Weekly Fix #48 ('21)
Welcome to the Weekly Fix, where I go over everything that I’ve listened to that has come out within the past week. I’ll give a little blurb about the project/single with my feelings on it thrown in there, throw some descriptors and other artists names to give you an idea what the project/single is like, and link to all applicable streaming services where you can find the music. The next section will be devoted to projects that have Bandcamp or online webstore links, to give a greater highlight to those artists who you can support directly. The final section will be for projects that have had a Hot Deal-type release, but have recently come to streaming. Click here to see a list of previous Fixes.
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Alright y’all, I’ll be up front about this one: I got COVID this week, and shit has been crazy. I was out for the count for a few days straight, and even though I’m feeling better now it’s still been a bitch. I’m hoping to get some more work done around here while I’m off for a couple weeks, but I gotta get at least a little bit better than I am right now; it’s not fun, don’t get this shit.
2021 just won’t let up on us y’all. I can go through as much personal trouble as I can take and get COVID and whatnot, but whenever we lose someone in the culture, that hurts everyone.
This week we learned that Virgil Abloh, a man so incredibly influential in this hip-hop shit I don’t think I can put it into words, passed away at 41. The impact that he has had on artists like Kanye West, A$AP Rocky, Jay-Z, Kid Cudi, and so many more cannot be overstated, and hip-hop today would be vastly different without his contributions to the fashion world and hip-hop culture. His curation of artists over the years was nothing short of inspirational, putting people on to acts that would never have seen a wider audience without his cosign. This is a blow to the community at large, culturally and emotionally. I don’t really have anything uplifting about this to end off with… hug your people y’all.
While the world descends into madness, the music keeps flowing like spice on Arrakis, one of the best things to look forward to these days in my humble opinion. We got a shotgun blast of smaller projects this week, with a few big chunks to really round the week out: short ones like ones from G4 JAG, Jamal Gasol, and Philagato mix nicely with some more fleshed out cuts like this *huge* Wu-Tang project from this guy Remedy, as well as an incredible project from Pro Dillinger and Finn.
I also NEED to point out that the Singles this week were all amazing, with some enormous posse cuts making up a large portion of the runtime over there. RJ Payne (with a shitton of battle rappers), Page Kennedy (with every hot spitter in hip-hop), and Bookz (with a squad of some of the best in Toronto) are all up with giant tracks with a guest list that includes 20 combined. Bars, bars, and more bars will be found over there for Week #48, so please don’t miss that one y’all.
Next week is gonna be a big one. We’ve already had a Droog album drop on Monday (what a project y’all…), but I’m also looking for a new Flee Lord, Styles P (with Havoc on the beats no less), Tierra Whack, and Polo G. Solid if I do say so myself. For this, and all other projects I see coming down the pipeline, check in over at my Upcoming Heat page. This page is a running calendar of releases with a cool calendar… thing… as well as a list of everything I’m seeing. It’s a great tool that I use myself to keep up with all this shit, and I think y’all could make use of it too.
Peace to all of my readers, all my friends and family, and all of you artists out there.
==> LINK TO THA SOUPCORD <==
Here’s a link to the Week #48 (’21) Playlists
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Here’s a link to the Week #48 (‘21) Singles
-----STREAMING PROJECTS-----
Remedy – Remedy Meets Wu-Tang
Cover Artist: fgivoriginalart
As my favorite hip-hop act of all time, ANYTHING Wu-Tang related is going to get recognition from me, and any time one of their members drops something I always take the time to check it out. Their last album (if you can call it a “Wu album”) was The Saga Continues, a very loose collection of Wu-Tang tracks brought together by the genius of Mathematics, and Remedy Meets Wu-Tang follows in some of the same footsteps here: Remedy brings out a solid majority of the members as features so that it *feels* like a new album, but he’s still present enough (and talented enough no less) to make it an album of his own. But, if you’re like me, you’re asking “who the fuck is this guy to pull this kind of weight in the Clan”? Remedy has been around the whole Wu collective since the late 90’s, an affiliate of the Killa Beez since that very first Swarm album back in ’98, and native of the Wu-Tang’s original stomping grounds of Staten Island. He’s always been in and around the Wu, providing features and some production support on occasion, but this is the first time in 20 years that Remedy has come with a massive project like this. Naturally, Remedy’s rap style is very much like those emcees that you would find in the Wu aura: Solomon Childs, Trife Diesel, some Sunz of Man, all of these guys and groups sound like clear influences on his style, brash and accented. Despite every legend involved here, Remedy is still able to center the album around himself, leaning into his own personal Jewish culture and heritage in his verses and on some of his solo tracks; the final track, which gets into some deep details of the holocaust, is particularly powerful in that regard. Anyone looking for that traditional 90’s East Coast fix will be pleased by this entire album.
Spotify/Apple Music
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G4 JAG – Lamar Silas - EP
Cover Artist: Nate Butcher Media
Inspired by the recent television series BMF, which follows the Black Mafia Family, G4 JAG has come with a small EP that incorporates some sampled elements of that show, as well as throwing in some lyrical references to tie it more into that world. I wouldn’t say this is a concept album (although I haven’t seen the show myself, so there might be some references going over my head on this one), but I will say that G4 is distinctively more hostile and rugged on this album, which could be seen as a part of that inspiration I was talking about. G4 has taken it easy this year after a 2020 filled with releases, collaborations, and features, with Lamas Silas being the second project he’s come out with so far in 2021, but you can tell that his ear for distinctive production and memorable vocals is being trained up on every release. The energy on this EP is something I love about this one, especially in comparison to some of G4’s other work, and the instrumental choices in particular are either hard-hitting knockers or amazing sampled pieces. Big Drip and the title track are very aggressive cuts with violent beats, but I’ve got to give the shine to Frontline (done by Ben Jesus) and ESPECIALLY this Pardon Me beat (P.A. Dre did this one), both beautiful examples of the usage of vocal samples. As an EP, it’s easily and readily available for y’all to digest (especially since it’s on streaming immediately for y’all), so don’t pass up this fantastically colorful project.
Spotify/YouTube/Apple Music
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A.M. Early Morning & Johnny Slash – Nicholson
Cover Artist: SQUATDEADFACE
Big ups for SQUATDEADFACE on this one: an album like this is a testament to the power of cover art, because as I was casting my weekly net trying to find as much new stuff as possible this incredible piece of art hit me like a freight train, where I literally said out loud “well I GOTTA listen to that shit”. I’m happy that I did give this a spin, because this is some diabolical shit right here, a great spread of varied yet oppressive beats with a nasty emcee laced over the top of them. A.M. Early Morning is a Chicago emcee with a voice drawn up out of the gutter: it’s got this slime to it, giving every word this poisonous energy that works perfectly over the demented and punchy instrumentals. Johnny Slash, a producer out of California, doubles as both the beatsmith behind these hard-hitting and warped boom-bap cuts and as a part-time emcee, spitting some verses on a handful of the tracks himself. I haven’t seen a lot of promotion of the fact that Johnny is rapping on some of these tracks, but goddamn this dude is HARD. He has this deep and powerful voice, with a grit to it that screams hardcore hip-hop; he sounds more like an east-coaster than anything, which leads to a moment of surprise when I learned the dude if from Long Beach of all places. What you’re gonna get from this one is a stylized, hardcore, and ruthless brand of hip-hop, brought to you by a talented and grimy emcee paired with a producer who is deadly with the beats (and can rap his ass off to boot: seriously, I want to hear more of you rapping Slash, for real).
Spotify/YouTube/Apple Music
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TeeCee4800 & D.Loc – Fake Is the New Real
Now these are some names that I haven’t seen in a very, very long time. Almost five years ago now, TeeCee dropped a little mixtape called Realness Over Millions 2, an album that, if I had been doing this Soup Dude thing back then, would have placed very highly in my year end lists. There was just something that TeeCee understood about West-Coast music, a lot like YG did around that moment as well, that was just perfection to me: the hard-hitting beats, the heavy gang references, and the overall atmosphere of fun and creativity. However, since then, we’ve gotten nothing from him projects wise, I mean the dude just fell off the face of the earth on my radar. Coming back with a project like this one, with D.Loc on the mic AND all of the beats no less? Now that was a welcome surprise, and while it doesn’t necessarily scratch the same itches that Realness Over Millions did, it’s still good to hear something from the man. Fake Is the New Real is much more mellow experience than TeeCee’s other work where, while TeeCee still has that incredibly unique higher-pitched voice on some Eazy-E shit, his flows have changed a little to match the more subdued structure of D.Loc’s production. D.Loc being apart of this album is too incredible for my 2017 mind to comprehend: back then, Loc was just getting his life back after being released from prison, a great rapper that I suppose has developed a production talent in the past 5-6 years. His beats are light and airy for the most part, with bangers being replaced by smoother West-Coast cuts, some bordering on R&B vibes. It wasn’t the project I was expecting, but Fake Is the New Real is a great reintroduction to these older faces, and I hope they both continue to put out new music from here. If you like more modern West-Coast vibes this album will be for you. Also, Free TC.
Spotify/Apple Music
-------SOUP’S HOT DEALS-------
Pro Dillinger & Finn – Pray For My Prey
Investment: FREE DOWNLOAD (but consider a CD while you’re there)
Cover Artist: [Unknown]
There are few producers out there in the game right now that I would put in the “essential” category: guys like Big Ghost, Nicholas Craven, and Futurewave are all people that I’d had on my “drop everything and listen” list for a minute now, and I think after Pray For My Prey that Finn needs to be a part of that conversation. Based out of Toronto, he’s been putting on for his city HEAVY over the past few years: records with Daniel Son, Saipher Soze, Asun Eastwood, and Lord Juco have all enriched that scene masterfully to become one of the biggest centers of quality hip-hop in this underground shit. But this album is the first full length project he’s done that reaches outside of Canada, bringing in the some of the new blood in the underground in the form of Pro Dillinger, originating out of Haverstraw (go up the Hudson a ways from NYC proper and you’ll get there soon enough) out in New York. I’ve heard this dude’s name a couple times over the past year or so, and every time he’s impressed me with his no-nonsense ruthlessness in his bars; features with Recognize Ali and Vinnie Paz tipped me off that we were in for something special on this one, and I wasn’t let down. Dillinger is a lot like those two emcees, forcefully asserting himself on a track and making SURE that you feel what he’s saying, grimy or otherwise. In a lot of ways he also reminds me of Flee Lord in the similar bar structures and the general grit in his voice, so anyone who fucks with Flee needs to check this shit out too. Let’s get back to Finn though: the aptitude that he shows in making any kind of underground hip-hop beat he wants is documented at this point. His last release, Details, was full of vocal chops for example, but Pray For My Prey is a much more in-your-face affair, with deeper bass, muddier snares, more mid-paced beats, and various supporting instrumentation like synthetic drones and whatever that whirring sound on Spooky VooDoo is. It’s colder, harsher, and grimier than anything I’ve heard from him, and an absolutely perfect set of beats for Pro Dillingers style. I won’t waste any more of you time that you could be spending listening to this: go to GoldEraMusic.com, download the digital FOR FREE, then, when you realize how great this is, cop a CD or a Vinyl. This is the kind of hip-hop I will always support.
==> GoldEraMusic.com <==
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FiveSteez & SonoTWS – Quietude
Investment: $11.00
Cover Artist: J
My man FiveSteez reached out to me after Nomad Carlos dropped his last album to put Quietude on my radar, and I’m glad that he put me on to this brilliant album that evokes so many emotions from someone who loves hip-hop like I do. A little history lesson here: where did hip-hop start? New York has always been the answer, guys like DJ Kool Herc and all them. But where was Herc from? Jamaica has long been seen as a sort of grandfather to hip-hop, the place that really birthed the foundation that the later New Yorkers took to market, and it’s an awareness than comes across in FiveSteez’s style on the microphone. Hailing from Kingston himself, Steez takes it back to some of the earlier days of hip-hop, very steady and structured in his bar patterns. It sounds very late 80’s/early 90’s, when experiments in flow had not really come about yet, and people operated within the strict confines of the pocket. Now, if someone was rapping over the beats of today like this, it would sound wonky as hell, but the genius behind this project is that he’s adapting his flow to these beats, which, if you hadn’t told me they were contemporary, I could have easily believed some of them came from Ali Shaheed’s vault from ’91. Brazillian producer SonoTWS is responsibly for this trip down memory lane, which from an instrumental (flat snares, a generally faster pace) and a technical (it sounds recorded on those old machines, with a general layer of age being put over the sounds here that gives the beats authenticity) perspective gives the impression that the lineage of hip-hop is understood and is being preserved in a faithful way. If you fuck with those early records, especially acts like A Tribe Called Quest (I think FiveSteez sounds a lot like the late Phife Dog), then you don’t want to miss this album.
Cover Artist: CRIMEAPPLE
I’ve missed most of CRIME’s 2021 output so far, which isn’t a small number of projects by any means. The last one I have on record that I listened to was Matalos Con Mas Exitos, which was almost a year ago, and in that time he’s dropped at least 4 projects, so I got some stuff to catch up on. I can say that Sancocho and Matalos Con Mas Exitos sound similar: very spacy beats with buried samples built upon by CRIMEAPPLE’s liquid flow, but there are still a few beats with a bit more of a structure to them in comparison to that last project. The people that CRIMEAPPLE taps are always producers who understand his style, so there is a sense of cohesion in the beats he ends up going with on every one of his projects, guys like Buck Dudley, MichaelAngelo, and Futurewave, minds that have either linked up with CRIME directly or have worked closely with his peers. CRIMEAPPLE on the microphone is all about giving you exactly what you want; he knows that his strength is in witty, sometimes comedic lyrics being spit in freeform pattern, and he’s giving you just that here on Sancocho. It’s a rather short project so there’s not much more to say than that: if you’re interested in hearing some very skilled rapping, sounding like some Roc Marciano shit in the flows and beats, then this album will be right up your alley.
Cover Artist: no.gimmick
Skrilla is one of those rappers that epitomize the underground grind: he really is your favorite rapper’s favorite rapper’s favorite rapper. He plays well amongst his scene, featuring on the projects of artists like Jay NiCE, Tha God Fahim, and Left Lane Didon fairly often, but usually wanting his own projects to be entirely his own. While I would have loved to have seen some features on Cuz I Can, his demeanor and attitude is very much one of a lone wolf: he’s a hard man, both in bars and delivery, and his words can be so potent that a follow-up artist could seem a bit out of place. Skrilla’s flow is very slow and measured, each word and rhyme carefully calculated to fit into a disjointed rhyme scheme. It’s a poetic way of rapping, difficult to follow at times but rewarding and satisfying whenever he finishes out a bar. Someone who takes a more experimental approach in their raps usually chooses an experimental beatmaker, and Benji Socrate$, who, like Skrilla, is from New York, is the man behind the boards on this one. I wouldn’t say the beats are “out there” or anything like that, I mean they sound like beats that I could hear people like Nicholas Craven being behind: tight vocal chops, dark and brooding boom-bap, and even some truly older sounding material like something the RZA might have come up with can be found here, interesting beats that mix clear through-lines for rapping and complete mysteries. I definitely recommend it now that it’s hit streaming: I’m cheating a bit by including this one, as it actually released back in June, but Stack Skrilla usually waits many months before he puts his projects out there. Give it a shot if you want some challenging raps and dark soundscapes.
==> Skrilla's Bandcamp <==
Spotify/YouTube/Apple Music
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Stu Bangas – Deathwish
Investment: $11.99
Cover Artist: Vincent Fontaine
This would have been an excellent release for Halloween as so many of the samples on this one seem ripped from slasher films and the emcees that are invited on are clearly horrorcore inspired, but it missed that date by a little bit. Whenever it comes to visceral underground bangers, there are few guys that can make better face-melters than Stu Bangas, and his projects are even better than his loose production credits because he has a talent for creating cohesive albums with complementary sounds. Deathwish in particular sounds like a series of scenes from a Nightmare on Elm Street, with cheesy string and horn samples being laced over muddy drums; it gives everything this dramatic and hair-raising edge to it, different from just the normal “hard-ass beat” a lot of guys can come with. But half of a joy of producer albums are the guests they invite along, and let me tell you Stu has brought in the nastiest characters in this genre to make this a memorable release. We got Recognize Ali, Apathy, Celph Titled, Vinnie Paz, Lord Goat, and Ill Bill, but if I had to crown a winner here I’d have to give it to this dude G-Mo Skee on the last track: I had never heard of Skee, but goddamn if he’s not one of the grimiest motherfuckers. I have exactly one problem with this project, and I need to say it: Stu, you need to have someone rap over that intro track bro. That beat is too hot to leave it bare like that, crazy drums and basswork on that one, you killed it, now let some emcees out there murder it too. Get out and support this man, one of the best producers in this underground shit.
Gasol is another one of those dudes who has dropped a couple times in 2021, but I still got some stuff to catch up on. Last year was a big year for him in my mind, with The World is Piff 2 and Ronwaldo Reyes being projects I still go back to in order to hear some quality underground shit. Jamal is a great rapper who has found a flow and lyrical base that works for him: he feeds you punchlines and wisdom in steady fashion, rarely switching up in favor of maintaining that familiar comfort in his rapping. You just know what you’re getting whenever you hear Gasol on the track, and that’s a big personality and old-school rapping, no questions. The real differences amongst his projects usually boils down to the producers that he chooses to go with, and I think Bass Reeves was a great choice to shake up the pot a bit. Bass Reeves, who is based out of Brooklyn, has gotten recognition in the scene through work with guys like Ty da Dale and $auce Heist, and a natural fit for Jamal’s older approach to rapping. His beats are bit more refined, silkier at times and jazzier at others, but the variety in easier-going sounds is a unique entry in Jamal Gasol’s growing discography that is welcome in any case. The Novelty Of Standards is a shorter project, about as long as Ronwaldo was, but it still packs in a lot of different sounds (and a great feature from Rim no less) and solid bars that warrants a listen. One of the only rappers from Niagara Falls making waves in the game today, Gasol is a unique character, and deserves a listen from anyone who fucks with New York music.
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dessVeta & Odd Job – Ex Cathedra
Investment: NAME YOUR PRICE
Like any music in another language, I gotta preface with this: no, I don’t understand a vast majority of what is being said here. Both dessVeta and Odd Job are from Leipzig, so naturally this entire album is spit in German. I took a few German classes myself whenever I was a kid, so I can pick up on a couple spare words here and there, but the song concepts and turns of phrase elude me. Can you still enjoy this shit? Absolutely, you don’t need to be able to understand the words to know that Veta is flowing fantastically and that the beats are some classic boom-bap material. In fact, if you go overseas to places like Paris, London, and Berlin, you’ll find that a lot of the hip-hop being made there exists in a sort of time capsule: the mid 90’s never stopped there in those cities, and perfectly traditional beats and flows can still be found all over the international world. dessVeta is someone that follows the code of hip-hop to a T: his bar structure is very laid out, hitting every beat in a pocket and ending the bar neat and succinct, and sticking to a complicated rhyme scheme across many bars. Again, I don’t know what he’s saying, but the technical aspect is still an impressive throwback regardless. Odd Job is an artist much in the same vein as Veta is; his style is one of classic boom-bap, with the standard drum/snare combo being utilized on almost every track here, with the differences being found in the instrumental samples he pulls out. You get some horns, pianos, and scattered synths, but nothing that overwhelms the simple stroll of the drums (much like the production of the 90’s). There are actually some really good features on here as well, from fellow Leipziger Morlockk Dilemma and this other guy LuN, who I’m having a difficult time finding anything about. I recommend anyone to listen to this project, and use it as a way to see how other places in the world are doing their hip-hop.
Vancouver producer Chong Wizard started his journey in my mind with his excellent of series of EP’s based on the Infinity Stones (he’s got a total of six, one for each of those Thanos gem things; I haven’t seen any of those movies please forgive me), who came with an incredibly lush and colorful production style that embraces both the soul of the old-guard and the unique samplework of newer hip-hop. Chong Wizard takes a little bit of a different approach to the normal producer albums you’ll see nowadays: most times, producers put out a series of beats and invite rappers to spit over there, whereas some other times you’ll see that while also getting those same tracks as instrumentals tacked onto the end (or a side B). Chong Wizard is actually giving you a full EP worth of tracks that contain guest vocals, while *also* giving you a spread of new instrumentals at the end that are totally different from the ones on the emcee half. I kind of wish he had the populated tracks and the instrumental tracks take turns here, because it’s difficult for me to maintain that attention at the end for purely instrumentals, but that’s entirely a personal preference; I think the instrumentals are great. Some of the artists you’ll find giving vocal contributions include Chris Crack, Nolan The Ninja, Sonnyjim, and Juga-Naut, among others, all of whom fit their respective tracks beautifully. If you want some hip-hop that’s incredibly lively, this is where you need to be.
Spotify/Apple Music
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Phil A & Rasson Arigato – Philagato Presents DeLorean
Investment: $8.00
The last project I have for you is definitely the strangest one. I checked this project out on the strength of the homie Jay NiCE, who is on the first track here, and immediately you’re hit with weird vibes: drunken synths, car commercial samples, and, chief among the oddity of this EP, Rasson Atigato himself, who is one of the most unique emcees I’ve heard in a long time. He comes from Los Angeles, but I had trouble finding someone to compare him to at first: I was thinking like an Aesop Rock or a Homeboy Sandman or something, but I think Rasson brought on the closest comparison I can think of as a feature on this one in Kool A.D. Separate from the fact that it’s incredible that Kool is being brought in on a real-ass feature in 2021, the two seem to have similar senses of humor and presence on a track, operating in this semi-excited deadpan that is strangely engaging. But this guy Phil A, the producer behind these five tracks and Las Vegas native, is a goddamn genius with some of these beats man: you can get a saxophone HEAVEN on Final Call, but on the very next track you get this synth/horn/snare vomit which is like a Jackson Pollack of sound. Lacing together all of these wacked out sounds together with these news clips of the history of the DeLorean car is just something I haven’t heard before, and I think all of you should take a chance and listen to this truly experimental hip-hop.
Spotify/Apple Music
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