There are certain advantages to visiting your parents who live out in the middle of a swamp. The most obvious being, that there is a rare opportunity to bear witness to the billions of horny frogs that put on an amazing tadpole symphony at night during fornication season, and getting to hang out with wild ducks and turkeys that quack cool gobble noises. The downside, as there is to most wondrous things in life, is the sluggish dial-up internet connection that makes me feel like I’m in sixth grade experiencing the WWW for the first time, trying to guess what body part or shape or entity is being drawn up on the screen pixel by pixel.
So, thanks to the swamp, I can’t tell you shit about what is in this video since streaming is simply far too complex a script for swamp-net. Help me re-connect with reality: leave your interpretation in the comments below?
The Come Up Show team packed up our bags and headed to Brampton to visit the ever-chill Moka Only in studio. While Moka may be pretty low key in person, anyone who has followed his 16-year (and growing) career knows he is anything but low-key when it comes to making music. It’s not that his music isn’t chill, it’s that Moka is one of those hyper-productive — and therefore prolific — artists with a knack for churning out new music at a rate likely faster than you can consume it: Since 1995, Moka has notched around sixty solo projects and collaborations on his belt. Does Oscar Meyer even make wieners that fast?
Moka is prolific, yes, but his past work doesn’t compromise his forward-pressing mentality and relentless self-critique. As he told us when we asked him to reflect on his impressive opus, he actually considers himself a slow poke. “I could actually stand to pick it up…” he says, “it’s not that much, really, per year…”
Click play and one of Canada’s legends talk humbly about his craft, his affinity for Jazz, his anxiety of influence, and some the personal philosophies that guide his music making behind the scenes.
Most of us were doing something mama related yesterday for Mother’s day. Maybe you picked your ma some flowers, or maybe you cooked her breakfast. Or maybe you forgot mothers day was coming up two weeks back on that hazy Saturday afternoon, when you unknowingly booked a non-refundable trip to Las Vegas to see the naked version of Cirque de Soleil. If such was the case Im not sure what you told you mother, but I hope you’re thrifty with the excuses.
I think it’s pretty safe to say that Emerson Brooks would never do such a thing, and neither would any of the mama’s boys in the line up for “Dedication (mama),” which comes to us as week 12 of Emerson Brooks’s E-Day series. So whether you need a lesson, reminder, or a way to reflect on the weekend with some mama-esque music, this jazzfeezy production may just do the trick.
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Download: Emerson Brooks – “Dedication (mama)”
While back in his hometown London on his Canada tour, Shad K hooked up with former TCUS teammate Jon Lines for a rooftop interview. They discuss what it means to be a hometown hero, the concept behind Shad’s ode to women “Keep Shining,” and how his collaboration with Dallas Green came about.
Oof. What IS this? I found this tape from Death Grips up over at Pigeons & Planes alongside an article that hinted Confusion was just as confused as I am now. The description DG himself offers of this music is “Intense, avant hip-hop,” meaning, of course, hip-hop that is experimental, radical, way out there, weird, etc. Whatever Death Grips is, I think we can rest assured by that seat belt across his chest in the fuzzy distorted visuals for “Guillotine” that no matter how radical he is, Death Grips is still utmost concerned with safety. Mama taught him well.
We are all up on our radical hip-hop these days, aren’t we? So perhaps these synth and throat grindings won’t sound so angular to you. Or maybe they will. What do you think of it?
Check the video below, then view the full post to see the mixtape artwork, and to stream the rest of the tape.
Hey there. As you may know, a whole lot of us TCUS contributors live in London Ontario, where our ring leader Chedo not only founded The Come Up Show, but lives and still hosts a weekly radio show alongside J.R. Nick–our amazing video editor who eats cake above–also lives in London, and so do his extraordinary video mignons Alyssa, and others.
The rest of us bloggers, editors, contributors, photographers and graphic designers hail from locales as far and wise as Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Chicago, and elsewhere, so we weren’t so lucky to eat cake this day. But icing envy aside, we remain painfully loyal to each other and share a manic-obsessive love for hip-hop. And you.
So from all of us, on our 4th anniversary, we want to say thanks for hanging out for us over the past year, for checking out our interviews, for reading our daily posts, for chatting with us on facebook and twitter, for coming out to shows where we are, and for showing your love. If you thought this year got crazy, seriously: Wait until the next.
The Lil B phenomenon became tiresome really fast, didn’t it? I still enjoy my cooking dance as much as the next, but to be honest, I prefer to get my Based God swag on in concept rather than by execution. All due respects and there are many, the things B says and the movement surrounding him is much more interesting than the music he actually makes.
That is, with exception, anything that has origins in Clams Casino’s laptop, the synth-beat mastermind behind not only Lil B’s musical reign but other Bay Area artists like Soulja Boy and Main Attrakionz. Clammy dropped this remix of “Swervin” a while ago through his twitter and I’ve been looooving it since. The original can be found on XV’s recent mixtape Zero Heroes.
Stream “Swervin” as well as “All I Need” (from Clams’s instrumental mixtape) below, then click-click download if you dig them.
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Download: XV -”Swervin” (Clams Casino Remix) [mediafire]
*After note: Just in, a rad new remix from MTL’s Lunice. Listen here then tweet it to download.
For each Wednesday throughout May, TCUS is psyched to be hosting a fresh new MPC routine straight from the studio of the MPC Jedi Fresh Kils. For the first release of the series, Kils has chosen the beastly “Transformers Routine.”
After sharing some of his MPC philosophy with us in our recent interview, Kils hinted that the Fresh Kils Wednesdays routines will be for the most part themed, like this first instalment that opens with a Transformers sample which he then rhythmically and motivically morphs –or, transforms– several times as the track unfolds over it’s 3 minutes.
You can imagine your own storyline, but it’s hard to get around the impression that things get seriously gangsta on Cybertron at 1:57.
Director Stuey Kubrick consistently delivers the raddest visuals for not only Sweatshop Union, but for a pretty hefty chunk of Canadian hip-hop artists. This time, Kubrick and SU busted the bear carcasses out of their attics and headed up to the Jasper ice caves to the massive abandoned mines of Hope, BC., where they shot the video over three days. Watching along with the result of this surely dangerous and life-risking cinematic expedition, “Makeshift Kingdom” from The Bill Burray EP, turns into “post-apocalyptic hip-hop,” just like the write up in our e-mail reads. How about them icicles?
by Kara-Lis Coverdale
He’s no spring chicken in the Canadian hip-hop scene, but T.O. based producer Fresh Kils hasn’t really spent much time dancing in the spotlight, and it’s not because he was born with a hideous gnome face or because he’s an ardent agoraphobic or something. No, along with his mountains of production gear, Fresh Kils has simply been dwelling in his studio, grinding hard and banging out beats for artists like D-Sisive and Ghettosocks like he’s the Christmas elf of Northern hip-hop.
But all that is changing. Or, at least the behind-the-scenes part. As a solo act and as 1/2 of the production duo The Extremities, Kils is stepping up his stage game, and he’s doing it by coming hard as one of the most kick ass MPC performers out there right now.
In between Easter egg hunts this past holy Sunday, we sat down to chat with Kils to talk about sampling, the state of “live” hip-hop, and how the MPC has not only brought him from the studio to stage, but has changed the way he makes beats altogether.
Click below to read the entire interview. It’s long, but she’s a goodie.
Chedo is usually in charge of posting Emerson Brooks’s weekly E-Day track, but the big man is en route to his homeland Eritrea as I write. Have you ever seen pictures of the massive sycamore trees there? If you haven’t, google that insanity now. They are kinda unreal.
While he gallivants around eastern Africa, this monday’s E-Day instalment nevertheless presses on, and this time it takes shape as a R Kelly-esque rendition of “Happy Birthday.” If you’ll allow me, I’ll make a recommendation. Save this number for that time of year when a special someone’s facebook wall gets twelve dozen carbon copies of “happy birthday!!!” all stacked up on one another. If you post Em’s diamond in the ruff amongst the heaps of mechanical mundanity, it would be read as… a true act of modern love.
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Download: Emerson Brooks – “Happy Birthday”
