With their very long-awaited new album Blade of the Ronin dropping next month, Cannibal Ox have released another track, Harlem Knights. Listen below and let us know what you think.
Blade of the Ronin is released March 3, and is available for pre-order now.
J-Live is truly one of the greatest rappers ever to grace the mic, releasing consistently great music for 15 strong years. New album His Own Self is dropping March 17, and you can listen to first track I Just Don’t below.
Pre-order the new album here.
Keeping Dilla Month alive, Slum Village have now dropped a visual for recent track E(I)GO. Watch below and let us know what you think.
We miss The Artifacts like crazy. El Da Sensei and Tame One have kept on steady releasing quality music over the years, but what we really want is a full on reunion album from the Brick City Kids. The wait goes on, but until then, we’ll make do with this collection of demo tape tracks and off-cuts from Tame One.
Another day, another new release from Joey Bada$$. This time its a video for Like Me, produced by the one and only J Dilla. The police brutality message is laid on pretty thick, and the Joey-getting-shot-to-death plot is way overcooked, but this gets a pass on account of being a Dilla beat.
Making an independent record label run successfully is hard. Many have tried, and most have failed (including the editor of this very site). From old school labels like Sleeping Bag and Cold Chillin, to the late-90s indy boom labels like Fondle’em, Rawkus and Def Jux, plus a million more set up by big-name rappers to put on their crew, they usually burn bright for a short period before fading into obscurity.
That’s why Rhymesayers Entertainment and Duck Down Music each celebrating their 20th anniversary in 2015 is a way bigger achievement than many probably realize.
Both labels have taken different approaches to weathering the financial storms and making it work. Duck Down was able to keep the momentum going from instant-classic albums by artists they already managed, including Enta Da Stage from Black Moon, and Dah Shinin’ by Smif-n-Wessun. Records from other members of the extended Boot Camp Click were released in the years that followed, before the label then spread its wings to include other artists on the roster.
Initially founded as a way of putting out the music of label owners Slug and Ant, better known as the group Atmosphere, Rhymesayers has developed many of its own new artists along the way. But they have also been able to breath new life into established artists who had either seen their previous label deals fall apart, or had became jaded by the whole process, most notably Murs, MF Doom, Aesop Rock and Dilated Peoples.
Regardless of how they did it, the focus has always been on quality music, and ultimately, that is what keeps people interested and buying records, even at a time when music industry sales have been declining for years.
With the likes of Stones Throw still thriving, and labels like Fool’s Gold and Mello Music Group also keeping the spirit of those early pioneers alive, independent hip-hop seems to be in a good place right now. For us fans it means more good music, and its thanks in no small part to NYC’s Duck Down, and Minnesota’s Rhymesayers.
Salute to both. Here’s to another 20 years in the game.
Follow Rhymesayers and Duck Down on Twitter for videos, interviews and throwbacks from their two decades in the game.
Boot Camp Click legend Sean Price presents a video from his group DaVillins, featuring two tracks, The Flow Show and F.O.H. The video is on some classic mid-90s ish, befitting a group from the streets of Brooklyn.
J Dilla affiliate Frank Nitt hits us with a video for Money on my Mind, referencing Slum Village days of old. It also features original SV member T3, plus Dilla’s brother Illa J. Basically, with a line-up like that, its another slice of dopeness from Detroit’s best extended family.
Kenn Starr has dropped a video for Say Goodbye, a standout cut from the stellar album Square One. Starr’s rhymes sit nicely on a classic head nodding beat from one of our favorite producers, Black Milk, marking yet anther quality release from Mello Music Group.
Square One is out now, and available on iTunes.
Diggin’ in the Crates crew member and all-round legend Lord Finesse is releasing an extended version of his excellent The SP1200 Project: A Re-awakening album in March, and you can hear snippets from eight of the new tracks below. Pay your respects to one of the most gifted rappers and producers of all time when it hits stores in a few weeks time.
