Thoughts From The Rap Nest

vol023-086

Thoughts

Happy Birthday to the homie Noblonksi! Wish him a happy birthday but picking up something from his amazing catalogue of music!

Congratulations are in order for the homie Noyz319 who got married this past weekend! Wishing you and your wonderful partner all the best together! Love you both!

I saw this tweet the other day and it had me thinking a lot about the state of physical music in the indie rap world. Also the mass layoffs at Bandcamp had me really concerned about the current state and future of physical music release for independent rap artists.

We as artists, organizations, people continually build up these communities and they are amazing at first and then venture capitalists swoop in and monetize everything they can as they gut the communities driving away all the people that made them great. We all migrate to the next platform, build that up and repeat. This cycle has been going like this for the past 25 or so years of my life, from message boards to social media platforms the outcome always seems to be the same.

Does this mean the revival and reliance on central distribution channels will re-emerge for artists? I know these have not gone away, but with the direct to your audience sales platforms, their role for many artists has diminished. The return to distribution seems unlikely for most as the often limited numbers of units pressed don’t make sense for distributors to pick up for the most part. However, I have seen some discussion around this topic so who knows. Maybe for the mid level to upper level indie artist this will become viable again. It wood help to alleviate some of the shipping prices for fans to some degree which would be welcomed.

Will we see more store fronts on label websites like the Rhymesayers or Strange Famous Stores. Or will we see the reemergence of web stores like Hip Hop Infinity, UGSMAG and the many others alike. I don’t have any answers, but I know artists are tired and I defiantly know they hate shipping things out and all the other headaches associated with selling their own product online. With shipping costs especially for those outside of America continually rising and often times being equal to the product you are buying, it seems like this current model is unsustainable and likely in its last days.

I don’t know what the answer is, our what the future of physical music looks like, but I think it will continue to increase in cost for the next foreseeable future. I wonder how many fans have already waved the white flag sand packed it in? It really seems like the physical music game is not for the casual rap fan at heart. The amount of work it takes to stay up on the releases and to know where to get them and when they are dropping etc, is not conducive to the average fan to stay up on. I don’t see it as work or daunting as I have been doing it so long that it seems like it is second nature and I don’t have to give it much thought or effort to stay up on as I have curated my social media to stay up on it. I am not blind to the amount of effort and attention it does require though.

The cost however as I have been saying for a few years now is really getting out of control. I seem to spend the same or more and get a lot less than I used to. I know this is coming from a real place of privilege to even be saying this, but I care about music in physical forms and it being accessible. The whole idea of physical music being an investment or some art piece is infuriating to me. It has really ruined the fandom of the rap music and made fans have to pick a handful of artists that they can support. Artist have catered to this demographic and left rap fans out of the picture.Limited edition this, special variant that, has also made the whole physical music game exhausting. People buy 5 variants of the same record have lost the whole point of this in the first place. I really hope things return to tradition retail copy styles.

I am not sure where I am going with any of this, I guess I see and feel a shift slowly happening and it is fun to try and speculate and anticipate where things are headed in the next 10 years.

The homie The Gumshoe Strut is droppng his latest release titled Extra! Extra! and it is incredible. The Gumeshoes Strut has been and is one of my favourite rappers. I love that the has been so productive over the past few year and continually brings the heat with each release. I am still giving NT2D heavy rotation and now I can’t wait to do the same with this one! It has all the best rappers on it of course.

As always, there are physicals with some CD’s and Cassette’s and some super sick posters! There of course are some really dope clothing items in support of this release including my favourite, Do Dad Shit circle logo. bunny hug and sweatshirt or in modern slang hoodie and crewneck.

Incase you missed the homie Rove sat down with Memphis Reigns and dropped some serious gems in this really dope interview!

Missed Third Verse last night? Well sorry no new episode this week on line this week. We will be back live and with recorded episodes next couple of weeks. Catch Third Verse on CFCR 90.5 fm in Saskatoon, SK every Wednesday 9-10:30pm CST. Stream online via CFCR.ca or Radio Garden.

As always the last 10 episodes of my other weekly radio show You Know Know the Rules on UMFM in Winnipeg airing every Sunday night 10:00pm -11pm CST. Episodes available NOW!

Record One

Homeboy Sandman - Rich

Homeboy Sandman continues to make heater after heater. I know exactly what to expect in the best way with a new Homeboy Sandman release, but he always brings it and this is no exception. I am not at all familiar with the producer of this album, Mono En Stereo, but I love the production. It is soulful beautiful laid back and intense when it needs to be. Of course the album is full of Homeboy Sandman's quick whit and perfect story telling. My jams on this one are tied between Off The Rip and Then We Broke Up. Then We Broke Up has all the charisma, charm and story telling that you would equate with a Slick Rick jam. It has so many great lines that make you smirk and chuckle as you listen. I of course opted for the Standard Chaps Black version but no discount between this and the coloured variant but that is okay.

Record Two

The Roughneck Jihad and Maestro Gamin are The Incredible Torture Show

This 2012 release just got the vinyl treatment that It deserved. I love that Roughneck Jihad’s releases always seem to find their way to vinyl at some point. However, what I don’t like is a bunch of them seem to do that all at once. This is one of four Roghneck Ihad albums I have got in the past couple of week. One was older but three of them just dropped including this one. Much like Homeboy Sandman mentioned above, Jihad is someone I always check for a cop whatever he drops and I am never disappointed with any of his release ever. My jam on this one is Get Broken, Need Healing. This unfortunately was pressed on an ash are splatter type type vinyl. You can’t win them all.

Classic Material

10, Tapes to rule them all…

I often think of what ten tapes would I take if I could only have ten tapes for the rest of my life? This is a really hard thing to pair down. In the spirit of rap lists, because everyone knows hip hop heads love making lists, ranking things and arguing about it, here are 5 of the ten tapes. I will drop the other five next week because I don’t have enough time I don’t think tonight to write this up in full.

I am going to start with a tape that I have talked about in a past TFTRN, it is Polytel’s Rap Traxx compilation. I got this for my 11th birthday in 1989. I still remember sitting at our childhood kitchen table that I recently inherited when my dad passed last October and I am storing for my sister to refinish as she wants it. My Dad was full of flaws but he built this pretty strong and super nice kitchen table. I remember opening up the wrapped tape in the morning before I went to school. It was so exciting, it was my first rap tape and is directly or indirectly responsible for influencing every good or bad decision I have made and the direction my life has taken and evolved into. This one was a no brainer on this list. I still love listening to this tape and it introduced me to a world that I had no idea about until this very moment.

Tape 2 would be Run DMC’s Raising Hell album. Now I am pretty sure I have told this story before as well but I am going to rehash it again. This album dropped in 1986. I didn’t hear it until 1988 however, and I didn’t add the tape formally to my collection until probably 1989/90. This tape came into our household in a pretty cool way. Growing up my Dad worked in the Sporting Goods department at the Woolco in the Confederation Park Plaza Mall here in Saskatoon. There was a skateboard demo there in 1988 in the mall with a pro Skater that I can’t remember his name that did freestyle street type tricks that were popular at the time. I have pictures of this event but I am not sure where they are as they are misplaced in a bin somewhere in my garage I think. The Skate demo was really fun and my Dad grabbed some tapes form the Woolco music department for the event and this was one of them and it found its way back to our house after where I rediscovered it years later and still have it to this day.

The third tape is one that came courtesy of my brother’s music collection that I straight ups jacked from him. the tale of sibling stealing music from their siblings is a tale as old as time. The tape is the 19990 release by the Dream Warriors and not the legacy begins. My brother didn’t listen to a a lot of rap music growing up, mostly metal but he somehow picked this album up and I am sure glad he did. This album is the best Canadian Rap album ever made in my opinion. It was a game for changer for me stylistically and I didn’t even realize the were Canadian for quite some time. Those types of thing were not important to me at that age as I just cared about whether I liked the album or not.

I was in Grade 8 when I fist bought the next release. I was in both concert and jazz bands at the time called the North Heights Winds and Jazz. They were made up of the best players from four schools in my end of town. It was an extra curricular band that had early morning practices before school. I played the trumpet, I was not that great to be honest but there have been and are lots of things I have not been good at in my life but that has never stopped me from doing it or pursuing it. I worked hard and made it work. That year I was very fortunate and got to go on a band trip to play in a competition in Red Deer Alberta. It was really exciting for me at the time as I had not traveled very much so any trip to anywhere was super exciting. I went to the mall and I immediately went to the music store. I picked up this tape and I hummed and hawed a bit about buying it or not. In those days I really didn’t have much money so I had to make sure it was the right album to buy as I may not get many more albums for quite some time. I am super glad I made the decision to buy Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back as it it exposed me to racial justice and other themes along those lines that I had not been exposed to from that perspective. It helped to influence, educate and reaffirm the belief and value system I was developing, exploring and refining at the time. Every time I pick up this tape or look at it, I am instantly transported to that record store in the middle of nowhere Alberta looking down at my hand holding this album and not knowing how influential and important that moment would be for the rest of my life.

The fifth and last tape for this week is another sure shot classic, Fu-Schnickens FU “Don’t Take It Personal” album that I purchased in 1992. I have talked about this album before and I am starting to get dejavu that maybe I already posted a TFTRN exactly like this. If that is the case at least the newer subscribers will enjoy this and hopefully I am sharing some different stories and thoughts this go around. This might be and I think it is the first album I bought after seeing a video for it. The first video I remember seeing for this was Ring The Alarm and I instantly was a fan. I loved everything about this album and I still do to this day.After seeing the video I knew I had to check for it the next time I was at the mall. I don’t remember if it wast the very next time I was at the mall but I did find it in the three rows of Rap tapes in that era that the Sam The Record Man had in its first small location at the Midtown Plaza Mall here in Saskatoon. It seemed like this album lived in my walkman for like a year straight. I never got tired of it then and I never get tired of it now.

Next week I will finish this with the second half of this top ten list!

Closing Ramblings

As always, thank you for reading and for the feedback!

**legal disclaimer all records and songs were run through the RAP NEST 5000 SUPER ANALYTIC COMPTROLLER MACHINE that is certified by the I.A.A.R.R.A (International Association of Analytical Rap Recordings Analysis) in layman’s terms, it means the machine is never wrong.

Catch you next week with more thoughts from the rap nest.

Peace

-chaps