This scene however has been forever changing since those days, we have seen the rise in a handful of superstars. Once they have been hand picked we see millions each year spent on keeping them as the crème of the game, 50 Cent’s last album bombed if compared to his previous efforts, Lil Wayne’s new album this week is atrocious after his superb ‘Tha Carter III’, could this be the end of hip-hop as we know it? Artists like The Game, Flo Rida, Akon and Chris Brown have turned the genre into pop music trying to break bad. The clever lyrics and interesting beats have paved way for mainstream crap with awful rapping over the top. However, amongst all of this there is a new underground hip hop movement going on in Brooklyn!
The first artist to emerge out of the Brook-Hop scene (if Nu-rave stuck then I don’t see why Brook-Hop can’t!) was Theophilus London. I first heard about him thanks to one of my other favorite blogs Abeano (worth checking out if you haven’t already! Imran runs a superb ship over there!) I was fortunate enough to finally see him perform last night supporting Miike Snow, the guy looks straight out of the 80s! Sporting a flat retro cap and some cool shades as well as some debatable clothing that could have easily been left back then he brings a superb show, mixing some classic songs and giving it his smooth lyrics over the top. His remix of ‘Amadou et Mariam’ track ‘Sabali’ is exactly what I feel that African music deserves, he takes a superb song and turns it into his own. The reason I have used ‘Sabali’ as the main example is that I have a lot of love for African music and am disappointed in seeing a huge rise in African influenced bands but no more interest in the originators of the sound. The success that has started to fall to Theophilus London is largely in part to the release of his first mixtape ‘This Charming Mixtape’ which I highly recommend you to download! The rise of the free mixtape download is a central part to this movement, with more MCs becoming savvy to production techniques and teaming up with incredibly musically gifted DJ’s they are able to gain a following from the releases of these free mixes. I would say to open the door into this world download ‘This Charming Mixtape’ and just give one listen to ‘Hum Drum Town’, ‘Crazy Cousins’, ‘Sabali’ and ‘Day One Fans’ and you will be a Theophilus convert! His new mixtape will be available for download in a few weeks time he informed me yesterday.
Now whilst these artists haven’t gained the same buzz as Theophilus has, they are worth checking out, after all it’s not an artist that makes a scene but a plethora of them! I wrote about them a couple of weeks back in New Music Monday however I wanted to re-promote Rocky Business in this blog. They will be starting to create some ripples in the music scene when they release their mixtape shortly. Lyrically ‘SB’ seems more powerful than Theophilus, he annunciates his lyrics whilst going at a 100mph over self produced breakdance tracks as well as some rocking pop tunes, musically its all produced by ‘Johnny on the Rocks’ they will be ones to watch as they fine tune their songs before breaking further into the mainstream in months to come.
Have you heard of ‘Fresh Daily’ yet? No! Well go and change that! Coming out of AOK Collective (which is a consortium of musicians and artists, claiming they are NYC’s final answer to indie Hip-Hop, other artists to check out from this group are '8thW1', 'P.SO the Earth Tone King', '2 Hungry Bros.' and 'Homeboy Sandman'. I have only chosen two of the collective and if you want to check out any of the others click on their names to go to their myspace pages. ‘Fresh Daily’ has got some smooth rhymes and is able to roll through his lyrics keeping you hooked the whole way along. His album "Gorgeous Killer in crimes of Passion is definately worth listening to, you will get a real feel of Brook-Hop done well! The other artist that I am going to plug out of the AOK Collective is 'Nola Darling', this is not only because she’s got tunes but also because a female MC deserves love in this male dominated genre!
Lastly I’m going to throw a bunch of names that if you have enjoyed listening to some of the beats and rhymes from the Brook-Hop scene then they are also worth giving a listen to: 'Black Sheep'; 'Shinobi Ninja'; 'Ninjasonik'; 'Anton Glamb'; 'Memberz Only' and 'Johnny Nelson'. Something makes me feel we will be hearing a lot more out of Brooklyn in the next year!
If you managed to listen to all those artits you deserve a round of applause! If you checked one of them out I hope you enjoyed it!
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