For those still trying to make sense of Little Brother’s announcement that Leftback will be the duo’s final LP, the Khrysis-produced lead single “Curtain Call”—released this week via, err, MySpace and available for download here—should debrief you, if not relieve you. The exit doesn’t seem to rattle Phonte and Pooh here, both of whom sound satisfied with the precedent they set for newer rap acts like J. Cole, Wale, Pac Div and Jay Electronica, to name a few. “You mad wit’ me/ tough tittie/ get a training bra,” spouts Phonte, foreseeing the disappointment that many of us going to be harboring when we wake up the day after Leftback’s release and realize that there are no more Little Brother albums. Much like LB’s career, “Curtain Call” is an elegant, but short showcase of the the husky fellas’ honest rap offerings, delivered on top of one of Khrysis’ gentler concoctions—a perfect fit for a denouement as heartfelt and funky as this one.
“It’s fuckin’ over” were just a few of the words Phonte Coleman had to offer last week on his Gordon Gartrell Radio podcast, using a 12-minute segment of the show to thank fans for supporting Little Brother over the years and explain to listeners that, yes, the LB saga has reached its end: The duo’s next album, LeftBack, will be their last. Continue reading »
For any of you out there waiting on The Anti-Mixtape Resistance Movement to gain momentum, you’re probably better off trying to squeeze orange juice out of a ham: Ain’t gonna happen. Rappers are sticking to that ol’ formulaic hustle of releasing no-hassle mixtapes in lieu of or in preview of forthcoming LPs. No matter how much we bitch and whine about the infinite piles of pointless mixtapes on our hard drives, they’re going to keep coming as hip-hop artists gobble up the low-cost exposure.
That said, we should at least be grateful for all the free material we’ve been given and offer these mixtapes a chance, at least. September, after all, is shaping up to be an extremely active month for hip hop (Jay-Z, Raekwon, Ghostface all releasing monster albums), and if two Triangle crews can help prime us, well … more power to us Carolinians. Continue reading »
"It’s probably all these gotdamn cigarettes I be smoking."
Joe Scudda is known mostly as the sort-of-country (and white) emcee who shows up unexpectedly on Hall of Justus tracks and delivers unforgettable, often-hilarious guest verses.This time, though, as part of the four-man rapping cartel Reservoir Dogs with fellow Hall of Justus emcees Rapper Big Pooh, Chaundon and Jozeemo, Scudda is finally steering the wheel.We asked Scudda a few questions about the upcoming Reservoir Dogs mixtape and his acting career.
INDEPENDENT WEEKLY: This seems like a very no-holds-barred project where everyone is just getting some very angry shit off their chest.What’s the reason for the collaboration?Who’s idea was this?
JOE SCUDDA: It was Pooh and Big Dho’s idea.You gotta keep shit in peoples’ iPods nowadays.You have to pump mad shit out.It took about five days.It was just us straight spittin’ and gotdamn rappin.There was no rhyme or reason to the shit, so wewere just running around in the studio. It was a platform for everybody to showcase where they’reat right now with their bars.It’s just straight rap.It’s just us going in and jacking somebody’s beat.But we didn’t aimlessly rap over joints.We reworked some songs and had a little fun with it.We took the Jamie Foxx song “Blame It (On The Alcohol)” and talked about girls with no “Ass-At-All.” [Editor's Note: Really?] We just wilded out and banged out a damn mixtape. Continue reading »
I did a quick little dance earlier this week upon learning that Baltimore’s Double Dagger made a music video for “Vivre Sans Temps Mort,” the second and arguably best track from its third, best and most recent record, More. And I did a longer dance while watching said video for the first time, as it’s always such a treat to see lyrics, music and image coalesce so powerfully: “Vivre Sans Temps Mort” builds slowly but steadily, walks of bass notes and a patter of hi-hat touches reflecting from the surface of a melodica drone. When the band finally leaps in, it chases a tense, three-minute march toward terminus, the action cresting and collapsing but ultimately just charging to something unseen. The lyrics reflect on teenage obsessions with death, or with forsaking a little bit of your life by fantasizing about the time when you won’t be here. Kids write wills and memoirs…
And so, in the video, we find a young boy fastidiously building models of cars, building for the future instead of living his life. The cars, of course, eventually crash and burn, bringing one of the song’s central lines to bear: “When the fire’s burned out and all you’re left with is smoke, smoke, smoke…” Double Dagger, which got love in this week’s paper, plays The Pinhook tonight sometime after 10 p.m.
Also of note tonight: Phonte Coleman of Little Brother and The Foreign Exchange brings round two of Two-Step Thursdays with Tigallo back to Raleigh’s Globe tonight after 10 p.m. Writing for Scan, Eric Tullis described last week’s debut as “an attempt to offer a disco aesthetic in the Triangle and encourage the young, professional, urban clientele to come to the club and dance and sweat, rather than try and preserve their dry-cleaned ensembles by ‘holding the walls up.’” Those parties are free.
Phonte Coleman’s Two-Step Thursday
Globe, Raleigh
Thursday, June 11, 2009 (continuing every other Thursday)
Thanks to some handstand-breakdance maneuver I hoped to land on the dance floor at the first of Phonte’s weekly Tigallo’s Two-Step Thursday affair at Raleigh club Globe, I nearly fractured my thumb last week.It’s not broken, I think, but it is about the size of a chicken nugget. At leastit’s a casualty of war with which I’m willing to live.Continue reading »
On the Triangle’s preeminent hip-hop message board, “The Lawn,” local rapper/producer K-Hill recently voiced his opinion regarding the lack of coverage that I’ve been giving to North Carolina hip-hop in the music pages of the Independent Weekly. The comment stemmed from a thread announcing a show featuring local R&B songstress Keisha Shontelle. “Who the fuck is Keisha Shontelle?” I asked, jokingly. In essence, I was suggesting that, given Shontelle’s relative disappearance from this music scene lately, I wasn’t even sure if I remembered her anymore. But I did.
Hey, it's a tiny violin!
“Ask Grayson,” K-Hill responded. “He actually writes about the other movements that reside in N.C. Take that one however you want to.” Continue reading »
Phonte Coleman’s Two-Step Thursday
