Lady Sovereign, Chester French and Hollywood Holt live at Richards on Richards, Vancouver, BC, May 22nd, 2009
A selection of photos taken by Natasha Davidson of Lady Sovereign performing in Vancouver with Chester French and Hollywood Holt opening for her.
Chester French doing their thing.
DJ Analyze warming up the crowd for Lady Sovereign’s set
Lady Sovereign getting into her set
Hasan Salaam: Children of God
8.5/10
written by James Smith
In today’s hip-hop climate, it’s very rare that an emcee truly expresses himself without delivering their material in a pretentious or contrived manner. Enter Hasan Salaam.
In 2005, he released his debut album, Paradise Lost which was very impressive; however, you could tell that he was a naturally talented artist that still had room for growth. After excessive touring and releasing mixtapes, Salaam is back with his stellar follow-up, Children Of God.
The gravely-voiced emcee once again narrates tales of racism, oppression, and maintaining his Islamic faith with sharper concepts and better executed songs compared to his first release. Angel Dust featuring Brand Nubians’ Lord Jamar is an immediate favorite with its laid-back but bouncy beat matched with a catchy hook. He tells of a troubled woman who resorts to stripping and prostitution to get what she wants out of life. Children Of God seems like a continuation of the aforementioned song which deals more with the consequences of how the woman lives her life. The melancholy piano loop definitely adds to the mood.
Songs such as Kingdom of Heaven and The Reign (Wudu) is where he openly shows his vulnerability to the listener by expressing his struggle of maintaining his faith in Islam without sounding presumptuous. He remorsefully confesses the wrongs in his life and his striving to become a better person by practicing his religion. Someplace is another serious cut that deals with gentrification, oppression, and assimilation. He raps: “We’ve just become a clone of our oppressor, assimilate to their ways and settle for lesser.”
To be frank, there are too many well-written songs on this album to describe. The lyrics are completely well thought-out and the beats simply bang with crunchy drums and head-nodding loops but, of course, every album has flaws. Suga is a generic love song that could have been left off. It seems as if the artist tried a bit too hard to round the album off with the usual “chick song.” Also The Downrock just ruins the mood of the album for some reason. Salaam and his Fifth Column affiliate, Rugged and Raw, rhyme in almost double time to catch a fast paced beat but it just doesn’t work and the hook sounds a bit amateurish at best. Simply put, it just seems out of place.
Despite the very few shortcomings, Hasan Salaam delivers a sleeping giant of an album. I once had the opportunity of interviewing Salaam after his release of Paradise Lost. I remember asking him what his immediate plans for his next album were. He responded by saying that he wanted to take his songwriting skills to the next level and release an even better project than his last. He definitely delivered while exceeding my expectations.
Vancouver Fashion Week photos, November 2008
Scenes from Vancouver Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2009
All photos taken by Aaron Joseph for MVRemix Media
Lykke Li live in Vancouver at Richards on Richards
When an artist travels across the globe, with a level of hype only given to a small handful of artists each year, the average concert goer’s anticipation is high. After many YouTube videos, and television live performances, Lykke Li had set expectations a lot greater than many of her fans thought could be met.
On October 28th at Richards on Richards in Vancouver, BC, she lived up to all the talk and excitement that those videos and TV segments had created.
Performing for about an hour, the Swedish born singer showed nothing but enthusiasm and energy as she energetically plowed through each of her songs from her debut album, “Youth Novels.” Surprisingly more than three quarters of the sold out crowd sung along word for word, and the encore which Lykke Li’s band provided of A Tribe Called Quest’s “Can I Kick It?” didn’t go down too badly either.
Put simply, her show was a bargain for what we were given.
reviewed by Andrew Lunny
A sold out Commodore Ballroom played host to two of Australia’s biggest electropop groups this past Thursday, with both Cut Copy and The Presets bringing the house down. On the last date of their North American tour, the Aussies went out with a bang.
First on the bill were London duo Heartbreak. Without the high profile of the two leading acts, the two didn’t have much of the crowd on the floor, but those who were were in for a treat. Heartbreak’s brand of upbeat laptop pop brought a big dose of disco to Vancouver, setting the crowd up for the headliners.
Although Cut Copy were the on the top of the bill, the Commodore was already filled by the time The Presets came on stage – a sign that they had almost as much of a following. The hundreds on the dancefloor were kept moving throughout the generous length of the set. Frontman Julian Hamilton’s energetic display livened up the songs most familiar to the crowd – “Are You The One?,” “My People,” and “Talk Like That” chief among them – while Kim Moyes laid down the beats. An excellent set, that would have graced any show.
Cut Copy last played Vancouver in April at Richard’s on Richards shortly after the release of their superb In Ghost Colours album. That, six months later, they could sell out the significantly larger Commodore Ballroom is a measure of the album’s excellence, that has swelled their already substantial fanbase. The set itself was very similar to that played at Richards – pitch-perfect renditions of most of the great tracks on In Ghost Colours – “Far Away,” “Lights and Music,” “Unforgettable Season” et al – along with older favorites like “Time Stands Still” and “Saturdays.” Seeing these guys live is such a treat that even fans who saw the previous show will have been blown away – amazing songs played with a gusto that’s what live music is all about.
Lyrics Born: founding member of the underground label/movement Quannum Collective, ½ of the legendary Latyrx, native of Tokyo, representing the Bay Area, California for more than fifteen years and hands-down the most distinct, deliberate and demonstrated emcee on this coast ; LB is truly a living legend .
LB is the emcee’s emcee. A tactician musician/lyricist with a buttery cool-caramel clever delivery; oftentimes thought-provoking and always substance-laden, LB also possesses crisp, fluid rapid-fire calibre abilities in his repertoire.
Fresh off the release of Tuesday’s Everywhere at Once, LB stepped onto a Van City stage (@ Plaza Club, Downtown Van) with a very clear and evident mandate: promote, reveal and evolve. LB took the stage unsheathed from his customary backing-blanket of a DJ on dual-decks to introduce a bassist, keyboardist and funk –skilled drummer (all behind him, taking the stage before and after he) as well as his über-talented and Japanese Doll-esque ravishing partner Joyo Velardé (directly beside him) to add proper complement with her trademark high-hooks, azure harmonies and periodic freestyles. For the entirety of the pre-encore show, “LB”, that being, the ensemble that now plays under the Legend’s moniker, performed mainly material from their new album. The encore brought most of the Vancouverites what they came to see, that being, old-school LB cuts fused with the in-person flair that would be expected from he and the complement of a live band to accompany as much.
In retrospect, I feel that the purist LB fan would argue that the good maestro had put his immeasurable talents as a gifted, technical wordsmith/emcee in the backseat in the name of nurturing a musical joint-venture with his life partner. To be frank, your humble narrator would find it a trying argument to disagree with.
On the other side of the coin, however, on a small-scale, this could represent the direction in-which the real-deal long term champions of to the mic and purveyors of grassroots hip hop aim to take the genre on a both a personal and collective level, that is, to grow the branches of the community tree in a direction in which we are both familiar/unfamiliar with.
At one time or another, we’ve all asked ourselves how our favourite artists would transition themselves into the future and in what grace they would do so. Most fade-away, buried under the ripcurl of the mainstream, others find a way to change the name of the game; to push the envelope and give us all reason to want more.
Lyrics Born chose funk. AND, at the Plaza in Van City, LB and his newfound frontmates, BROUGHT THE FUNK.
Much respect and many thanks, we deeply look forward to your next opus.
Adam LeBlanc, on behalf of Van City.
Lyrics Born MVRemix Interview 1
Masta Killa – Made In Brooklyn review
On this basis, if Masta Killa’s Made in Brooklyn does anything, it signifies that the sound pioneered by RZA and the Wu-Tang Clan is in its death throes. Is it because the beats and rhymes are wack? Hardly. But I leave that for the critics to decide. More importantly it is because it is part of a growingly antiquated tradition that began in Staten Island, NY in the early-to-mid ’90s and has been on a steady decline since the turn of the century.
The Wu without a doubt succeeded in establishing a raw and organic form of hip-hop that influenced a generation of MCs from both coasts and even internationally, and they will forever be a part of hip-hop’s totality, but they no longer represent the creative energies of Americans which are now manifesting, exploding rather, in their long forgotten, yet essential, Midwestern and Southern regions. Basically, we’ve done Wu-Tang and we are in no mood to recreate it.
Ghostface has been the only obvious exception to this rule and has been force-feeding our ears since Daytona 500. Even the haters can’t help, but to acknowledge his consistency and gift of lyricism. This is not a Ghostface album, however.
On the other hand, aficionados of the Wu will feel right at home on this below the radar album. Sounds of Kung Fu films, 5% philosophy, choppy, lo-fi production, and Farrakhan speeches bear the Wu watermark throughout MK’s sophomore effort. Pete Rock and MF Doom are summoned to lend their capacities to the album as well.
Masta Killa is without question a gifted lyricist, but, to the dismay of some, it takes more than raw lyricism or talent to carry a hip-hop album nowadays. What we want, what the Midwest and the South want, is less skills and more contemporary themes, and thematic throughout Made in Brooklyn are preoccupations far too eccentric to resonate with the great bulk of the current hip-hop generation.
So the short and sweet is, if you’re a Wu-head or just a hip-hop connoisseur (like myself) you will dig it, but if popular music, themes, and culture are what you’re looking for, look elsewhere or be forever disappointed.
Ghostface Killah – Fishscale review
Anyone questioning Ghostface’s hunger of late should look no further than “The Champ”. He rips the Just Blaze-produced banger to shreds, evoking memories of his first album’s standout track, “Daytona 500”. The flashbacks continue with “9 Milli Bros”, reuniting all nine members of Wu-Tang Clan over dramatic pianos that could have been heard on “Forever”, and with “R.A.G.U.”, one of five tracks featuring Raekwon which gives listeners a nostalgic reminder of “Only Built for Cuban Linx”, arguably one of the best hip-hop albums ever released.
But is this trip down memory lane a positive? Despite the argument that artists should be continually evolving and creating different music, good music is good music regardless of whether it breaks new ground. And, bottom line, this is good music.
Aside from the classic Wu-sounding tracks, the album has more of the lighthearted, soulful sound that we have come to expect from the Ghostface of the new millennium. “Kilo” is an infectious, funky ode to drug dealers that plays on Scarface’s famous analysis of American girls with “Whoever got the kilos got the candy man… Once you got the funds you got the panties man”. “Big Girl” is a message to women urging them to stop doing drugs and concentrate on the more positive aspects of life, over a minimally manipulated soul song reminiscent of the “Pretty Toney” Album track “Holla”.
Ghostface does break some new ground conceptually on “Fishscale”: “Barbershop” is a hilarious look at the rapper’s angst when barbers mess up his hair. On “Underwater”, MF Doom provides the perfect atmospheric production for a psychedelic journey through the deep sea where “Sponge-Bob in the Bentley coupe bangin’ the Isley’s” and “Mermaids with Halle Berry haircuts” co-exist. Even when Ghost keeps the subject matter more standard (drugs, battle tracks, women), he always manages to come across in a unique way that never fails to keep the listener interested.
This is true Hip-Hop. It is not because Ghost uses a certain production sound, flows a certain way, or covers certain topics. It is quite the opposite. This album is a lesson in individual creative artistic expression. Ghost is able to vividly depict his true self and his world through music. Although at times he may stumble, his honesty is a breath of fresh air in an industry littered with formulaic artists.
Ghostface Killah – Fishscale review
Right from the opening track “Shakey Dog,” it’s apparent that the vintage Ghostface sound is back. Ghost then wets the listener’s appetite for the long awaited “Cuban Linx 2” with the Raekwon assisted, “Kilo” and “R.A.G.U”. Another highlight is “9 Milli Bros.” which features all 9 original Wu Tang members, and the late J. Dilla produced “Whip You With a Strap” which has Ghost revisiting his childhood. Even Ghost’s attempts commercial success with the Ne-Yo featured lead single “Back Like That,” which works because of Ghost’s ability to wear his heart on his sleeve.
Besides the song “Three Bricks” which features Notorious B.I.G.’s verse from “Ni**as Bleed,” and the lack of production by the RZA, “Fishscale” is Tony Starks in his prime, dripping with humor, emotion, charisma, and brutal honesty.
Few artists today are able to make sincere good music, without conforming to a commercial hook, conventional bar structure, or the latest trends. As a result, Ghostface is one artist that should be treasured.
