Last fall I received an e-mail from a rapper on Amalgam Digital named Kosha Dillz, promoting a new album he had just released called Freestyle vs. Written. The concept of the album was fairly unique, with half of the album consisting of prewritten lyrics by Kosha and the other half made up entirely of freestyled verses from C-Rayz Walz. Along with the promo he included a link to one of his videos, the rather creative Holiday, which I put up on the site without much further consideration. Shortly thereafter, I was surprised to see a handful of comments on the site, and several more in my inbox, that took issue with the video. The cause for consternation was not with the quality of the music - from a purely artistic point of view, Freestyle vs. Written is quite good - but rather with the fact that Kosha, who is Jewish and whose parents are from Israel, had included a song on the album entitled "Ariel Sharon" and was giving a portion of the proceeds to an Israeli charity.
Most of the e-mails relating to the video consisted of little more than the usual internet trollery that manifests itself any time the subject of Israel comes up, but a few readers raised some legitimate questions about Kosha's motivations for the album that I felt were worth pursuing. Due to delays on both my part and Kosha's, we both pushed back the interview several times, but given the recent conflict in the Gaza Strip and the attention Israel has received from various hip hop blogs as a result, most notably through the current feud between Byron Crawford and Peter Rosenberg, now seemed like a good time to get an alternative viewpoint on the situation in the Middle East (as well as offering up a chance for Kosha to promote his album, discuss his heritage, and share his thoughts on Jewish culture and its relationship with hip hop). Though I don't agree with everything that Kosha had to say in the interview, I found his responses to be rather thoughtful and he did raise some interesting points that I think everyone can benefit from reading. As for my own take on the matter, the only thing I'm sure of when it comes to the issue of Israel and Palestine is that the civilians on both sides seem to be paying an awfully high price for the political aspirations of their leaders. Read on:
[Actually, before we proceed to the interview, Kosha asked me to mention that he is performing at Southpaw in Brooklyn on February 11th. If you're in the area, go check it out!]
Of the few Jewish emcees that have found success in hip hop, they seem to fall into two general categories: those, like the Beastie Boys or MC Serch, who really only make mention of their ethnicity in passing, and those who use their ethnicity as a sort of ironic focal point of their act, such as 2 Live Jews. You don't seem to fall into either category so I'd be interested in hearing how much of a role your heritage plays in the music that you create.
KD: I guess that's for everyone else to decide. Maybe I'm sticking up for the people who were never gutsy enough to push it to that level? I'm not sure. I think my background was also different than the Beastie Boys. I'm a product of a family that completely died in the Holocaust and a family who fought in the 1948, 6 Day War, and Yom Kippur wars. My family is also from Israel up to my two older bros, so I am the first generation born here. I'm also a product of street activity, crime, college, and bar mitzvah classes, high school soccer and Division I NCAA wrestling [at Rutgers].
How did the album itself start out? Was it a situation where you hooked up with C-Rayz and then later on it became a benefit album, or did you go into it from the beginning with the idea that you'd be donating some of the proceeds from the album?
KD: Oh, yeah. I've known C Rayz for 9 years. We've been working together on all levels from touring to having pow wows at Indian restaurants. C Rayz has a great attachment to Jewish people, as they have always appreciated his art of freestyle. Receiving a lot of love from the community around the world made him more fond of the project, along with his lyrical challenge and cultural statement.
The idea of essentially handing over half of the album to someone who's going to freestyle all of their verses seems like it would be kind of risky, because you really have no idea what you're going to get from someone going off the top of the dome. C-Rayz pulls it off, but was there any concern before or during the recording process that it wouldn't come out right? Was he recording all of his verses in one take?
KD: He was there man, off the top of the dome. He had some key words written down to help him go off words but I don't think that took any more than [a few] minutes. If you know Walz in NYC, well, people heard of it, everyone sorta smirked because they knew that's something he would do sooner or later.
Another gamble on the album was handing over the production to a very young producer, Kentron Da Mastadon (though that too worked out, as the beats on here are dope). Can you give us a little bit of info on him? How'd you two hook up?
KD: We hooked up when we did a show with his lady in 2006 in Virginia. I think the show was very small and me and C Rayz went out with jackets and no shirts. We rocked a dope show and brought everyone on stage to wild out with us. We hooked up since then and I started pushing his beats since he was so far away. The kid sent me beats and then I started writing to them and then I went to Walz. I sort of knew we can hit up Walz. He already blessed me with mad fly beats before we made the album. I knew he was capable of the album. He also made it much easier to do the album.
When I first put up links to the Holiday video I received several emails from people who were, at best, skeptical of your intentions. One of the focal points of the criticism was the issue of your Zionism. Now I'm well aware of the fact that calling someone out as a "Zionist" is often a codeword that anti-semites use to refer to Jews, but in one interview that I read, you were described as a "self-proclaimed Zionist." Is that an accurate description of yourself and, if so, what do you define as "Zionism?"
KD: Zionism is the affirmation of a democratic state for the Jewish people which is Israel. Aliyah (returning) of people to the state of israel and Jerusalem, its central capital. Preserving identity through education of language of the Jewish people and protecting their rights all around the World. We are self determined in our own national home.
The second issue that people have with the album is the fact that some of the proceeds are going to the Netivot Israel Louna Terror Victim Fund. It doesn't seem to be the specific charity that people have a problem with, but more the idea of giving funds to an Israeli group rather than a Palestinian group. Without going off on too much of a tangent, I think it's safe to say that whenever the topic of Israel and Palestine does come up in hip hop, particularly with the recent and ongoing conflict in the Gaza Strip, the general consensus overwhelmingly falls in favor of the Palestinians...
KD: Why? Do we not have a right to protect ourselves? If I dropped bombs on your family's home in ______ city would you not be mad and angry?
In general terms, the conflict often is seen as a struggle between the comparatively wealthy and powerful state of Israel against the impoverished Palestinians. Taken in that context, I would say that the average hip hop listener identifies more readily with the Palestinians as the experiences of blacks in America - from the founding of this country to today - equate much closer to the situation of modern day Palestinians than they do to modern day Israelis.
KD: That's not true. We are talking about Blacks bombing people? No, because that's what's being equated by the statement [of saying that the black experience in America is closer to that of the Palestinians]. Don't believe that. I mean it can appear so if you don't read between the lines but watch how I answer everything here. Hip Hop has been tricked by the media. People screamed revolution and you think that it's almost protocol to be anti-Israel. My whole family came from ghetto. Warsaw ghetto (Poland). We can talk about not having food as well. We can talk about fighting. My parents came here with holes in their sneakers. If you knew that, would you think that's hip hop enough? We are the minority, you know? There's less than .25 percent of the world population. Who has made us into some overwhelming giant?
What is the case that you would make for the NILT Fund being a worthy charity for the average hip hop head to donate to?
KD: Proceeds of our album also go to the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding. This is with Russell Simmons and Rabbi Marc Schneier and bridges the gaps between blacks and jews. This project was with a black man and a Jew. A black man and a man with an Israeli passport and citizenship. We wanted to show the world that you too can be past all the drama and bull-crap and we can unite together through dope music. If you even knew me and Rayz on a personal level, we didn't get along in the majority of our relationship. This is a perfect testament to the reason of the project.
Would you say it's possible to donate to one charity, such as the NILT Fund, without it being a declaration of which side you're on? Or in other words, does donating to an Israeli charity in your opinion necessarily mean that you don't support the Palestinians and vice versa?
KD: I support people. I don't support terrorism. Unfortunately of course. One, people never donate to Israel charities. I am Israeli hence therefore...I would expect many Latino artists to do this for people of their country, and also Africans to Africa and so forth. Besides, no one donates to Israeli charities ever, so I had to do it. I considered doing it to others, but I didn't want to. I wanted to give it to this charity, because... [the final part of this sentence got cut off during transmission, unfortunately. Apologies for that.]
One final issue that people have with Freestyle vs. Written is the song "Ariel Sharon." Though there isn't anything overtly political in the lyrics, the title itself suggests that it's intended as something of a tribute to the man. As you might expect, this has left a few people unhappy given Sharon's past as the "Butcher of Beirut" and his role in the Sabra and Shatila massacre, along with his more recent position as Prime Minister [Wikipedia has further info]. What was your intent with that specific song? What are your thoughts on Ariel Sharon himself?
Kosha Dillz - Ariel Sharon
KD: Our intent of this specific song was to "beast" this song. Not kill it, but give it life! (shout to Nosson Zand on that quote) It would make people go crazy. It'd show how much people really know about him. People get mad just when you say his name. So if I say, "I love jews," that'd make SPIN magazine and "Ariel Sharon" would make you cry. For what? Lighten [up], people. We have to be able to speak on this subject as human beings. What happened in Gaza right now is not because of anything else than a missile striking Israel (100 in fact) during a cease fire. How can you have peace with people who say their goal, "HAMAS," is to wipe Israel off the map? Let me put it in terms for those who don't fully understand:
UN: HEY lets set up talks for peace! yay! Lets solve the middle east crisis. Israel: ok - lets see Hamas: ok we want all the land. UN: do it israel Israel: we are smaller than NJ. You have the whole middle east. umm no. Hamas: hello Israel our peace is now. We will only shoot rockets at you sometimes. Then we will kill you once and for all. We will have a cease fire for a few months, We need money from you for our school children who we teach in our schools (that you fund) that Israel doesn't exist. Then we will send some of our children strapped to bombs to kill your soldiers (who are also 18, 19). When you kill us and our kids we will make it look on CNN like you are killing innocent women and children, even though we use them as human shields. Israel: oh ok. that sounds nice. Thank g-d for the UN, bringing us together. This is working out so great. Really unfortunate for the people that you put them at risk. I thought you wanted peace?? Why do you shoot rockets at us during a cease fire?
If people did this to you...we would be forced to attack and restructure their whole thing. Jews fight a state of mind of hate that has been built on a daily basis through media at childhood.
Though it doesn't come up all that often, when the Jewish community does get name dropped by mainstream rappers, it seems to get mentioned in one of two ways and I'm curious as to your thoughts on both of them. The more benign type is a sort of shoutout that "celebrates" the stereotypes people have of Jews. "Stack chips like Hebrews" (from All About the Benjamins), shoutouts to a rapper's Jewish lawyer/accountant/manager (as on How Many Mics), etc...
KD: Well. People shout us out as having lots of money. Jews work hard. They stick together. They make money. It's true. It's not because it falls from the sky. It's because we work hard. There are poor jews as well. There are way more black stereotypes and spanish stereotypes. I'm not offended. Stereotypes are public. It's all a matter of perspective I guess. Funny, I'm a Jewish rapper who definitely needed a Jewish lawyer (that's how much trouble I was in!). We (blacks and jews) are very alike. That's why we are donating to Ethnic Foundation for Understanding. We want blacks and Jews to be more comfortable together, because we are similar in many ways. Slavery, family, history.
A similar issue has come up with Busta Rhymes' recent song "Arab Money" both because of the phrase "Arab Money" and the nonsensical Arabic hook on the song; lines that are not blatantly racist but certainly enter into a gray area that can be offensive (and perhaps show hip hop's understanding, or lack thereof, of all things dealing with the Middle East). Do lyrics like that concern you ("concern", I suppose, in the sense that these kinds of stereotypes have historically been a precursor to antisemitism) or do you think they're even worth taking seriously?
KD: Yeah. It's actually a dope song because it's the first time people are talking about 9/11 in their raps and it's sort of a joy for people of Arabic descent. Hip hop doesn't understand the Middle East. They "hip hop" the Middle East in a way that is baffling. Soon people might be saying Arab money, and forget about Jewish lawyers...lol. Woah times are changing. I thought we were just siding with Palestine for poverty just earlier in the interview? No, Busta is referring to Iraqi oil interests. There are two Middle East conflicts going on. USA/Iraq/Afghanistan and Israel/Palestine.
Then there are the more overtly anti-Semitic displays - perhaps the most famous being the Professor Griff incident that led to him getting kicked out of Public Enemy. The most common example these days is the trend to refer to Jews as some sort of cabal that is controlling hip hop. It pops up most frequently with the use of the phrase "T.I.s" ("Tall Israelis", as in the executives at the major record labels) first coined by Mos Def and now used by various hip hop blogs...
KD: Honestly I wish major labels aren't controlling the game right now. They are referring to Lyor Cohen because he is tall. I don't know him. I honestly wish I had this game on mastermind control lock down. I do not. I will let you know when I grow 5 inches and take over the rap industry with my diamonds and millions of bank rolls.
Moving on to a more positive subject, any upcoming projects or collaborations we can look for? Any clubs/shows/performances where people can see you in the next couple of months?
KD: Sure. Beverly Dillz is a project I have coming out with Belief. It's sample free and is sort of my character meeting Hollywood. We are, as you say, bringing Israel and Jews into a positive light through fun, coolness and Beverly Dillz lifestyle! [And once again, Kosha will be performing at Brooklyn's Southpaw on February 11th.]
Finally, I asked Kosha for a list of sites that he'd like to mention:
Kosha Dillz' MySpace page, with information on tour dates coming up with Flex Mathews, Akream, Roebus OnE, Diwon, Y love, Yak Ballz, and various other "rapper friends."
And here's a video of him performing one of his new songs not on the album, Munich 1972, about the Israeli athletes who were murdered at the Munich Olympics and the Mossad agents who eventually hunted down their killers (a story also recently depicted in the movie Munich):
As I said at the top, if you put the politics aside (or if you happen to agree with Kosha's views), his album Freestyle Vs. Written is quite good and definitely worth picking up. Head over to the Freestyle Vs Written website to find links to buy the cd and to purchase it through iTunes. A portion of the proceeds from the album will be donated to the Netivot Israel Louna Terror Victim Fund and the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding.
Though I don't hear from them too often, I have a couple of friends over in Europe that I occasionally hit up for new music from the other side of the Atlantic to see what the state of hip hop is in countries outside of North America. Every few months I get a package of cds filled with European (primarily French) rap, and though there have been a handful of gems discovered, most of it hasn't been the type of music that I felt would generate much interest among the readership of this site. The latest batch of overseas albums, however, included an album from a Belgian rapper named King Lee, titled Les 400 Blowz, which was perhaps the most creative effort that I had heard from any rapper out of Europe in years.
Originally performing under the name L'Enfant Pave, King Lee began his career as an emcee with one of the first Belgian hip hop groups, Starflam, in the late '90s. I am, admittedly, no expert on the Belgian hip hop scene, but the fact that the group's bio page includes the comment that, "Record firms still look at Belgian [hip hop] bands often as a good tax deduction," suggests that he is something of a large fish in a very small pond. His album Les 400 Blowz, named after the classic French film Les Quatre Cents Coups (literally, "The Four Hundred Blows," though it translates roughly as "killing time") about a misunderstood kid who gets caught up in the French judicial system after a series of misdemeanors, has a rather eclectic sound, with a tracklist built around everything from G-Funk inspired beats to experimental instrumentals that could have come from an RJD2 album, throwback electro sounds from the '80s to one Haitian song that I thought must have been produced by Wyclef Jean (it wasn't, but it sounded similar enough to something on the Carnival that I had to check the credits to make sure).
If King Lee were rapping along to the beats in English, rather than his native French, I have no doubt that this album would gain a fair amount of attention among the underground scene. Yet as it is, the beats, though quite good by any standard, probably aren't enough to warrant a purchase if you don't speak the language (unless you are particularly curious about foreign hip hop). And I must confess, even though my French is good enough to understand most of Lee's rhymes, it's hard for me to appreciate any emcee who doesn't use English, as the flow typically doesn't sound as connected to the beat in any other language. French-speaking emcees in particular, with a few exceptions, often sound like they're just spitting out lines with little consideration for the music behind it. My opinion is, no doubt, affected by my English language bias though, and even taking into consideration the language barrier it should be said that there are a few songs on here which will serve as a decent reward to whoever makes the effort to find a copy of the album.
One last thing worth noting about the album is the cover art, which the small image above probably does not do justice. My European friends thought nothing of it, but the artwork for the album caught me by surprise when I first saw it. Featuring a dreadlocked, borderline black-faced puppet smoking a Marley spliff, it's an image that likely would cause something of a reaction in America given our nation's history.
Here are two cuts from the album that I think have the best chance of appealing to American ears. The first cut is an instrumental, which should hold up well in any language:
Given the language barrier and fiercely territorial nature of the entertainment industry, it'll probably take some effort on your part to get a (legal) copy of the cd if you reside anywhere outside of the E.U. King Lee's label, Freaksville Record, is offering it for 15 Euros, though one can only guess what it might cost to ship it out to the States. You can also buy mp3s of the album from e-music, though you'll miss out on the artwork from Earl and RVO that comes with the packaging.
To hear more from King Lee, and find links to purchase all of his previous albums, hit up his myspace page.
Finally, here's a video for one of the other songs off of Les 400 Blowz:
Since it's been a couple of weeks since the last installment of Bring Me the Remix of Zilla Rocca, let's recap: in an effort to promo his solo mixtape, Bring Me the Head of Zilla Rocca, emcee/producer/blogger/renaissance man Zilla Rocca has been reaching out to some of his favorite beatmakers to remix tracks from the tape. The response thus far has been overwhelmingly positive - with good cause, as every remix has been dope - and has even led to some discussion between Z.R. and a certain Philadelphian about collaborating on a future project.
For week six of the series, Zilla has remixed Bangladesh, the original version of which he also produced. He's kept the Nas sample intact, but the beat itself has been taken into an entirely different direction, with the centerpiece being a guitar riff on loop. I was already sold on the original, as I'm down with any song that calls out the haters, but the incorporation of a Katt Williams skit (you know the one, don't you?) into the remix may have given it the edge. Both feature appearances from Jersey's Slim DSM and SUP (which, for those wondering, is pronounced more like this than this), who put in two of the best verses on the entire tape. Zilla himself had one of my favorite one-liners on the original ("you're women's basketball, I can't watch you"), however he wrote a new verse for the remix. Here's what Zilla had to say about it:
"I remixed this beat 'cause a couple producers I reached out to didn't get a chance to knock it out, so I was messing around in the studio and realized this beat was the same BPM as the original "Bangladesh" and threw it together like peanut butter and jelly. And since I was remixing the beat, I figured I'd spit a new verse as well -- I liked the original verse, but I always thought I could've done the track a bit more justice considering the verses spit by SUP and Slim DSM."
While I was discussing this remix with Zilla, I tried to get him to reveal the source of the electric guitar sample that's featured prominently throughout the song. He didn't give up the goods on the sample, but when I asked him whether he had any aspirations of playing the guitar himself, a la Weezy F., he had this response (which really has nothing to do with the song, but amused me nonetheless):
"Although I learned some guitar 5-6 years ago, I realized I'm more suited to rapping, sampling, and bloggin'. Unlike Wayne, I don't self-indulge in front of teenagers at a sold out arena show like a retarded Slash playing Guitar Hero for the first time. That guitar on the beat is a sample."
You can hear a few more tracks from Slim DSM on his MySpace page and over at 215hiphop. As for SUP, the man seems to have virtually no internet presence (a rapper with nary a blog or a tweet? inconceivable!), but perhaps Zilla can drop some info on him in the comments.
Update: It turns out SUP, a.k.a. SomeoneUnderPressure, does have a MySpace page. You can hear cuts from the North Philly emcee's mixtape, Knock My Own Shyt Vol. 1, over here. Zilla also informs me that the guitar sample was taken from Nishokia's Maria (a google search for Nishokia came up empty, so once again I'll have to ask him for some more info).
(For those of you who have been away for the holidays, you now need to have JavaScript turned on to see the comments. More info here.)
The above video is from Rhode Island native j.DePina's album Dusty 45's, a collection of instrumentals that he was inspired to create after discovering a collection of old 45's in his basement. If you've been reading this site for a while, you might recognize DePina's name from the production credits on a couple of Chachi's songs.
j.DePina has made the album available for free, and you can download it over at vertygo101. If I get a chance, I'll put up a couple of the instrumentals in a week or two, but you really should just go ahead and grab it now. It's quite good.
He's also looking for emcees to drop a verse or two over his instrumentals, so if any of you out there are so inclined, hit him up on his MySpace page.
I am ashamed at myself for not only having laughed at this, but also for apparently being a month late with the link. Probably NSFW by most office standards (via Rem).
For the next couple of days, until all y'all get back from the holidays, I'm going to keep things short and just put up some music I'm feeling without too much of an introduction. So here's a couple of tracks from producer/emcee Mike the Martyr out of Minneapolis:
The homie Bless 1 passed that along as his pick for holiday music (some of you may be more familiar with the DPG version of the James Brown classic). My pick for Christmas is a Run DMC song, though not the one you might expect:
For some actual downloadable music, modi (a fellow Golden Eagle) andfriends have put together perhaps the first mix ever to include Sufjan Stevens, Killer Mike and Tony! Toni! Tone! on the same tracklisting. You can download their mixtape, A Funkadelic Christmas, over here.
Nick Catchdubs recently put up a couple of his remixes that he had done for Benzi'sWe Got The Remix series. I thought they were both dope, but navigating through the wave of popups, malware and porn ads to get to them from the sharebee links he was using was a real pain in da ass. So here you go:
And speaking of remixes, I'll be holding off on the next installment of Bring Me the Remix of Zilla Rocca until next week so that you'll all have something good to play out at your New Year's party.
As much as I've despised the rise of Auto-Tune, the vocoder effect that has the ability to magically transform a poorly sung hook into the centerpiece for a Top 40 single, I had to concede that its one saving grace was the fact that such an effect, that of rapidly shifting between vocal pitches, could never be performed naturally. So while I still couldn't understand why anyone would want to listen to a software-enhanced verse from T-Pain, I had to admit that the effect was something that human vocal cords would be unable to reproduce on their own.
It seems even that concession of Auto-Tune's merit was undeserved, as I discovered when one of my coworkers passed along a video of a man performing something called Tuvan Throat Singing (or more generically referred to as overtone singing), an apparently obscure singing technique that allows one's voice to produce more than one pitch at a time. This type of singing has been around for centuries, originating in a small region near Siberia, the former Tyva Republic. Wikipedia describes it as:
The partials of a sound wave made by the human voice can be selectively amplified by changing the shape of the resonant cavities of the mouth, larynx and pharynx. This resonant tuning allows the singer to create apparently more than one pitch at the same time (the fundamental and a selected overtone), while in effect still generating a single fundamental frequency with his/her vocal folds.
With a little practice and a Central Asian vocal coach, you don't actually need a computer and a $400 program to get a similar effect. While Believe is often referred to as the first example of the so-called "Cher Effect," it would seem that the technique is actually centuries old! Peep (starting at the :10 mark of the video):
Perhaps the best example I could find on YouTube is this Travel Channel excerpt on Tuva, unfortunately they've disabled embedding so you have to actually click the link to hear it (wait for the :18 mark of the video).
If any of you are looking for further reading on the Auto-Tune phenomenon, Sasha Frere-Jones had an interesting article about it in the New Yorker this past summer. You can read it over here.
For the fifth installment of Bring Me the Remix of Zilla Rocca, in which Clean Guns emcee Zilla Rocca has been reaching out to his favorite producers to remix tracks from his solo mixtape Bring Me the Head of Zilla Rocca, we've got a track from a producer out of New Jersey, Y?Arcka a.k.a. Young Architect. Like many artists originally from South Jersey, Arcka's moved his base of operations across the border to Philly, a fact that I tried not to hold against him while listening to his offering. More troubling to me than his decision to move out of Jersey, however, was his choice of song to remix, Sunbathing Bitches featuring Mally from the 612, a song that holds something of a special place in the history of this site.
The original S.B. track, which Zilla put out over a year ago before including it as part of his more recent mixtape release, came about after Zilla had heard some of Mally's songs on here. Despite my best efforts to get more unsigned artists to work together, it remains the one and only collaboration to feature two emcees that have been spotlighted on this site. On top of that, it had a great beat put together by Mr. Rocca himself to go along with a typically dope verse from Mally, making it one of my favorite songs of 2007.
It would have been hard to top the original effort, then, but Y?Arcka sidesteps that problem by taking the song in an entirely different direction, lacing the remix with a laid-back ragga-inspired instrumental that stands in stark contrast to its predecessor. Whereas the first version was on an 80's era South Beach vibe, Y?Arcka serves up a version that sounds like it came straight from the shores of Jamaica. I admittedly was hesitant to listen to this one when Zilla first sent it to me, but once I actually did load it onto the iPod, I found it hard to deny that Y?Arcka was a great addition to the series. I've always had a soft spot for songs that mix reggae and hip hop, a combination that, when done right (as Arcka has done here), has just the right blend of melody and boom bap. Guaranteed, after listening to Arck's remix for more than a few seconds you'll be unable to keep your head from nodding along, and you might even find yourself yearning for a spliff. Peep:
"I met Y? Arcka in early '07 and just hated him from the gate! This cat would flip samples that I had been sitting on for years WAAAY better than I could even imagine. He's like the Philly version of Madlib to me -- he'll take a sample and make 7 different beats out of the same joint! Double time, 3/4th time, boom-bap, club...all from the same sample. He's a virtuoso, yo. It's really a matter of time before this dude becomes a household name.
He dropped his instrumental album "The Un-Herd Vol 1" on Ropeadope Digital earlier this year and I really wanted to get some new shit from the kid for this project as he's got a track on my album "Fall Back Friday." Arcka will tell you (as he told me several times) he's not big on remixes, but he did an outstanding job on this track. Mally sounds right at home on this new beat and Arcka took the island/reggae vibe and added more headnoddage then I ever could."
As always, for comparison's sake here's the original version of Sunbathing Bitches:
You can hear a few more cuts from Y?Arcka over on his Myspace page. To be honest, though, you should really check out his album The Un-Herd Vol 1 if you want to hear what he's capable of putting together as a producer. All of the tracks from that album can be previewed over here (or, alternatively, you can load them through imeem). I started listening to it yesterday, and have been thoroughly impressed with it thus far.
What's that? You say you still haven't picked up a copy of Zilla's mixtape Bring Me the Head of Zilla Rocca? What have you been waiting for? Here's a sendspace link to d/l it for free.
KD: He was there man, off the top of the dome. He had some key words written down to help him go off words but I don't think that took any more than [a few] minutes. If you know Walz in NYC, well, people heard of it, everyone sorta smirked because they knew that's something he would do sooner or later.
KD: Proceeds of our album also go to the 
KD: Honestly I wish major labels aren't controlling the game right now. They are referring to 
