By the time you read this, I fear that fall will have finally fell.
Time to get depressed. Or not—there’s still plenty to be excited
about round here, even if the barbecues have stopped and the girls are
all covering up.
Just peep Macklemore‘s sentimental ode to the Seattle hiphop
experience, “The Town,” off of The Unplanned Mixtape (order it at his blog www.bengalyucky.com), which shouts-out this very
column. The song definitely captures a perspective that’s damn familiar
to anybody who’s been loving this shit for 10 years plus (you know,
Sit & Spin, RKCNDY, and so forth), which I guess just
means “old people” to all you New Boyz fans. But y’all can
always just go out and spend your money on that god-awful, try-hard ass
Kid Cudi album.
Or keep your dollars local, and use ’em to catch D.Black‘s
all-ages CD-release show at the Vera Project on October 3. Opening up
is RA Scion as Victor Shade (that’s his project with
producer MTK, you’ll recall), Sol, Myx Records’ own
Oaktown rep Jern Eye (about to drop his solo Vision,
featuring the dope single “Get Down”), and DJ BeanOne, all
hosted by Geo of the Blue Scholars. People of all ages
who for whatever reason missed Black’s momentous CD release at the Croc
a couple weeks back, you blew it—that was a helluva
show—and now you only get one shot, do not miss your chance to
go! (While I’m making slick references to Eminem, have you heard
that he might be signing Slaughterhouse to Shady? My interest:
piqued. I’ll have to hit that goddamn Tech N9ne show at Showbox
at the Market next week that they’re opening for in case they make any
grand announcements.)
Sa-Ra Creative Partners fans like myself will be elated to
know that Shafiq Husayn, one-third of that spacefaring
production crew, will be in town October 2 playing music at Filthy
Nice Fridays at Baltic Room. Husayn just dropped his solo album,
En’ A-Free-Ka, a spaceways treasure trove of heady future-soul
and jittery jazz rhythms, with guests Bilal and Sa-Ra fam
Om’Mas Keith (as seen on Making His Band). This all
reminds me that I never heard any of that Sa-Ra album Nuclear
Evolution: The Age of Love that dropped earlier this
summer—somebody shoot it my way!
Big bad Brother Ali is coming to Neumos on October 7 in
support of his new album, Us. It’s some of Ali’s best work,
utilizing his skills as a storyteller to break down some heavy shit,
from sexual abuse to slavery’s legacy (all over some atmospheric
Ant production, natch). I’m really feeling the extra sparse
“House Keys”—I, too, remember really wanting to get back at the
asshole drug dealers who lived above me in the CD a few years ago. I
tend to hate having clucks tapping on my windows at all hours or
listening to trains being run while I’m sleeping—but I’m just
weird like that.