Though Rhymesayers have been putting out consistently solid albums for years now, it wasn't until Mally first hit me up with his debut a couple of years ago that I became convinced that Minnesota was going to be one of the next regions to make some serious noise in hip hop. I'm still waiting for Minnesota's comeup, but a new posse cut (actually the song is six months old but it recently has resurfaced on numerous blogs) from the MN Boyz - Velle Vell, Saint Paul Slim, Selfish, Dante Pedro, Trigga B, Sick and Livewire - is a sign that there might be a few more artists out there that can help Mally and the Rhymesayers crew carry their state to mainstream relevancy.
I'm not quite buying into the hype that all of these dudes killed it, and admittedly there's a lot going against the song: it's hard to take any rapper not named Brother Ali seriously if they claim to run Minnesota, the beat is strangely reminiscent of MIMS, and seven rappers on the track is probably two too many. Yet despite all of that, I can't deny that this song knocks and I've been playing it constantly since the homie Weiss put me up on it last week. The video, shot by Chancellor tha Great, is pretty good, too.
Speaking of Minnesota posse cuts, illcuts recently threw up an old track featuring Atmosphere, St. Paul Slim, Muja Messiah, YZ, Brother Ali, Toki Wright and Blueprint. The song, Crewed Up, is off of Atmosphere's free album from 2007, Strictly Leakage (direct link to .zip):
To finish off the Minnesota triple play, we've got a new song from Max Haben, who you might remember from last year's collaboration with Mally on Ghost Town. This freestyle, over the beat from Brother Ali's Us, is off of Haben's upcoming mixtape that's due out sometime in early 2010. Peep:
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