Kenneth Callier - Look At Me Bleed

I recently discovered that there are multiple international varieties of Netflix's reality competition show Rhythm & Flow, including four seasons of the French version. The first featured a guy named B.B. Jacques who dresses like he's in Camp Lo and regularly caps verses by shouting, "fuck off." One of the finalists was a dude named Elyon who made super well produced alternative rap complete with orchestral arrangements and art gallery aesthetics. I highly recommend the program, but that's not why I'm here today. Many a major label backed rapper make "lo fi" hip-hop, flattened mics over turntable crackle. (I'm not an engineer, so those aren't the technical terms, but you know what I'm talking about.) These are artists with the financial wherewithal to hire some of the best studio musicians and engineers working today, but they choose to go the opposite route. Then, on the other end of the spectrum, there are those independent artisans who dedicate so much time and talent to honing their craft that even with lower budgets and lesser tools, they churn out music of the highest possible fidelity, both in terms of production quality and emotional honesty. Elyon would fall in that category. So would longtime Long Island Rap Records affiliate Andy Koufax. And so too would Kenneth Callier. His latest, Look At Me Bleed, is an absolute masterpiece. I'm not saying it's the type of record that couldn't be created under contract with a major. (I've never worked in the entertainment industry, so I don't what goes on there.) I'm just saying that if you're going to put in the 10,000 hours, it's nice to have something real to show for it, and this album has quite a lot of that.

De La Soul - Cabin In The Sky

Day, glow. The other side of seasonal affective disorder is da inner sound, yall. Well, it depends on what your meaning of the word 'is' is. Defining existence and nonexistence as codependents in direct opposition has always been the move for those of us who, consciously or not, preoccupy ourselves with what's next. Think ahead. Hence, "'If yall stop then Dave stops,' and that wouldn't be the sure shot." De La Soul—and one might argue Hip-Hop—has always operated a larger collective of friends/collaborators making/doing art/science that reflects/refracts popular music/culture. It might blow up but it won't go pop, baby, baby, baby, baby. Their second album has a skit consisting of tea time melodies interrupted repeatedly by thrash metal mayhem. De La Soul take "no biting" to such extremes they rarely ever repeat themselves between projects, to the extent that the most common threads across their catalog are continuing insistences on reinvention and variety. Self-referential motifs recur with flipped meanings and function. Frequent guests arrive with new mixed company.

When I was a kid going to Wantagh Summer Rec, we took regular trips to United Skates in North Massapequa. I can't remember what songs used to play at the roller rink, but I know Boyz II Men and Mariah Carey were in heavy rotation. Between their hits aired a fair helping of what I now know to be freestyle, house, new wave, and new jack swing. Again, I don't recall specific tracks, but instead a feeling of summery joy. Cabin In The Sky has that same energy. And I don't mean genre-y. Seasons change. Mad things rearrange. It's an album of presence from the hitherto for the hereafter.

Fashion - "step up"

Hobbies and interests as clothes, some days feel like movie days, some music, others books, others still writing. Or, is a trap there lying? Where does over-compartmentalization begin and extra shelf space end? A budding sports and lifestyle podcaster once said, "I don't really look at movies, I make 'em." Really was the operative word there, I'd venture. 

As this video from 20!8 illustrates, Simon Vailes is a fashion icon, Fashion is a Simon Vailes icon, and Fashion Stay Trending. Today, Simon Vailes is also a Quarter Finalist in the Elton John AIDS Foundation's Style Icon competition. Hence, she's in the running for a Flaunt Magazine appearance, $20,000, and a trip to the Versace show at Milan Fashion Week. Voting resumes November 17. 

Imagine the original recording of INI's "Step Up" floundering in the studio master obscurity of legal label limbo. I bet you can't. You know it couldn't.

AWOL da Mindwriter - Altered Beast / Chaos Control

Experiences haven't been added via Beta Features replacing teachers and even thinking with the latest and greatest in automated language sequences. Meanwhile, it's on/off grid like Woody Harrelson with utility bills sans any semblance of celebrity. Celery was an underrated snack (and it still is) especially eaten out of a crack. Action! When parody suffices for fact, parity is an even more divisive act than what's happened. So, you know, what's happening? 

AWOL da Mindwriter hit me with a video off his upcoming album with August Fanon, and now there's another. Another video for an AWOL track produced by August Fanon? Yes, plus the song features Planet Asia, and the video was made by Johnny Storm! (Another album produced by August Fanon? Technically, yes, that too, but not featuring AWOL da Mindwriter, so not really what I'm talking about here, though that reinforces an earlier point about syntax perhaps however pedantic.)

RIP Christopher "Chilo" Cajigas

This one hurts so many we can only hope it inspires as much. Chilo started sending me music back in 2016. It was usually a friendly greeting followed by a link to his latest song and then a little promo blurb. We exchanged emails back and forth a few times, but never really got into a full-fledged conversation. In writing about his music over the years and following him on social media, I came to learn that in addition to rapping and doing spoken word poetry, he was a teacher. I imagine he was a great one. Though we never spoke, I like to think of my writing about his music as engaging with it as closely as I could, especially in the cases of Faces of the Meek and Fearless and No Such Paradise and "Come Get This Humanity." 

Chilo was a regular at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and a resident of Riverhead. We're from different communities. I don't know how much life experience we had in common, but I do know that whenever his music struck a chord with me, it had sustenance on a level I don't often get from music. That's not a knock on music, which is a huge part of my life, or a plug for poetry, which I don't read much at all. I think it's more about language and love and freedom being equally powered, interconnected entities at the center of the human experience, being the best that civilization has to offer. I think that's what I got from the Chilo performances, songs, and albums I most enjoyed. 

He never sent me this, but apparently, just a few months before he died, he performed at Carnegie Hall. The piece is called "We Fight Hate With Love." 

  

Sunshine blessed the community

In a unity of togetherness
He says he remembers it
Hearing the horns in the background when he was born
How the people all gathered around to offer their well-wishing
Blessed by the clergy, his parents swore
To always keep him and his siblings safe
They had such high hopes for the places he would go
The people he would meet
The family he would raise

And the communities he would empower

And a child will play as children do
The music and the melodies they made him move
He felt the grooves

The lows and the highs

And it all came together with the notes and vibes

He loved to explore, love to go outside

When the sun hit his face, smiles open wide 

In a type of world where the weak don't survive 

He greeted strangers in the streets and socialized
Socialized

His aura attracted others
Yet some parents told their children not to play with his kind

Because he was "different"
And that hurt him inside
Being "othered"
Yet his mother always told him to be a kind, sincere person of honor
And he obliged
Still at times he found bullies on the playground

Called names, teased, and shamed

Until one afternoon unexpectedly saved 
By an elder whose experienced words proclaimed

We are only as strong as our weakest link
Our strength lies in collective unity
And no matter where it is that you call home
Nobody out here can make it all alone

And there is something to be said about assisting

Communicating with, and considering the village as a whole
Responsible in our roles 

So that the members are always respected

Cause in community, we are all connected
We are all connected

He was affected by the words
And even believed them
Ended up thinking about them that night during the evening

As well as a new word he had learned that day in school
Appeasement
And so he thought about how he would combat the cruelty 

And the lunacy that he faced outside 

Because he was not blind to how this world is not kind

And after a while, it took him some time
But finally he realized 

That we fight hate with love
We fight hate with love
And at that moment, it was as if something had hit him from above

His heart was open

He was resigned and determined to fight hate with love

Word up

Pa'lante

RIP Christopher "Chilo" Cajigas. Per the Riverhead News-Review obituary, "Memorial donations can be sent to Nuyorican Poets Cafe, 236 E. 3rd St., New York, N.Y. 10009; and Belongo/AfroLatin Jazz Alliance of N.Y., 215 East 99th St., New York, N.Y. 10029." Additionally, there is a fundraiser accepting donations to support the Cajigas family in their time of loss.

Theravada - The Years We Have

"Where I'm At" begins, "Can't be going on a whim, it's getting thin for that notion. My father cannot use his limbs." Next, "Conditions/Climbing" echoes the sentiment with "Jab step on Jamal Crawford. More money in the summer, dripped out every autumn." You could read the juxtaposition as "Here's my most personal album to date, but rest assured my frame of reference remains basketball and fashion." I, on the other hand, am reading Jacques Vallee's UFO Chronicles of the Soviet Union, requisitioned tonight from the Lido Beach West book box. For curious minds, Engels' Condition of the Working Class in England should still be there along with some pamphlets written in Russian, that is, unless the couple out there taking engagement photos on this buggy evening really knows what time it is. All that being said, my favorite song couplet on The Years We Have is not the introductory set but the "Learning Curve" on "Sucka MCs" or the "Windows" past "Day By Day By Day." He ends "Learning Curve" conceding, "You knew the real me in that 05 Altima. It's gonna cost you more if I gotta get it to Baltimore. We not about to take that drive to Florida." A few bars into "Windows," he proclaims, "Since Marcberg and Glassjaw, coldest out of Nasssau. This is what I rap for. I'm about to cop that RAV4," to which I say same bro, and also, Daryl, if you're reading this, he's definitely in the running.

Bub Rock - PRICELE$$ PAINT (LIRR04) Limited Edition Cassettes Now Available for Pre-Order

Sometimes, rap is all about talking shit; sometimes, the shit that goes unsaid is just as compelling. PRICELE$$ PAINT has Lakeview-raised MC Bub Rock speaking volumes in moments of silence.

Take the skit that introduces the album’s lead cut, “The Blur.” There’s the tiniest pause between when the girl on it stutters, “It would all be one if you weren’t here and if nobody else—” and “Yes, everything is one. You have nothing to do with it. I am one with what I am.” That brief moment of turned-on introspection effectively sets the tone for the entire body of work. It’s about getting from regret to resolution.

When Bub Rock actually starts rapping, fucking forget about it. You may know him from ROCK SEASON or A PEACE OF MINE or many other dope projects. Did you know Bub Rock’s father was an S1W? KBR is essentially Long Island rap royalty. So, if the “pain” refrain on “No Invites II” sounds familiar, you’re in the right place. It’s a one-word summation erstwhile given to bloody-eyed detail, and you can’t spell paint without it.

Yet, if PRICELE$$ PAINT is one part traumatology, it’s two parts super catchy. “How you use so much introspect and chicks love it?” Rock plays you asking on “Lost Pieces.” The eight-times platinum R&B hook looping “Muse-ick” can’t hurt. But the answer ultimately lies between Bub Rock’s talent and experience. It’s how he sees whilst casting his gaze inward. It’s his ability to say a lot with a few choice words, to command language like crowd control.

PRICELE$$ PAINT is the latest cassette release from Long Island Rap Records. Pre-orders are available now via the Long Island Rap Records Store and Bandcamp. Say less.

Javi Darko & Ja'King the Divine - Paradoxical Yet it Works

Raekwon and Tony Starks' Only Built for Cuban Linx... opens with the album's protags discussing their mutual desire to make a clean break after completing a Killer-type final job. Every track that follows can be heard as happening between or around those two plot points. Javi Darko and Ja'King the Divine's Paradoxical Yet It Works takes a similar path with one crucial distinction. On the intro, only Ja'King is prepared to make a change. Javi says, "Faith don't look to good on us right now." It's not until the outro that he comes around. Ironically, at this point Ja'King is going on the run, leaving us to wonder if and when we'll hear from JaJa again. Quantum mechanics may also figure in.

Lauryn Grace x David Lion - "Eyes Without a Face"

What is artificial intelligence for if not creating a fictional songwriting couple and then producing a short film about "the death knell of humanity" called Satellite Eyes Without a Face and then assigning said duo to cover Billy Idol's "Eyes Without a Face" for a song to be released in conjunction with but not included on said film's original soundtrack? This is all the work of Dynamics Plus from the Lenzmen.

Knowledge the Pirate - The Round Table

Knowledge the Pirate compares his latest plate, the Roc Marciano produced Round Table, to Elijah Muhammed's dietary instruction book series How to Eat to Live. I humbly compare it to the reality competition TV series The Traitors. Knowledge the Pirate is Alan Cumming dressed as Vincent Price in The Haunted Palace, and Roc Marciano, hopping layers of this half-baked metaphor as once he slid off through a time warp, is Roger Corman. Betrayal lurks around every corner. Each night, a faithful is murdered. Life and death are debated over the table, and only after the final vote is cast is one's true character revealed. "But Long Island Rap Records, how can a site of such refined standards, lower itself to the level of such dross?" Well, I'll tell you. Much like The Round Table, The Traitors is all about game theory. Don't dismiss it as game. It's a matter of mathematics, the application of universal laws to decision making and deceit. There's a certain strange purity in the proceedings, and the ill gothic costuming to match.