Categories
Archives
America's Most Blunted
Monthly Archives: January 2007
R.A. the Rugged Man hits the road
Every music conclave has its underrated cult favorites. Pop kids have Pink. Rockers have Butch Walker. Emo-metal kids have the Deftones. Indie hipsters have…well…the whole fucking genre. And hip-hoppers have R.A. the Rugged Man.
Who is R.A. the Rugged Man? He recorded an underground classic with Biggie back in the day ("Cunt Renaissance"). He makes weird and trashy cult movies and used to write a column for Mass Appeal. (Does he still do it? I don’t know…I stopped reading the magazine a while ago. And no, I’m not dissin’.) And he’s a dope MC that sort of sounds like your pappy bitch-slapping you. And now he’s coming to a stage near you…depending on where you live.
Review: Oddisee, “Foot in the Door”
Amir “Oddisee” Muhammed first came to light on Jazzy Jeff’s 2003 album The Magnificent. Now, after years spent working at Jeff’s A Touch of Jazz studios, the D.C. rapper and musician steps out with a full-fledged debut. Continue reading
2007 brings Kweli and Madlib’s “Liberation”
On New Year’s Eve, fan favorite Stones Throw closed an amazing 2006 by posting a free album in tandem with Talib Kweli’s Blacksmith Music Label.
The album, a collaboration between Kweli and mystery achiever Madlib, is called Liberation. Kweli has talked up the nine-track EP-length set on his MySpace page for months. As recently as December 5, he wrote, "So I know I know, I said Liberation will be out in November. I like to be a man of my word and believe me, I really tried! There are just politics with putting out a free album that I wasn’t ready for. Everyone has to be on the same page, and I got a lot of business on my plate right now." But all’s well that ends well.
Liberation, which can be downloaded for free here (with additional artwork) and here is, in Kweli’s words, "a straight ahead, sample driven hiphop record, from two of the best doing it." It marks his second underground release following the Blacksmith: The Movement mixtape in November. His new album, Eardrum, was scheduled for release last fall; it is now tentatively set for February. Meanwhile Madlib is working on a new Madvillain collabo with MF Doom.