Hieroglyphics is a hip hop group out of Northern California. Each year they celebrate new hip hop talent with their own festival in Oakland on Labor Day. I got the chance to cover their show this year and even though there were over a dozen quality performers to see on each stage, I was there for one.
It took me over three hours to get to Hiero Day, public transit wasn’t doing so well. When I got there the temp had to be hitting on 90 and everyone was looking for shade to sit in. But I had to find Anderson .Paak. The main reason I was there.
I caught him right before his performance on the Third Eye stage. I ran up to him like a giddy fool and blathered about my love for his music. When I realized how foolish I was sounding, his manager assured me that they all felt the same way too. We talked a bit longer about other LA emcees, I actually told him the only other one that could compete with him was Doja Cat. He got a kick out of it.
His performance on stage had just as much character as his music, along with the short time I talked to him. The day was a highlight I’ll be holding on to at least until next Labor Day.
I originally wanted to make a mix of music inspired by California about six months back when I moved to The Bay Area from Minnesota, but shit got hectic & I got lazy. I moved out to Cali because I wanted to get into the music/tech scene and Minnesota just wasn’t cutting it. Well, I’ve been in & out of some pretty cool companies since, but still haven’t landed a permanent job. Especially at the one company that actually drove me out here (quite literally), SoundCloud.
My attempts to get SoundCloud’s attention have been pretty much failures, most notably my SoundKlout project, but in the least it’s given you all a lot of good content on here. However, I still haven’t given up hope! (and never will) So for their recently posted “Communications internship,” I decided to do a few special projects to hopefully get their attention once and for all. Here I present Part I in hopes to tell a little about my story and get you all sympathizing for me so you actually help me out! Plus, we get to throw some quality Cali music at ya.
[soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/34252574" iframe="false" params="player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=292929" height="18"]
Headnodic knows his West Coast MC’s and he’s gettin the best of ’em on his newly released album, Red Line Radio. Surprisingly though, this isn’t what made the album, Headnodic’s production and ability to build something around the vocalist sets this above any ordinary mix of some of my favorite MC’s. Not only that, my favorite track isn’t by the classic MC’s I grew up on, but Ms. Destani Wolf.
[audio:Surgeon-General.mp3|titles=Surgeon General]
Turntable.fm is a live chat room where music lovers come to share and listen to music together. Rooms can be setup by anyone and consist of 1-5 DJ’s at a time. Topics for each room range from specific genres to music blogs that play just about everything.
The first type of room I got into was dubstep- although, I quickly realized that the crowd and music wasn’t for me. Apparently, I’m not into the “right” kind of dubstep, so I hit up the hip-hop & mashup rooms for a while. As much good music as I’ve found through these rooms, I wasn’t quite connecting with that many people. I started to realize that the best quality in TT.fm wasn’t finding new music, but connecting with […]
[audio:Buzzin-Classixx.mp3|titles=Buzzin’ (Classixx Remix)]
In the second installment in our “Music that Got Me Blogging About Music” series (first), we’re going to be covering most of the West Coast. The only part we’re not is The Bay Area, which’ll be covered in Part 4 (out of 5). In Part 2, however, we’ll be going from the Pacific Northwest all the way down to SoCal.
The SoCal picks you may know, if you know your West Coast hip-hop, but my Pacific Northwest choices are some of my most prized. Take a look at ’em and tell me what you know, I bet you’ll find something you’ve never heard before – and if you don’t, hit me up, I may have a blogging gig for ya.
[audio:The-Elixer.mp3|titles=The Elixer]
People Under the Stairs may not be the biggest hip-hop duo, but they are well known throughout the underground scene. Not only do they catch the beat right with their rhymes, but their instrumentals are something fresh & innovative. I decided to go with The Breakdown as the first feature of theirs because it’s the song that’s stuck with me the most. It may not have the lyrics that Acid Raindrops has, or the soothing beat of San Fransisco Knights, but the rhymes posses a finesse trademark of P.U.T.S.
[audio:TheBreakdown.mp3|titles=The Breakdown](Download Link in Post)