Thoughts From The Rap Nest
Thoughts
Bandcamp announced some improvements to there services in regards to playing your digital library. They announced the following this week:
Good news! You can now use the Bandcamp app to make playlists from the music in your collection!
Playlists are just the latest in a series of recent app improvements designed to make your Bandcamp collection more useful. You can also make queues, download albums and tracks for offline listening, shuffle play your collection (or your downloads), or play your music using CarPlay, Android Auto, and Chromecast.
I honestly never think about listening to digital songs in my Bandcamp library. I pretty much never buy anything unless it has a physical release on Bandcamp. I will buy the odd digital single to support the homies here and there but full length digital releases hold no space for my music listening habits. However, I may be in the minority on this, just like with my record organizational system, so I am guessing there was a lot of demand for improving the replay of digital tracks on Bandcamp. I wonder if this is the precursor to a subscription streaming? I like Bandcamp as it is and its simplicity reminds me of the myspace days but I hope it does not jump the shark like Facebook has and become unusable. Instagram is on the border of jumping the shark. If it were not for Direct Messages, indie rap labels and artists posting releases, and video chats, I would probably drop it like I have Facebook. I guess time will tell.
It is the 23 of the month so you know a new Noah 23 video dropped today!
A new single from the homie Fortunato dropped produced but Sean One on Hand’Solo Records. I am looking forward to the this one as I liked their first album Blue Collar. check it out!
“Breathe”, the first single from Fortunato & Sean One’s follow up to their collaboration album Blue Collar, is an ode to hip hop and the artist’s journey within it, touching on and challenging various hip hop cliches along the way. From “we’re getting paper, getting paid” to “without the money and greed we can really be free”. Fortunato’s vocals are chill and laidback over Sean One’s smooth, minimal production combining piano with boom bap drums. “Breathe” reveals itself as a mature single from a confident, experienced rap vet.
There is a new Atmosphere album So Many Other Realities Exist Simultaneously May 5th! They dropped the first single and video. I am sure this means they will be coming your way soon!
The cat as they say is out of the bag on this one! That air Freshener I posted a couple weeks back is for the the project Fresh A.I.R consisting of Awol One, Id Obelus and Rove. They have a really great album dropping I believe in May so stay tuned for more on that!
Record One
World Renown
I was in Peace River Alberta this past Christmas visiting my Partners Dad and family. She grew up there, and it was the first Christmas I spent there. Whenever we go there which is one or two times a year we make a visit to the graveyard where her mother is buried for a visit. The weather was super cold when we were there and it was the first winter we had been there since her mother was buried. She passed in 1998 but she was laid to rest a few years back. Anyways, we made our way up to the graveyard and we always bring the dogs with us as we go as a family. When we got to the top of the hill to the graveyard, we all got out of the car and the windchill was something fierce, and we made the decision it wood be best for me to stay in the car with the dogs as it was way too cold for them.
While I was waiting in the car, I was scrolling through Instagram and I came across the Smoke On Records page and a post for the World Renown album. I almost lost my mind. World Renown is not a household name by any measure but they had a 12” in 1995 for the song How Nice I Am and I loved that song. The album was never commercially released. It did escape out on some white label cassette promo’s and advances. I was really disappointed that the album never dropped as the single was so damn good. So I saw this post and instantly bought it while waiting for Karlie at the Peace River graveyard in Northern Alberta in 2022. Life is so weird. Like, I will never forget all the events surrounding the purchase of this record and I will always think about it when I put it on. These albums on the shelf are not just albums but a timeline off my life and each one is tied to an event, memory, person, or place. I know I have way too much of me tied up in them but they bring me a lot joy and comfort.
The album is a good as I had always envisioned it to be, They got the original masters for the album directly from the legendary Marly Marl which is really dope. Surprising to me but some copies are still available at Smoke On Records
Record Two
Swamp Thing x LRYBRDBTZ- Noise Machine
Swamp thing is back with their 3 vinyl lp in like 14 months, which is wild to me. What a run! This time the trio of Timbuktu, Chokeules and Savillion is back with producer LRYBRDBTZ on the production. This is the first I heave heard of LRYBRDBTZ and it is a great introduction. DJ Irate handles all the cuts so you know they are on point. This is another sure shot from the crew. I am always really excited about a new Swamp Thing record and this one does not disappoint. They brought in some of my all time favourite rappers on this one too and some really nice guys, in Pip Skid, More Or Les, Wordburglar, Ambition, Jesse Dangerously and Ghettosocks. There is not really much to say about this as inis exactly what you have come to expect and love from Swamp Thing over the years! The only knock on this is the yellow coloured vinyl, can’t have it all I guess.
Classic Material
Mood Ruff - Maxim
This was the second release, 002, from the mighty Peanuts and Corn Records. It is interesting that early on there were so many releasers from outside the crew but as the crew grew the release of albums outside the crew ceased with the exception of Birdaprers and Moves’ Aleged Legends. Now, I don’t have this tape and it is a glaring hole in my P&C collection that continually taunts me. I look at my P&C tapes on the shelf and I swear they taunt me and beg for their homie Maxim. I have put some feelers out over the years to try and track down a copy of this tape to no avail. I will use this platform to put a call out to the homies, If anyone has a Maxim tape they are willing to part with holler at your boy!
I have a story about this album that is not a long one but an ironic and funny one. Or at least I think it is. I have what might be the only official CD version ever made of Maxim. I got it as a gift from the homie Nolto who aquired it as follows. During the heyday of the indie rap across the prairies it felt like members of P & C were always rolling through Saskatoon every few months and that was the best. Before one of those tours Nolto sent mcenroe a message inquiring if and how he could get a copy of the Maxim album. I believe mcenroe agreed to burn a copy of the CD for Nolto and deliver it to him on the Saskatoon tour stop of the tour. I don’t believe they discussed any sort of price but I think there was some acknowledgement that there would be some sorter of financial transaction for the CD.
This is where the irony/comedy comes in to play. I think Nolto was expecting a Cdr copy of the album in one of this paper envelope sleeves with the plastic window front and Cdr inside. What mcenroe delivered was a jewel case Cdr with a typed up cover with track list, a plain white paper back cover and spine, and a Cdr that mcenroe wrote “mood ruff - maxim. P & C 002” on it with a black sharpie marker. I think we can all agree that there is substantially more work involved in what he delivered than probably what Nolto was expecting.
I am sure a lot of you are familiar with the group Park Like Setting (PLS) consisting of mcenroe, Bazooka Joe 204 fka John Smith and DJ Hunnicutt. They have made some incredible music over the years and I was looking for a particular track that had a relevant line to this story. I could have sworn the line I was looking for was on it was on the PLS album, school day 2, garbage day 4, but I could not find it. I reached out to Noyz and The Gumshoe Strut and they were right with me with thinking it was from a PLS track. I was like, I can hear mcenroe saying it so I went through the ethics ep to no avail and then Factory Seconds and nothing. I pulled Blunderbuss off the shelf but before I could put it on a got a message from Noyz telling it was on Blunderbuss.
The line that has relevance to this story is “buy our stuff make us rich, will never charge you 20 bucks for a Cdr” from No Room For Subtlety from John Smith’s Blunderbuss or, “in transit”. Why is it relevant to this story you may ask? While 20 Bucks was the exact price that mcenroe charged Nolto for the Cdr which is in juxtaposition of the song lyric. I always laughed about this and would give Nolto a hard time about that 20 buck Cdr he bought. We would laugh about it and bring up this line from the song every time. Sorry for the long winded explanation that I could have summarized in three sentences. Shout out to Noyz and The Gumshoe Strut on the assist and on Tuesday the P&C instagram posted this track which is wild timing. Both Noyz and The Gumshoe Strut sent me a DM of it. Rap is the best!
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