JUNE 2020
Welcome to the Monthly post, where I lay out everything you may have missed over the past 30 or so days, name an Album of the Month, a Song of the Month, and give a little “state of the union”. Come look at some other Monthly Posts to catch up on previous months. Thank all of you for reading, and happy listening!
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I want to come out front and say that I apologize for not having any write-ups at all during the month of June. If y’all remember, I used to do two of these posts a week,which was so much writing and planning that I had no time to do anything else. But now it seems like I’ve swung in the opposite direction, and while I’ve spent that time enjoying some relaxation and video game time, I feel like I’ve let you all down. I was working on a write-up for Gunna’s WUNNA, and I have plans for a couple more projects; I promise I’ll do better for you guys in July.
I think my energy level was a huge contributor to why I sort of let things go, with a myriad of reasons to point to. I started a new job, and the amount of work I’ve done in the past month is staggering; whenever I get home I’ve just been wanting to sleep. This whole COVID situation getting worse, paired with my job (in retail no less, in direct contact with these people) is a stressor I wasn’t looking for either. It all just sounds like excuses, but it is what it is.
People dying has been getting to me more lately. They killed Huey out in Missouri, a huge loss of Stepa J. Groggs of Injury Reserve fame, and me reflecting more on the death of Pop Smoke has been really bumming me out man. You just think that these people have a voice in the game, one that we’ll never heard brand new ever again; especially in the case of Pop Smoke, with the dude poised to take over the game…. damn.
Sorry about all of this negative energy guys, it’s been a tough fucking month. HOWEVER, we were gifted a whole ton of amazing music that I was able to use to get by, and hopefully it can help all of you beautiful motherfuckers too. Run the Jewels, Drakeo the Ruler, Tee Grizzley, and Nick Grant all dropped albums of amazing quality, but it was the new trio of Vic Spencer, Sonnyjim, and Verbal Kent, together known as Iron Wigs, that won out for Album of the Month with their airtight debut album Your Birthday’s Cancelled. I liked the Skyzoo album Milestones well enough, but the track Duly Noted is so far beyond the winner of Track of the Month; here in a few months it may become track of the year. I love my father, and this track hits harder to me than any other I’ve heard this year bar none.
I also started a new post this month, my weekly Art Appreciation, where I pull some great cover art and single art that I’m seeing every week and giving that artist a spotlight. I figured that these artists are so very important to the consumption of music, and too often they go underlooked. The response to these posts have been great, but for real make sure you go out and follow these artists on their social medias/websites; not only will you be able to keep up with more music, but you can bless your eyes with amazing art in the process. Catch up on all of these posts on my new Art Appreciation page.
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Iron Wigs (Verbal Kent, Vic Spencer, & Sonnyjim)
Your Birthday’s Cancelled
Spotify/YouTube/Apple Music/Bandcamp
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Skyzoo
Duly Noted
Spotify/YouTube/Apple Music/Bandcamp
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WEEKLY FIXES
Weekly Fix #23 ('20) & Week #23 ('20) Playlists (with Armand Hammers’s Shrines and Run the Jewels’ RTJ4)
Weekly Fix #24 ('20) & Week #24 ('20) Playlists (with RMR’s DRUG DEALING is a lost art and Drakeo The Ruler & JoogSzn’s Thank You for Using GTL)
Weekly Fix #25 ('20) & Week #25 ('20) Playlists (with Tee Grizzley’s The Smartest and Monday Night’s Holly Favored)
Weekly Fix #26 ('20) & Week #26 ('20) Playlists (with Iron Wigs’s Your Birthday’s Cancelled and Nick Grant & Tae Beast’s God Bless the Child - EP)
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ART APPRECIATIONS
Week #23 ('20) Art Appreciation (Featuring work from Tim Saccenti & D. Ratz)
Week #24 ('20) Art Appreciation (Featuring work from Fred Lozano and Gallery Provence)
Week #25 ('20) Art Appreciation (Featuring work from Manuel “Cep” Concepcion and ReezyYens)
Week #26 ('20) Art Appreciation (Featuring work from Homeless Cop & Manuel “Cep” Concepcion)
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Let’s look forward to July; we’re already 9 days into it (I’m sorry for being so late with this post) and we’ve already seen some great shit. Westside Gunn and Pop Smoke have been great right off the jump, and looking out to the rest of July I think we have some amazing shit to look forward to. Starting off with tonight, we have Apollo Brown and Che Noir set to drop career-defining work, the first posuhumous release from Juice WRLD, and the deluxe version of the outstanding The Price of Tea in China from Boldy James and The Alchemist. But it doesn’t stop there, because later in the month we have KYLE’s next solo offering, Black Thought’s new LP, a long-awaited and teased album from RJ Payne, the legendary Blu ad Exile are dropping again, and ANOTHER album from Boldy James. All of this can be seen over on my Upcoming Heat page, which I’ll link to right here; please check out this resource to keep up with new stuff coming out. It’s an easy to read and use calendar and list of upcoming releases that I think any fan of hip-hop would appreciate.
Let me also take this moment to plug my social media, because keeping up with the posts here are made easier when they come right to you in a tweet or Instagram story. We’ll start with the Instagram, @thasoupdude, where I post on my story every time I drop a new post as well as a weekly post a lot like I would on the Weekly Fix. Next on to my Twitter, @tha_soup_dude, probably my favorite app in terms of spreading my posts because I can retweet pertinent info whenever I need to with ease. Then we have my Facebook page, @ThaSoupDude, where all of my content is also posted. My personal Facebook, Drake’s Hidden Children, is also open for any new members; people on there post whatever songs they’re listening to, and I’ll post not only my TSDK content but I’ll also throw out a song or a recommendation every now and then of something I stumbled upon or remembered. While we’re at it, I encourage all of you gung-ho music listeners to make an account on RateYourMusic, a website that I personally find invaluable in the quest to keep up with and catalog music that’s being released constantly.
I hope all of you are staying sane and healthy right now (yes, especially you Kanye). It’s gonna be a difficult time for a while; might be a bit pessimistic but people we gotta be real right now. Just do what you can to support the causes and movements out there making real change, show support to people that need it (especially these great artists that create this amazing music and art for us). Keep this music shit close to your heart. Peace.
