Category: Premiere

Wrecking Crew emcee Curly Castro releases his anticipated TOSH LP next week, but today we’re bringing you the exclusive premiere of album track Babel, featuring his frequent collaborator Elucid, plus Defcee and Collasoul Structure. Listen above, then read on for our Curly Castro interview.

You’ve described TOSH as being inspired by DOOM, George Orwell and Spike Lee. That’s quite the dinner party. Can you unpack that for us?

TOSH is an amalgam that I had in the works for four years. I am an admitted DOOM acolyte, a Sci-Fi cine-file, and a Spike Lee devotee. So any of my works will always have those gamma radiated glows, within. TOSH is the Wrecking Crew combination of Brooklyn boom-bap with Schoolly D Drums.

There’s also an obvious reference to Peter Tosh in the album’s name, and to an extent in the sound. How does his story and legacy inspire you?

I wanted to make a record that illustrated some of my cultural influences, as well as my musical ones. I wanted folks to know what Flatbush & Church Ave smelled like, in a West Indian-Brooklyn morning. The sounds, the air, I hoped to give a little sample of that with TOSH, with Peter Tosh being the main catalyst for the message, in the sense that Peter was unapologetically HIMSELF within his music. He took no shorts and listened to no one beneath him musically. He was a force incarnate. TOSH also flexes some unmatched bladework, I am Wrecking Crew after all.

When we interviewed billy woods last year, we talked about how spending parts of his upbringing in the West Indies shaped him as a musician. Seeing as you have ties there too, I was curious about how it may have molded you?

Well I am a third generation Bajan (Barbados in origin), and my upper firmament of relatives (Grandmother, Grandfather, Great Aunts & Uncles, etc.) all came from the island and relocated mostly in Brooklyn. America and her ways have a totally different tint when you look through ‘Foreigner’ shades. To make a long story short, my evolution came of the American wilderness, but my five senses were of a Caribbean tilt. Our eyes see things different, our palate tastes things different, our ears hunt for different sounds, and our skin begs for different climate, so on and so forth. So anytime I create, I am influenced by those base ideals and stimuli.

TOSH is an ambitious, expansive project, covering a lot of ground. You also have a lot of different producers on there, providing different soundscapes. Was this intentional, maybe to help each track stand alone, while also still fitting cohesively with the rest of them?

Usually, most of my bigger releases have the multiple producer format employed. I sent out the call as a mission to accomplish, to all those interested. I asked for hip-hop beats with a Dub slant or influence. As the sonics dictate, the results were exceptional and uniquely varied. I only work with folks whom I trust with total autonomy. And all the producers involved performed with great aplomb. Couldn’t have been more blessed with their respective contributions. BIGGUPS!

I was also pleased to see a beat by someone who is vastly underrated as a producer, Blueprint (Eulogy to Hottentot). How did you and Printmatic connect?

Print is a gift to our culture and we are all very lucky to have him. Blueprint produced the lead single for my last solo record, FIDEL. The song was They Call Me Castro (there’s a video out there for that as well). We also did a song together on my Wrecking Crew A-alike Small Professor’s Gigantic Vol. I LP (Make Moves). So we have a decent working history, and I am a big fan of his work. So when word got out about what I was looking for in terms of TOSH sonics, Print said “Oh I have something that might fit that aesthetic, try this one out.” And of course it fit PERFECT, and became one of my more enjoyable songs on the record.

Elsewhere you also have production from Blockhead, who in my opinion in recent years has created some of his best work for Backwoodz Studioz artists.

Blockhead’s contribution came about as a fit of hip-hop generosity as well. The beat was originally for billy woods, but again, when woods heard about the TOSH initiative, he was like “Hey, try this Blockhead beat out, see if it works.” Another one that fit like a glove! So I humbly asked Blockhead if ownership of the beat could be transferred from the enigmatic one, woods, to myself. He was more than down, and even complemented the track once I completed it and added woods as the guest feature.

Regular readers will know we’ve championed music from your circle for a long time; Wrecking Crew, billy woods, Elucid et al. It comes across as a strong creative network where all of you are genuinely rooting for each other to do well and produce your best work. Is that a fair assessment?

Very Fair. All of us in “otherground” (what we call our collective, sometimes) have been in crews, clicks, clans, clandestine and otherwise. So we all went thru the gamut of competitive-cooperative hip-hop economics. And with our current incarnation, we’ve been through all that already. So we support one another without any pause whatsoever. A win for one, is a win for the Massive. Man sharpens man, like steel sharpens steel.

Tell us about working with billy’s Backwoodz Studioz imprint. It feels like a label that gives artists free reign to produce exactly the kind of music they want, with no pressure to conform to something that will help sales?

Backwoodz supports the creative, they want our creative spirit to be free-flowing and as envelope-pushing as possible. They embrace the Mutant X gene, and encourage its use. It’s refreshing to have a label with the same sensibilities as your own. I was a great fan and supporter of their entire catalogue before my inclusion. It was only right, and a matter of time, that I crafted something, that would spark their antennae, and give a neighbourhood rebel a shot.

You have billy woods on Ital-You-Can-Eat, and Elucid on Babel. Was having them feature separately as their own entity instead of together on the same track as Armand Hammer a conscious decision? I ask because them together is definitely different to them apart.

The way I featured them on the record, was strictly governed by the needs of the song. Simply put, billy woods fit ITAL-You-Can-Eat for his culinary expertise and mastery of the slang of sustenance. And Elucid fit well with the serrated samurai work of Babel, along with Defcee & Collosoul Structure (of Jyroscope). Armand Hammer in full force, I might not be worthy. LOL

Any final words about TOSH?

I hope the people dig the record, I put a lot of myself into this record, and I hope to make my Caribbean ancestry proud. ‘Wrecking Crew God!! Even on my worst day.’ And Biggups to Backwoodz Studioz for believing in the kid. Please snatch up TOSH on December 14, when it drops. Also grab Future Former Rapper from my best friend, Zilla Rocca. And grab Church Jawns by Small Professor. Oh, and Poet’s Payday by Premrock & Fresh Kils. Just know that Wrecking Crew is working, catching wreck from planet to planet!! WonL.

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TOSH it out December 14 on Backwoodz Studioz. Get it here. Follow Curly Castro on Twitter. Interview by Grown Up Rap Editor Ben Pedroche.

Bonus Beat:

Curly Castro also handed us this unreleased track he did with the group Black Uhuru a few years back:

Zilla Rocca has gifted us a premiere of his latest video from the recent, and very good album, Future Former Rapper. Check the Curly Castro featured flick below, and go cop the album if you haven’t yet.

Today we’re premiering the latest single from Pan Amsterdam, aka the multi-talented Leron Thomas, with guest bars from none other than Open Mike Eagle. Its from an upcoming album on the way soon, but in the meantime you can purchase the single over at Def Presse from tomorrow.

Production duo Jazz Spastiks has carved out an incredible catalog of music over the last few years, dropping instrumental and emcee-led projects that have gained critical acclaim. They are about to drop two new projects with indy icon Godfather Don; one a collection of remixes of previous Godfather Don tracks, the other a couple of new singles. You can hear an exclusive premiere of one of the new joints, Straight From The Gutter, below. Then keep scrolling for an interview with one half of the duo, Murray.

Talk to me about the new projects with Godfather Don. He’s something of an enigma, almost DOOM-level elusive. How did working with him come about? 

Ha ha, yeah! We never even considered the possibility of working with Godfather Don. We are huge fans of him as an emcee and also as a producer. His work has been a big influence on our own. As you say he’s been pretty quiet in recent years and he doesn’t really have a presence on the internet so we had no way to contact him. It was Diggers With Gratitude (Record label and online forum for vinyl collecting hip-hop enthusiasts) who put the project together. They had previously worked with Don and had also released some of our stuff on vinyl. They suggested that we should remix some of Don’s classic material and of course, we jumped at the chance.

You even managed to get him to record a couple of new joints. What was the recording process like, and did he take much convincing to get in the booth?

After we completed the remixes the idea of creating some brand new tracks was discussed. We sent over a couple of our best beats and Don said he was going to take it old school with his vocals. It wasn’t long before we got the songs back and we were blown away by his rhymes.

One thing that’s impressed me about your releases is the commitment to making a quality physical product, with good artwork, and the Scratch and Sniff book. A vinyl resurgence is great, but the end product is often a let down. How do you feel about the quality of a lot of vinyl coming out right now?

Thanks! I mean personally, I’ve never had a problem with bad quality vinyl, but my advice would be to stick to record labels that you trust.

You have a huge amount of music available on Bandcamp. With how easy it is to get music online, is it tempting to try and put all your music out there, or do you strictly only release the best material?

Yeah, we have a lot on Bandcamp, we’ve been making music for years so it’s slowly built up. We only release our very best stuff though and we have a ton of beats that are unreleased.

I really loved the Midnight Method album with MelloSoulBlack. Their style works really well with your production, as do the PenPals on your projects with them. How do you choose who you want to work with?

Thanks. Well, it’s always different, with MelloSoulBlack they got in touch with us as they were fans of our beats. We checked out their stuff and loved their rhymes so we started working together. As for PenPals, we made a post on Facebook asking our followers what the best new hip-hop they were listening to was. Someone posted PenPals and after checking them out and loving their album we got in touch with them. They said they liked our work as well and so we began work on the album.

Hate to use it because it’s a played-out term, but your music has a definite ‘throwback’ quality to it, a sense of fun that captures the original essence of hip-hop. How would you describe your sound?

Yeah, I mean we’re not fans of the term either. To us, we just make hip-hop the way it’s meant to be made. Modern mainstream hip-hop is just pop music. We’re not going to start doing that just because it’s fashionable.

As a production duo, what’s your process like in terms of who does what?

It’s different for each song, sometimes one of us will find a sample and the other will build on that or it could be the other way round. Mikey (the other half of the Jazz Spastiks) has a background as a dj so he does a lot of the scratching for the hooks in our songs. I have a background in sound engineering and production so I have more input on that side of things. Having said that we are both fully involved in all aspects of the process.

There’s a question I always like to ask producers. Do you make albums intended for emcees to spit over the same way as you make instrumental-only albums? Or do you make an instrumental album as a standalone work? Or are your beats interchangeable, and not yet known if they will get vocals on top when you make them?

Well, at the start, the beats could be anything but once they start to take shape we’ll get an idea of what they could be used for. We might think this will be good as an interlude or this one will be good for a particular emcee or project.

Taking this question further, you guys often release an instrumental version of albums that had vocals. Its a time-honored tradition in hip-hop of course, but I’m curious as to why you guys see the value in it? 

Well, our audience is kind of split. We have a lot of rap fans but we also have a lot of listeners who prefer instrumental hip-hop without any vocals so we try to cater for both.

Your recent work has all been released as the Jazz Spastiks, but you’ve also put out records as the Slipmat Brothers. Is there a difference between the two?

Slipmat Brothers was just another alias we used but we realized that it caused confusion and made it harder to reach our existing audience so we’ve decided to stick with Jazz Spastiks.

Once the Godfather Don projects are out, what can we expect next from you guys?

We’ve remixed the PenPals album Made For The Underground, it has all new beats and some guest verses from some really great emcees. It will be dropping on double vinyl which also includes the instrumental versions. Look out for more information on that very soon.

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Order Straight from the Gutter b/w Kick the Ballistics here, and Godfather Don: Jazz Spastiks Renixes here. Follow Jazz Spastiks on Twitter. Interview by Grown Up Rap Editor Ben Pedroche.

We’ve been championing the music of Rast for a while, so we’re excited to premiere a cut from his upcoming new album, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, with beats by Czar Keys (aka 7L & Jeremy Page). Listen below, and then go cop one of the limited-edition vinyl copies, available for pre-order now via Dope Folks Records.

Here’s the premiere of the new single from the talented James Gardin. He describes the bluesy track as being about finally deciding to stop using alcohol as a coping-mechanism, looking instead to new ways of dealing with life’s stress. Listen below, and cop it tomorrow from Illect Recordings.

Zilla Rocca and Small Professor gift us an early, exclusive premiere of their anticipated new album, Thieving As Long As I’m Breathing. The project features remixes of cuts from their excellent 2017 album, Good Luck With That, plus new tracks like recent single Crook With a Deal. Stream below, then go buy it.