About a little more than a year ago I discovered the Miami resident st.LaRok on myspace. You know how there are treasures amongst all the rotten apples on that website, well... this is one of 'em. We stayed in contact ever since, and recently the American musical Saent dropped his Leap Year EP online through Miami Beat Wave.
Skandal is a name that you will no doubt be seeing more and more of, as this year flys by. His album, "Hunger Pains", was released towards the end of last year and it has been receiving plaudits and praise from press and peers alike.
We were recently offered the chance to fire off a couple of questions to the man of the moment, which we did, and here is what he had to say:
Get yourselves down to Brixton this Friday for the emcee contest that puts all standard battles in the goddamn shade. Yessir, this week sees the return of the mighty End of the Weak, as the first heat of the UK challenge takes place at Brixton Jamm.
Five top emcees will be tested in five areas of rhyming, in a quest to find the UK's best all rounder, who will then go on to rep for us in the World Final in Berlin.
If you aren't familiar with the five disciplines that the challengers will face, it will go down like this: 1st Round – written track, 2nd Round – acappella, 3rd Round – freestyle, 4th Round – MC v DJ, 5th Round – cypha skills.
More free goodies from Paper Tiger, in the form of his third mini-mix. The theme this time is... well there isn't one really, more a sort of hotch potch of random tracks that he has mixed together. I haven't listened to it yet, so no idea what is included, but I'm sure it will match up to his previous two mixes.
The live hip hop starts here folks. Suspect Packages Live is back slightly later this month but Mr Disorda is starting shit off with an absolute stormer of a night, featuring some of the UK's best-known talents.
Fresh off their massive tour of Europe, Souls of Mischief are releasing their latest solo album very soon and they are kicking things off by dropping the first single, "Proper Aim". The Prince Paul produced joint is set to blow up speakers around the world, as one of hip hop's favourite crews returns after almost a decade away from the mic.
It's all been a bit quiet round these parts over the past few weeks, what with us relocating and not having any internet access. Plus all that festive cheer being rammed down our throats, kinda drained all the creativity out of us.
Luckily free internet access is everywhere these days and so I've finally managed to drag myself away from the festering mass of turkey, chocolate coins and neverending Tim Allen movies, to see what we've missed out on since we were last on it. And where better to start than the UK compilation we dropped a fortnight ago, thanks to our American friends at aboveGround Magazine.
