Tuesday 25 March 2008

Grap Luva



In the shadow of the Chocoltae Boy Wonder Soul Brother #2 namely Grap Luva is an artist featured heavily but remains quiet in terms of releases. A smooth Rhytmic poet who I first heard after doing some research following one of My favourite albums Pete Rocks ''Petstrumentals''.

The Download Contains about 15 tracks Grap Luva features on including The Bootlegged InI relase ''Centre of Attention''.




Graps MySpace :-
Hailing from uptown New York's Mt.Vernon,Greg Phillips A.K.A "Grap Luva" got his start out in the hip hop game dancing on tour with his older cousin and hip hop pioneer Heavy D,around the same time his older brother was about to drop a gem on the hip hop world as 1/2 of the ledgendary duo Pete Rock & CL Smooth. With the release of Mecca & the Soul Brother, Grap made his way onto the album with one of the most memorable freestlye's of the time...lets put it this way Lil Fame of M.O.P saw Grap coming out of the studio and asked him to kick it for him...Shortly after that Grap and a few of his boys(Rob O,Marco Polo) formed a group calling themselves InI,due much in part to Grap's Jamaican roots...with production duties handled by his brother Pete Rock the group released their first single and video for the classic 12" "Fakin Jax" on Elektra, with little push or promotion the groups,now heralded as a classic first full length album "Center of Attention" unfortunately never saw the light of day...With the subsequent demise of Pete Rocks Soul Brother Records to be distributed through Elektra the group parted ways with their label and the album was lost in limbo...that is until....a couple of years later gangsta rap and the so called "East vs West" fued was in full swing, a couple of songs started popping up on mixtapes,even though they sounded like recordings of recordings Djs all around the world were putting these songs on their mixtapes(yes actual tapes kiddies) and low and behold they were bootleg copies of songs off of the InI album"Center of Attention" fast forward a couple of years from then the very much classic album was bootlegged so much and sought after by so many that BBE Records decided to track down the masters and actually release the album almost a decade after it was recorded,the demand was that strong...As all this was going on, Grap stayed working with cats from all around the world releasing a slew of singles and now producing tracks for some of hip hop's up and coming heavyweight emcees in the game right now...although a very elusive cat Grap Luva has etched his name in the hip hop history book and has devout fans allover the world...he has helped alot of cats get on (Kev Brown,Sound Providers to name a couple)and to this day is sought after by new jacks all over who remember the first time they heard that famous first line "I am the one they call the G the R the A the P and..."




Grap ''SoulBrother #2'' Luva Collat


http://www.myspace.com/76645391


Friday 14 March 2008

Golden Boy & Think Twice are.......


The SPECIFICS


Hip hop in Montreal can get a little tricky at times. Blessed with an abundance of capable MC’s,a trailer-load of DJs, and a slew of hungry producers, talented individuals in the city constantly battle not with each other, but with the teetering possibility of an organized and unified hip hop scene. Clans, posses, crews and cliques come and go, but SPECIFICS are looking far beyond the confines of a local existence. Made up of producer/engineer Think Twice, and MC Golden Boy, the group got its start in the dorms of Montreal’s Concordia University back in 2000, where the two west coast transplants experimented with bedroom recordings and homespun LPs under the moniker Green Dragons.


Later they met DJ Goser, who was a welcome addition to the musical equation that had already begun to take shape. Backed by the soulful an expressive productions of Think Twice, Golden Boy shines on the mic, poetically weaving in and out of the subtle complexities of everyday life with style. DJ Goser is finesse on the cut, accenting a solid array of melodic beats and lyrical rushes, completing this trio of dedicated heads.




THINK TWICE & GOLDEN BOY


A flow that can only be described as relentlessly fluid. His rhymin technique compliments Think Twices' slack jazzy production. His recent release is his 1st & hopefully not his last LP, namely "With a Loop & Swing" a nice solid effort sitting adjacent to 2 very succesful LP's his lacksidazical flow blends perfectly bringin the J.U.S. Sound home.


His Poetry is almost like no other, Listenin to his rhyme connections over "You", "Under the Hood" & "Craigs House" to name but a few symbolise everything said in this post, the tracks featured in the download are taken from "Lonely City", "II" & Think Twices LP "Witth a Loop & Some Swing"




The Beats are stone Jazz-N-Soul through & through, many producers will take a straight sample and lace it with a kick, snare & hat in your standard 4/4 time stamp, Think Twice builds some of his tracks with some more than welcomed unorthodox drums, with the occassional quantized percussive hit blended into the stew.



Some of the Beats are seriously smooth, track 5 on "II" called "Look Alive" & 7 "Lampin (Lava)" is a perfect example. In fact "II" is slightly smoother in contrast to its jazzy pre-decessor "Lonely City" released in 04'. The Jazz vibe of "Under the Hood" accompanied with Think Twices' Flawless Poetic Rhymes is one for the walkman for sure.

Fortunately I can't state any particular as a favourite which means a good album, the collat contains tracks fom 3 albums and still I can't specify any as a header for the canadian duo.


NOTE: The tracks conatained in the collat are neither the best or worst & are merely examples of production an rhymin at its finest. if your familiar with my posts & like what you hear then buy these albums immediatly after listenin......More than Worth it (Pure Inspiration).