DJs who inspired me to make this show the way I do. I love playing exclusives and breaking new artists to new audiences by playing them beside artists with different fan bases. This ones really good. Nostalgic boom bap sounds, nostalgic name drops, and a dope overall song concept. I’ve heard a lot of emcees name drop the legends like this in a song, but this is a really clever way to do it.
K-Rec is a Vancouver DJ who’s cancer has been beaten back into remission, so he named his new album “ReMission.” It’s got a star studded track list, and this one, “Let Me Go” has 4ize and Moka Only flexing on a beautiful smooth beat featuring a melodic vocal loop and glimmering keys.
After the other Es feature on Profits track, we switch over to the first of 2 features from Gritfall with artists that I hadn’t heard of, Sabio & BECK (Sabio is an Arizona based producer/emcee, and BECK is a 60 montly listener emcee based on the “East Coast of Canada,” who I follow now), for a track called “Gems” where all three deliver relaxed bars over some mello samples; and later “Grit Ballin” where the youngest BKR in the CLB was featured on an artist named Skunk’s new album “10 Yards” as the only vocalist on the song. Gritfall has a new release available exclusively on BKRSCLB.com, named “Make till you Make It”, which I still need to cop. Maybe for next episode.
Back to Berta, it’s “Sutraz” by T R A K Z, another artist I hadn’t encountered prior to their collab with an ATSIC regular, this time Edmontonian K-Blitz stepping in for a verse over top of a futuristic flip of a middle eastern vocal sample on some TikTok Duet vibes. Remixes like this are built for ATSIC. Like I said, it’s a new mixtape every week over here. Oddities and tracks you might miss by artists you might know, on the regular.
There are also 2 tracks from JRoberts on this mix: first “Pain & Glory,” and then “Paid In Full. On the first, J tells us if we shoot at him we better not miss because he’s “quick like Jason Vorhees.” At first I was like, “that shit doesn’t make sense homie, it rhymes good but Jason is slow as fuck.” Then I started wondering if what he really meant is he’s quick in a unique way where he’s just going to keep plodding on and on no matter what and he’ll catch everyone eventually, on some persistence marathon vibes. Shouts to him if he thought that same thing through and wrote it down knowing that only some nerd with headphones on would ever really get what he was saying. Dice did a nice switch up from one JRoberts track to the next. At first I thought it was just a 6 minute long song. “Paid in Full” is dope too and actually has a more upbeat vibe along with another emcee, Shottie, but it works really well back to back with Pain and Glory, because J’s been building a consistent catalog of music brick by brick and song by song.
Newselph is an emcee who I think is based in Calgary.. maybe Edmonton. Definitely Berta. He’s active over on Threads and we’ve been offering opinions in one anothers posts at various times. I hadn’t heard of him before Threads, where I originally saw him promoting the vinyl pre-order of “If It Aint Broke, Remix It,” his album from last year. This track, “Anotha One” has Rel McCoy featured, and both emcees hold the bar high. Go order the vinyl. Or buy it digitally.
After that, shit gets scary as we go to “Snow,” a new release from Mr. Ilango, a Toronto based producer who sent this one over. I’m not a huge fan of emcees rapping about “scraping yall stained drawls with the chainsaw” and such, but meh, send me music and I might be more apt to play it. I think I liked his last single more. We could use a ton more snow out here though.
Dice ended things out with Koncept, a Sudbury emcee talking about his dreams to be the biggest best most legendary emcee who’s ever lived. The hardest artist ever to exist. The rappingest rapper who ever rapped a rap. It was a chill beat and some heated lyricism. Dude has bars, and this one makes a great outro. All the rappers can relate to the hunger, me included.
If emcees are reading this, the lesson this episode is to work with other emcees and producers who are known in the community. It’s how I discover most of the people I play, and it’s spider-webbed out across the whole country at this point, touching every major city. Reminds me of the days when I’d flip through a CD’s liner notes booklet to read all the names of the producers and thank-yous, just so that if I saw them the next time I was flipping through the rap section at HMV or A&B Sound, I’d recognize the name and know it was going to be quality. Before the internet was what it is now, liner notes, word of mouth (which didn’t exist if you were only around rock band guys all the time), and magazines were the only way you’d get exposed to new artists. Everyone shits on Spotify, and I have problems with how it pays people too, but I will defend it’s usefulness in the ease of exploring new music. I always blame the user, not the tech. That tech could be enabling people to go buy music they find and enjoy. Instead these useless fucks will just stream Drake on repeat and let indie artists starve. That’s a choice they make though. Digital singles of the songs you enjoy cost .99 cents, and even if you never pull it out of the downloads folder, it could be stacking up to crowdsource a wage for an artist who otherwise is giving you music for free on streaming services, where you need hundreds of thousands of plays to make anything significant.
Thanks for the support, thanks for checking in and reading. Let me know what you think of the mixes, the songs, the artists, my opinions, or anything else. Sound off in the comments here, on Mixcloud, or on any of the socials (YouTube).
Fly in Formation Season 2 is done! Season 3 is back in January! The Jan/Feb schedule is up on Twitch right now for anyone curious. Make sure to hit follow on Twitch or subscribe so you don’t have to watch the ad breaks during interviews! Help build a community by popping up in chat and asking questions to me or the guests. I’ll do more promo for next season of FiF through December.
Each week I buy every song I play, unless the artist sent it to me and saved me a buck. I buy the music because I know how important it is to support independent artists. Making music is time-consuming and expensive. Streaming doesn’t pay much at all, and since streaming has become the way most people consume music, it’s even more important to make sure to buy tickets, buy music (physical or digital), and buy merch from artists you want to hear more from. Streaming pays next to nothing, so if you want artists working on more music instead of working more shifts at their day job, you need to show them love by opening your wallet and giving them financial support.
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