Hot Hip Hop Child in the City

Hot damn I am jazzed about how things are ship shaping up as far as live hip hop is going down in Toronto this summer!

First up: this Saturday (06/18) Shad K (a.k.a the man in my dreams) is participating in T Dot's annual NXNE  festival and booked a slot at The Ballroom's intimate upstairs concert venue. I saw Shad this time last year at the Opera House, and it was one of the livest shows I have ever been  too...he closed out with 3 (yes 3) encores. I am a gigantic Shad fan, so it goes without saying that I am gonna be throwing my hands up and having myself a damn good time at the Ballroom this Saturday night.

As part of NXNE, there will also be a free show happening on Sunday night (06/19) with Toronto's D-Sisive (aka Derek Christoff? Derek From Northcliff? whatever he is going by these days) along side Digable Planets & The Pharcyde. This show will take place at the outdoor concert space come mecca for free live hip hop in Toronto: Yonge & Dundas Square.

On July 1st: Quest Love of the Roots will be once again throwing down a DJ set in our fair city. I was also lucky enough to have caught his set last summer at the Drake Underground, and even though he showed up well after midnight and spun until after 3 on a school night, I would do it all over again as it was well worth the next level hangover I nursed the whole next workday. This time Questo has a "special guest"... rumoured to be homegrown talent DJ Skratch Bastid...and if these rumours are true, this will be a Canada day to remember.

Later  in July (07/22) Elzhi & Will Sessions roll into town to perform Elmatic, the album I reviewed in my first post on this blog. Walking home yesterday, Elmatic happened to be on blast in the headphones when I got a notification on my blackberry about this show and damn near had a stroke.

So Tdot is getting a lot of  love from the hip hop community... it's barely a few weeks into the summer and my calendar is getting booked up with golden hip hop tickets! Not to mention that I have a Labour Day weekend trip to NYC in the works to coincide with when Rock the Bells blows into the Big Apple!

I am in love with this season, I am in love with this city, and I leave you with this new video that I am head over heels in love with.  See yall around the TDOT!!!

Black Hand Side-Pharoahe Monch feat. Phonte & Styles P:
http://www.redbullusa.com/cs/Satellite/en_US/Video/pharoahe-monch-black-hand-side-021243029036408

From the Man Himself

Listen to Elzhi speak on his favourite verse off of my favourite track from his mixtape which I blogged all about last week.

He linked up with Culture TV to give and lets us peek inside his process for creating Elmatic.


Get inspired here

Elmatic Mixtape

Elzhi took a tremendous risk when he decided that his next project would be to give one of hip hop’s seminal albums a face lift.

I'm talking about Nas’ 94 release “Illmatic.” An album that rarely, if ever, goes unmentioned when listing off the most important albums in hip hop history. Hell, people that don’t even like rap love that album.

Rapper Elzhi of Slum Village, had a vision of paying homage to this standard while making it his very own, and with the help of my next favourite band, Will Sessions, backing him up on the tracks… one single listen of this mixtape demonstrates that Elzhi had no reason to underestimate his abilities, even for a minute.

This past gloomy Saturday afternoon, I decided it was time to give Elmatic a first spin.

I admit, I went into my initial listen weary of what was about to unfold, but by the time Memory Lane (a track I personally deemed as untouchable) flowed out my speakers and filled up all the air in my condo, a perma-ear-to-ear-grin had crept over my face.

By the time the instrumental break (and vocals by who, I swear to God but can’t confirm, is Raphael Sadiiq) on Life’s A Bitch boomed out… I was literally flying high on this mixtape.

Elizhi’s rhymes, whether rapping on growing up in Detroit or coping with an ailing mother, are clever and sharp in their delivery. This is no surprise, coming from an MC whose first paycheck in the rap game came from his flows on the late great J Dilla’s “Welcome to Detroit,” but what cements this tribute as a undeniable classic is El’s flow, harmoniously combined with The Will Sessions Band's fresh and unique instrumental twist of each of one of Illmatic's original tracks.

On Illmatic, then 20 year-old Nas describes a life of growing up in NYC projects, while simultaneously altering the sound of hip hop forever.

Illmatic came along at the birth of a 90s rap period, when groups like Tribe & De La Soul were breaking ground, pairing bass-heavy jazzy tracks and poignant lyricism to produce music that truly meant something. 

The sound of Nas' Illmatic elicits an excitement in listeners that takes us back to a time when hip hop was doing the things that paved the way for all artists that have emerged since then. It carries us back to a watershed period when hip hop stopped being a fad, and morphed  into a respected art form born in the streets. 

On Elmatic, El masterfully plays with words on bar after bar, effortlessly demonstrating his strength as a lyricist and his undeniable talents in storytelling – his version of Memory Lane is an excellent testament to this.  Whether it’s name dropping Langston Hughes during his aggressive rhyming on his Detroit State of Mind, or contemplating the "train of thought or mental plane" back to Memory Lane, Elzhi goes in on each verse with ferocity and holds his own against the heavy weight history behind each track he is rhyming over.

The idea of remixing a classic is more than 'old hat' in the world of hip hop; it's a fundamental building block of the genre.
But Elizhi’s concept and flawless execution of Elmatic is more than just the refurbishing of a classic album.
With Elmatic, Elzhi gives back to the hip hop world what Illmatic gave to it over 15 years ago. Plain and simply put: this mixtape reignites the fire Illmatic lit in ‘94 and gives us no choice but to recognize that something major is happening in hip hop all over again.

Hats off to Elzhi for using the old to teach us how to stay new.

Dont take my word for it. Download Here

-AMS

Coming Soon

With this "spin off" blog, my intention is to concentrate all my musical opinions in one convenient spot.
I have a penchant for hip hop music but I want to try and make sure my musical dissecting runs gamut of what's readily available to my ears.
My maiden voyage will be writing about Elzhi's Elmatic Mixtape

Stay tuned...