Up until a few years ago, the only things I knew about Minneapolis were that Tom Waits had written a tune called “Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis” and it was the place where Prince was born. But other than that, the Midwest played a very small part in my life. Then Atmosphere exploded on to the hip hop scene, with Rhymesayers and Doomtree following close behind, and it wasn’t long before everything in my stereo was a product of the Twin Cities.
Welcome back to another dollop of musical sustenance from “Food 4 Da Brain”. Those of you who copped the first serving, “Bon Appetit”, will know how it goes down – grime and hip hop get repped by some of the best acts in the UK, both from behind the boards and behind the mic. And this time round they’ve also thrown in a DVD full of visual pleasures to stimulate your optic nerves.
Welcome to the next best thing in hip hop!! Or at least that's what you get told if you look up this dude on the internet. It's all "Illustrate this" and "Illustrate that" but if I'm being completely honest, I don't get it.Not to say this is a bad album, not by a long shot, but I don't agree with the amount of praise being heaped on him. Unless of course I find out that he's only 12 and this album was actually made with an old copy of Pro Tools... then I'd be impressed.But as it stands, Illustrate AKA Ollie Bates, isn't doing anything that hasn't been done before, in a style that is hardly pushing the emceeing envelope further than a lot of other UK cats are right now.
London's D-face ...
Ever since seeing his section in Ride Magazine's video No Front Teeth, I've been a huge fan of Ashley Charles' riding. Having seen more recent footage, and even being lucky enough to ride with him in person, it's clear he's got a hell of a lot of talent for riding little bikes around, so it's not really surprising that his long-term sponsor, WeThePeople, have hooked him up with a signature frame.
Having been a huge Dropkick Murphys fan between 1998 and around 2003/4 ('Do or Die' was a fantastic album, I don’t care what anyone says), prior to checking out this record; I'd always thought that The Real McKenzie’s were a poor man’s Murphys. I could not have been more wrong.The album kicks off with 'Chip'. Now if I were to say this were one of the better of the tracks on the record, I’d be lying; Guitars with a bagpipe ‘ditties’ in accompaniment appear to be the ‘soupe de jour’ here. In my opinion, this track just trundles along setting us up for the where this record really gets started.
if you're not from England or haven't seen this, probably not the relevant to you, but if like me you have wondered who was behind the very flexible range of accents then check this out
