#DXLive with Consequence of A Tribe Called Quest
We sat with Consequence of A Tribe Called Quest to discuss their final album and their performance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.
EDITORIAL: Make The Internet Great Again: Fake News Is Poison
Originally posted on HipHopDX 11/20/2016
Headline heat. We’ve all fallen victim to it once or twice. That’s what good copy editing does after all, right? At the end of the day we’re all searching for validation of our opinions and emotions.
Did you see that self-indulging asshole Kanye West put up 106 points on a wheelchair basketball team again over the summer like he “balled so hard” on them in 2014? That sounds like actions of the creative deviant who believes the world centers around him. You took to Facebook with an ire and drafted your manifesto of hate with as many typos as your rushed train of thought could muster. “Fuck Kanye West.” “That nigga trash bro lol.” “OMG he’s so disgusting. How could a person really do that to those people?”
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ALBUM REVIEW: IshDARR Exhibits Modest Growth On Broken Hearts & Bankrolls
Originally posted on HipHopDX 11/6/2016
Rating: 3.4/5
For Milwaukee MC IshDARR, his life has to be playing out like a dream. Two years ago, he was a senior at Messmer High School piecing together what would become his career with his then music teacher. Fast forward to 2016 and the 20-year-old is taking meetings with labels, having young Hollywood starlets tweet his music and releasing his second full-length project Broken Hearts & Bankrolls.
At first listen, Broken Hearts & Bankrolls doesn’t carry the normal inequities you’d expect from an artist who isn’t old enough to legally drink. The production is robust and mixed with attention to detail. His flow is polished. The storytelling sequencing is spot on and there is a preset focus on the direction of the music.
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INTERVIEW: Kayla Brianna & London On Da Track Going Half On An EP
Originally posted on HipHopDX 10/20/2016
Kayla Brianna, R&B’s newest darling, recently stopped by DXHQ and announced that she’s teaming up with London on da Track for a new EP. “London on da Track and I are actually doing an EP together so I’ll be going to Atlanta in a couple weeks to work on that.” The announcement comes on the heels of her latest single and video “Work For It” produced by London and featuring YFN Lucci.
Also known as the daughter to NBA champion and NBA on TNT star Kenny Smith, the 23-year-old artist is looking to break out and make a name for herself in music. The partnership with London aims to do just that. London has made a name for himself over the past four years, producing for all of the South’s heavyweights from Waka Flocka Flame, Gucci Mane, Rich Homie Quan and Travis Porter to fellow Cash Money artists Lil Wayne and frequent collaborator Young Thug. London is best known as the mastermind behind the boards on T.I.’s 2014 RIAA gold-selling winner “About the Money” featuring Young Thug and Rich Gang’s chart-topping single “Lifestyle.”
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ALBUM REVIEW: The Birth Of A Nation: The Inspired By Album
Originally posted on HipHopDX 10/7/2016
Rating: 4/5
The past few months have seen the long-awaited slave period film Birth of a Nationmired in controversy. Nate Parker, the film’s creator, lead actor and co-writer, has had quite the task escaping the cloud cast by his past acquittal of a college year rape accusation and all but saw the buzz of his Sundance Film Festival darling halted. To add valleys to the uphill battle, Parker’s rendition of the story of Nat Turner has also been met with a plethora of mixed reviews. For what the movie may lack, The Birth of a Nation: The Inspired By Album offers up a suitable alternative.
Boasting of a laundry list of Hip Hop’s elite and R&B stars, the original soundtrack seamlessly mixes artists across multiple rap subgenres to create a sonic experimentation of music that spits in the face of sedition. Lecrae and Leon Bridges embody the film’s rebellious persona with their own haunting, organ-backed and percussion laced opus “On My Own.” Lecrae preaches the plight of our ancestors with powerful bars “I’ve been pushing hard/I’ve been praying harder/Only Heaven can help me/They took my Earthly father/Mama they promised me death and walked me into my grave/I’d rather die a free man than live on Earth a slave/I’m fighting for people they put in chains/they stripped our heritage they took our names/Put our women to shame.”
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ALBUM REVIEW: Jay IDK – The Empty Bank
Originally posted on HipHopDX 9/29/2016
Rating: 3.8/5
For Maryland MC Jay IDK, life has been on an upward incline since his 2015 album SubTRAP. The success of his last album has put him on a trajectory to gain traction outside of PG County and the DMV. Jay opens up on what his newfound progress comes with and how to balance the expectations of getting money with his latest album The Empty Bank.
The cover art, depicting Ben Franklin with a noose around his neck as he sits on a rented luxury car, serves as the perfect metaphor for the album. Jay gets right into the heart of the album’s subject material with the Kain Carter and Masego-assisted “Mr. Mills” to kick off The Empty Bank. The song starts with an instructional chant of, “Sex, Drugs, Money” as Jay IDK raps, “I guess I figured it out; money ain’t shit. I guess I figured it out; money is dick/a bitch will tell you your shit is good if your money long even if your dick is shorter than Gary Coleman”. As Mr. Mills continues to wax poetic with lines such as, “I’m spending everything I got on everything I don’t need” and “My friends see they say ‘sheesh he got lots of cheese’ it’s probably from the smiles they see on my IG but them smiles ain’t really me” he’s interrupted by a bill collector attempting to collect on his $30,000 studio bill.
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ALBUM REVIEW: Chinx – Legends Never Die
Originally posted on HipHopDX 9/27/2016
Rating: 2.7/5
Lionel Pickens, or Chinx as was best known by, became another MC taken away due to gun violence in May 2015 — adding to that long list of rappers whose clock was punched much too soon, much like his Rockaway Riot Squad brethren Stack Bundles, who was murdered in June 2007. His follow-up to last year’s impressive Welcome to JFK, Legends Never Die is the second album to be released since Chinx’s still unsolved murder. With the exception of the first Rockaway Riot Squad track since Stack’s murder in 2007, “All Good,” all of the tracks were recorded prior to Chinx passing.
Legends Never Die isn’t reinventing the wheel, nor is it meant to. The subject material is insubstantial and the production (scored predominately by Blickie Blaze with sporadic offerings from Harry Fraud and Lee on the Beat) is decent yet redundant. The LP opens up with the upbeat, smooth and flowing pop single “Like This,” featuring Chrisette Michele and Chinx’s mentee Meet Sims. From jump, the French Montana influence is noticeable not only in the way Chinx puts his bars together but tonally and in his vocal afflictions as well. “Like This” doesn’t stray away from the typical Top 40 single we’ve been beat over the head with as Chinx raps about things the woman currently worthy of his attention isn’t accustomed to as the chorus chants, “She ain’t never rolled with a nigga like this, she ain’t never smoked with a nigga like this, she ain’t never rolled with her hair pulled back in a drop top whip with a nigga like this.”
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