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Over the Memorial Day weekend, Baltimore emcee The Black Sunn released his latest album, Born Alone, Die Alone, featuring production done exclusively by Mydus. For a variety of reasons, it took me a while to get around to putting it up on the site (apologies, my dude) but don't take my delay in posting as any indication of the album's quality. As I've been saying over the past few months, the music that Black Sunn and his partner in rhyme 810 have been passing along has forced me to reconsider Baltimore as an area worth checking for in hip hop.
In describing the motivation behind this project, Sunn said, "I want to show the world that Baltimore has a voice that's more than just drug dealing and murder." True to his word, he details a side of Baltimore that's been largely neglected by recent pop culture. With a viewpoint that's far more optimistic than the street tales of The Wire, described with lyrics significantly more diverse and substantial than what Bmore Club has offered, the album seems to have emerged out of somewhere far removed from the "Bodymore, Murderland" area that recent rap has glorified. Not to say that every song on here is upbeat, just that the problems that Sunn deals with - breakups, thoughts of suicide, debt from college and yes, even brief considerations of drug dealing - are far more relatable than, say, shooutouts with Stringer and Omar.
Born Alone, Die Alone is a joint effort between emcee and producer, however, and I would be remiss if I didn't take a moment to credit Mydus with yet another stellar effort behind the boards. If you've heard any of the previous songs we've featured from the Miami producer in the past, you should know what to expect: sample heavy beats that harken bark to that brief, golden era in hip hop when producers were more concerned with the music than the cost of covering royalties. Mydus is as good at flipping a sample as anyone in the game right now, incorporating old vocals without overworking them as many producers who have come after Alchemist and Kanye have a habit of doing.
Two of the better tracks off of Born Alone, Die Alone:
The Black Sunn and Mydus - Every Need (featuring Black Diamond) (d/l link)
The Black Sunn and Mydus - The Right Feeling (d/l link)
And as a bonus, here's an instrumental interlude from the album:
Mydus - I Wanna Go Outside (d/l link)
I'd have no problem telling you to go out and buy Born Alone, Die Alone, but the album is actually available for free, so go cop it! Here's the link to download it (zShare).
Further Listening:
The Black Sunn on Myspace
Mydus on MySpace
06/3/2009 08:30:01 PM posted by Fresh