"You've Been There": On the new album Elysian from Bronze Nazareth & Kevlaar 7 (RIP)

Ubi sunt - this Latin phrase meaning "Where are they?" was often used as an opening in medieval poems on mortality which sought to ask, where are they who have passed? Questioning the fate of those who had such a strong presence but have now left, and what becomes of the mighty kings, the strong, the beautiful? Where have they gone? that profound question seems embodied in the title of this album, Elysian alluding to the afterlife Elysian Fields of Greek mythology, but also the word is an adjective, the atmosphere of this record is elysian in that it's a posthumous work communing with the realm of the dead. Elysian finds Bronze Nazareth on the mic, with his late brother Kevlaar 7 providing the soundscape. The emotional core of the album is the track "You've Been There" which is a response to that question, where are they? met with the realization that you've been there the whole time. 

album cover for Elysian (2026) by Bronze Nazareth & Kevlaar 7 (RIP)

The new album from Bronze Nazareth, Elysian, is fully produced by his brother, the late Kevlaar 7 who passed away in December 2014 from a rare blood disorder. Since the early days of this website you're reading, we've been posting about the music of Bronze and Kevlaar. Back in 2010 upon the release of their group the Wisemen's second album, Children of a Lesser God, I interviewed the two brothers. Last summer, I spent some time with Bronze at his studio in Detroit. This was right after he dropped an album produced by longtime friend Apollo Brown, called Funeral for a Dream. In fact, Bronze, Apollo Brown, and Kevlaar 7 used to all be roommates in Detroit for some time, all three of them honing their craft as hip hop producers making beats under the same roof. 

We talked about the inspiration, ideas, meaning behind each track on the album Funeral for a Dream, how much goes into a Bronze track, or a verse, or just one line. He's got a way of writing that inspires one to want to step up their writing craft. Spending time with Bronze the person, I was curious where he got his artistic gift from. He's a prolific artist who's been putting out genuine gritty blues/Motown-infused rap music for over 20 years now, including but not limited to his work as an official Wu-Tang affiliate in collabs with virtually the entire Wu-Tang family. He mentioned how he got his determined work ethic from his dad, and his artistic gift comes from his mom. (I was reminded of a line from Kevlaar who once rapped, "father was militant, mother was vigilant/ peace-maker, the Beatles she favored.") He talked about the song "Lavender" from the Funeral for a Dream album produced by Apollo, and how that song was dedicated to his mom and the inspiration she gave him, as she makes art and had always been an artist who painted with intricate details and designs in her craft. Also in talking about his family, he discussed the impact of losing his brother, who was his musical collaborator from their earliest days, even originally introducing Bronze to hip hop when they were young. I saw the mic booth in the studio, with a picture of Kev in his youth perched above the mic. Kevlaar was a leader in their group the Wisemen, the oldest member in their crew, and also a cherished son, and Bronze talked about the shared grief with his family upon having Kev taken away from them. He only had one sibling, his parents have two sons, so when Bronze on "You've Been There" laments that, "Mom and pop go, I'm alone, my blood curdles" with extra affect added, it's that sense of existential dread, after his parents go, he'll be the last one left from his family, having lost his brother. Then in the next line, "She told me, look for the Cardinals" is his mom's suggestion. The saying is usually something like: "When a cardinal appears, a loved one is near." And butterflies carry a similar feeling: "A butterfly landing near you is a soul stopping by."

Listen to the track "You've Been There":

He told me a story about how his mom, a light-hearted and creative person with a tendency to interpret signs in the simple things in life, how she would tell him, when he was missing Kev the most, to look for cardinals or look for butterflies, as they can be a sign that a departed loved one is nearby. Bronze would brush it off, or be like yea sure mom, until he actually did encounter a cardinal in a moment when he needed a sign, or a monarch butterfly appeared when he was wondering if Kev was nearby. Then Bronze played this new song from his upcoming album Elysian, called "You've Been There." He was proud of this track and played it over again a few times, pausing and isolating parts of it to break down its message and what it meant to him. That was the part of that day that stuck with me the most.

This song "You've Been There" is Bronze writing about his older brother Kevlaar more than a decade after he passed, having continued on with his life and career, rocked shows across the globe, ups and downs with the Wisemen group after losing Kev, and raising a family. While thru it all, still feeling that void of the loss of his brother. When looking at the broader sweep of his career path, Bronze pointed out how he went thru a seven-year period of silence after Kev passed, he couldn't write an album anymore from 2014 to 2021, seven years in the desert. He broke out of that quiet period with a trilogy of albums starting in 2021 with Bundle Raps, then Ekphrasis, and If You're Worried You Should Be. Each album features a song that pays homage to Kevlaar in some way. With Elysian it's a full album collaboration with Kevlaar. "You've Been There" is the heartbeat, the soundtrack of looking for a sign, even the slightest glimmer in the phenomena of life that Kev is out there somewhere.

As Bronze once rapped about Kev, "So if you hear me…send a note!" in the song "Heart Full of Misery"—desperate for a sign, an epiphany from the beyond. On "You've Been There" with its heartfelt sung chorus by Antonia Marquee singing "I could never see it happen through my cluttered eye," it's that his eyes are too cluttered with tears and a lack of faith to be able to see a sign of something he could not believe (see this wrestling with faith on the tracks "Somebody better help me with my faith" and "I don't need my faith" off the Instrumental Mourning album from Bronze, released in 2016). The song "Meeting in the Clouds" (off the Funeral for a Dream album), also about Kevlaar, further adds to this context of what Bronze was going through during this time, where he rapped: "Honestly, y'all, I just hopеd I saw a glimpse/ A flicker from a plane I could channеl in a pinch…My grind kept me grounded when my faith couldn't swim" and then "Honestly, my dog, I'm just scrambling for a sign/ A shimmer in the dark I could channel into rhyme."

In "You've Been There", Bronze's initial response to his mom's advice of "Look for the cardinals" is "I'm not concerned tho/ cause superstition just don’t fit into/ my brain's journal." He was unable to take these sayings with any kind of seriousness, but his mom is a person with spirit and levity and repeatedly insisted: the lyric in verse two goes, "Mom said butterflies is them giving a visit/ but superstition isn't enough to pique my interest." Skeptical, laughing it off, you can hear him on the song say, "Shit's crazy, but maybe." The lyric ending the first verse says "I doubt Allah would send a bird thru, then it occurred, one flew around my porch in a circle." The emphasis on "then it occurred" feels powerful here. It really did happen to him, that kind of breakthrough to the subjective world of a meaningful connection to the numinous quality underlying the objective world, spoken in something so small as a cardinal floating to your porch. 

The patterns and repetitions, symmetry in the verses make for a sound structure underlying the song. Bronze has this knack for structural integrity to his songs, another great example from the Elysian album being the song "Jacob's Ladder" with three verses where the themes and structure parallel across each. On "You've Been There" the second verse structurally parallels and re-emphasizes the themes of the first one, describing the life he's lived since losing Kev, turning his visions into music that flew him out to Lisbon moving crowds, continuing to master the art form of rap, at work in the kitchen "seasoning my vision." Killing it with such precision, "the shell case it went missing." Both verses deploy metaphors of birds or butterflies. Through it all though, he's always instinctually looking for Kev, wishing he could just see his brother smile once more, "cheesing even for an intermission" and then as he ponders whether Kev has been there the whole time, watching as his kids grow up and graduate, he gets a visit from a monarch butterfly. "They graduate, you watch from inches? / huh, I doubt that heaven sent us insects/ what's next a monarch landed on my window inlet." 

The album Elysian has a number of reprisal songs for example the track "All I could do (I'm Open 2)" is a sequel, being Bronze's take on a notable Kevlaar track "I'm Open", and then the song "Kevlaar 2" melody and mood returns to the interlude track "Kevlaar" off the Ekphrasis album (a track cited as a favorite in the Hip Hop is History book by Questlove), and to my ears "You've Been There" with its composite emotional weight, the singer's evocative vocals on the chorus, and positioning on the album it feels like a return to, or a sort of redemptive reprisal of the heavy grief track, "Heart Full of Misery" off Bronze's 2022 album If You're Worried You Should Be. That song had featured Bronze's daughter singing the chorus, while here on the Elysian album right after "You've Been There" (amplified by the vocals of singer Antonia Marquee on the chorus) the next track introduces Kevlaar's son Solomon rapping as So7o or Solo 7. Kevlaar was a deep thinker and writer who often rhymed about return and resurrection, "That's life, we'll only live it twice" he said once, so it's very satisfying to hear Kevlaar return to shine on this album thru his production (and a brief speaking appearance at the end of "Kevlaar 2"). 

Thinking about the different songs Bronze has dedicated to Kev over the years, how the song "Heart Full of Misery" (2022) is the raw grief and mourning, then "Survivor's Vow" (2021) is the promise to live it up for Kev, and "Meeting in the Clouds" (2025) imagines talking with Kev in dreams and in paradise, and then "You've Been There" (2026) actually feels redemptive, even triumphant, with the realization that his brother is, in some way via the music he made and thru the subtle mysteries of reality, Kev is always there. Listen close to the beat and you'll hear the sample saying "You've been there" weaved in. The whole album though it is elegiac and elysian as the title says, it also feels triumphant throughout, a celebration of the artist K7 otherwise known as King Perfect, thru manifesting his beats into triumphant songs, the best example of this might be on "House of Legends" with Salute da Kidd.

Go listen to this album, it's a serious work of art in Motown blues-infused lyrical hip hop form, then pair this with another posthumous collab between these two brothers, the 2016 album A Beautiful Soul, with Kevlaar rapping over Bronze beats. It was the RZA who spoke at the "Sunset" outro of that album, discussing how Kev, just like Ason Unique, lives on through his music and how it's a blessing that we get to experience and enjoy him thru his art. 

Three Interviews with Master Craftsmen on the Art of Hip Hop

Producer Madlib recently appeared on BBC Radio 6 for a lengthy convo with Gilles Peterson, talking about his friendship with MF DOOM, his latest album Sound Ancestors, his crate-digging exploits, his love of Sun Ra and spiritual jazz music, and Madlib even played a bunch of records on the show. 

Producer/emcee Bronze Nazareth appeared on the podcast From the Desk of Lo for an in-depth interview detailing his whole background as a musician, how he linked up with the Wu-Tang Clan, stories of staying with RZA while working on Birth of a Prince, how he heard tons of unreleased Wu material from the early-2000s, growing up with his longtime friend Apollo Brown, and plenty of other interesting stuff here that I have never heard him discuss with this level of detail. They even get into the million-dollar Wu album which Bronze had some music on. Interviewer does a great job asking informed questions. (At the end of the interview Bronze mentions a book project I have been working on with him. It's progressing toward final stages now and I'm excited to get it out to the world soon.)

SkillastratorLO aka Sunez interviewed underground emcee Rome Streetz on the Power Write Show podcast. Sunez is perhaps the most in-depth, insightful, and knowledgeable journalist writing about hip hop these days and his interviews with artists are always intriguing. In this talk they get into a level of detail on the writing of rap lyrics that you rarely hear in artist interviews. I especially dug the discussion of writing in a "concentrated" style, embedding so much meaning and interconnectedness in rhymes that it takes the listener several listens to catch on. They talk about the new album Rome Streetz made with DJ Muggs, the intricacies of Rome's writing process, what it's like to work with a legend like DJ Muggs, how Rome's music fits into and outside of the underground rap genre, how his approach differs from other rap artists, etc. Real informative discussion here.

Album Reviews: Pandemic Era Rap Elixirs Curated

"Ghost Hammurabi" is a new track from Killah Priest, it also feels like the latest installment of the style heard throughout Priest's 2020 project Rocket to Nebula, with a drum-less beat and mesmerizing, evolving tempos overridden by rapid-fire lyricism evoking epic, cosmic scales. It's a track that might take some getting used to, or it might speak to you instantly. For me it was the latter. So it seems like a good way to start off this assemblage of reflections on my favorite rap albums from the past year. 

These are short reviews of some favorite albums from this pandemic era, last year and into 2021. Not exactly trying to provide objective criticism or a ranking of best albums, just giving my opinion on the albums that brought me excitement, enjoyment, or inspiration during the pandemic year. Not listed in any particular order, this is a curated list of rap elixirs I've been soaking in with thoughts on the merits of each. 

New article: "The Interstellar Corridors of Killah Priest's Rocket to Nebula"

My new album review was just published at Hip Hop Golden Age, the piece is called "The Interstellar Corridors of Killah Priest's Rocket to Nebula." Check it out HERE.

The Interstellar Corridors of Killah Priest's Rocket to Nebula

"Welcome to the Nebula, where the impossible is regular"

Killah Priest has been among my favorite artists for over 20 years now and, as I talk about at length in the review, he deserves accolades for continuing to grow and improve as an artist. Priest is most well known for his classic features on Wu-Tang Clan tracks, his affiliated Killa Beez group Sunz of Man, and his solo debut album from 1998, Heavy Mental. But, as I've written about on this blog before, Priest advanced his visual rhyming style and deepened his already encyclopedic content on albums like The Psychic World of Walter Reed (2013) and Planet of the Gods (2015) and has been dropping tons of new material the past several years. His second new album that dropped in 2020 is Rocket to Nebula, an hour-long spoken-word poetry cosmic trip, unlike any other rap album you'll hear. It's a cosmic journey to the farthest reaches of inner space, from the mind of a brilliant emcee who dwells often on metaphysics and mysticism. 

While Rocket to Nebula is loaded with esoteric subjects, celestial imagery, and occult magic and mysticism, it also continually returns to everyday reality of human life on earth. The poetic descriptions of some of the simple pleasures in life hit the listener differently during a time of pandemic and quarantine. And the cosmic journeys to imaginative utopias described in visual lyricism are stimulating for the mind. As I mention in the article, "Priest has occupied the role of shaman of the Wu tribe for many years now, but it’s good and well-timed to hear him fully embrace it for a full album." 

Here is the track "Digital Ghost" from Rocket to Nebula:

And here is a new track from Priest from an upcoming album, I'm really digging this one, it's called "Manuka Honey":

Article at "Hip Hop Golden Age"

Last month I had an article posted at the Hip Hop Golden Age website "Who Got the Camera? by Kevlaar 7 & Bronze Nazareth: A Lyrical Breakdown" which takes a close look at two verses from the title track of the late Kevlaar 7's album Who Got the Camera? from 2011. As I have written about a few times before, that album was loaded with messages exposing social injustices and it came forth as an outcry against police brutality and racial violence. As Ari Melber talked about in a recent segment that aligns in some ways with my piece, this is a topic that rappers have made music about for years and since they were exposing what is now a widely accepted truth some of them deserve Pulitzers. Kevlaar 7 passed away on December 23, 2014. The reality of present day racism and its historical roots was always a major theme in his music. He explicitly came to warn us all but he knew he was also ahead of his time, as he put it on the opening track to the Wisemen album Children of a Lesser God, "It's too early, truth is dirty."

Kevlaar 7 (RIP)

Just like his brother Bronze Nazareth, Kevlaar was a brilliant lyricist (and a great producer too) and these two came together on this song to deliver a poetic exposé documenting the ongoing atrocities of racial violence in America. Now that these issues are front and center in American life in 2020, so many of us have been compelled to try to learn more about these issues, seek out knowledge and read more history. American history is so often presented in a way that tries to conceal the bad stuff, but we need to face it if we will ever be able to overcome its painfulness. Bronze and Kevlaar wrote about this history and its present manifestations in their verses often, although rarely as concentrated and focused as on this track. This article I shared is actually an excerpt from a book I've been working on for several years where I try to unpack, interpret, and expand on many verses from Bronze. That book also includes another song he did with Kevlaar devoted to bringing this same topic to light. We are living through a sudden awakening now and it is helpful as ever to glean historical facts and information from the poetics of tuned-in rappers writing about Black America for those of us who want to see what's been going on and try to envision a better future. 

"Pandora" (1898) by John William Waterhouse

Pandora (1898) by John William Waterhouse

"Mouth of a River" by Preservation ft Michelle Siu

Looking Back on 2019 (Part 3)

Street art seen in Mexico City, June 2019.

A little delayed in sharing this final look back at some of the things I liked about 2019, but that gave me time to properly soak in the music that dropped later in the year. As always with this blog, my favorite new albums came out of the realm of hip hop in its purest and grimiest form.

We are now nearly a quarter century past the golden era of hip hop and the art form remains alive with a slew of newer artists arising to bring fresh blood and new approaches to a musical tradition whose forefathers they seem to not only respect but spiritually summon and pay homage to. Some established rap gods have also helped bring along the new artists. These phenomena were reflected in some of the albums and artists I dug in 2019. Here are, in no particular order, my favorite albums from last year with a few words about each.

Looking Back on 2019 (Part 1)

Aztec Sun Stone seen at the National Anthropology Museum in Mexico City.

The year 2019 will probably be one I always look back on as an important year in my life. While it was an extremely busy period where my work life expanded significantly and bled its way into my personal life, complex projects keeping me up nights and perplexing me on weekends trying to solve tech company conundrums, I also managed to make time to surf the waves of my passionate interests to new heights. The peak of the latter was an adventure in Mexico City where I delivered a lecture at an international literary conference (the fourth country and fifth university where I've got to share my work as an independent scholar) and visited the Avenue of the Dead in Teotihuacan. I also got to contribute to some meaningful projects, had my first piece to appear in a book (link below), made a bit of income from literary work, and opened up new avenues for 2020.

In 2019 we also got a puppy---a sweet, playful, and loyal pit-shepherd mix who has transformed my life. I'd never had a pet before, ever. Growing up, my parents hated animals. My dad only refers to dogs as "shit machines." But I've always loved dogs. Our little tank boy ROA (named after my lady's favorite street artist) is a rescue we got this past September when he was 5 months old. He's huge and he has been a handful but he's kept me grounded and brought me an abundance of joy. Dogs are the best. A new thing I've learned is that one of the most peaceful feelings in life comes from simply laying on the couch at night after a busy day and watching tv with a puppy sleeping by you. For anyone paying attention to the news in 2019, the world is sort of in shambles right now, and for people like me who dive headlong into the news for weeks at a time it can get depressing and heavy. A big, energetic, playful and sweet puppy is a perfect antidote to that. Now that I have a dog I feel like dogs are essential, that dogs belong with humans and vice versa. They're not just loving and loyal and protective and playful, they're funny. Our boy ROA, when he's super tired he sticks his head under the couch and passes out. Here I'm gonna share a bunch of pics of our new doggy that we adopted this year (his full name is ROA Haymitch Flynndrino, I also call him Tank Boy and Baby Kangaroo), then I will share some lists and expanded thoughts on the stuff I did in 2019.

In Part 1 here I'll discuss the things I wrote and the places I traveled to in 2019. In Part 2, I'll share the list of books I read this year and Part 3 I'll discuss my favorite new albums from 2019.

The Hauntology of The Gold Room by Sadhugold

From the wikipedia page for Hauntology:

A derivation of Derrida's hauntology idea informs a style of 21st-century music exploring ideas related to temporal disjunction, retrofuturism, cultural memory, and the persistence of the past. Hauntology often involves the sampling of older, "spectral" sound sources to evoke deeper cultural memory. Common reference points in hauntological music include vintage analog synthesisers and cassette tapes, library music, old science-fiction and pulp horror programmes (including the soundtracks of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop), musique concrète and found sounds, dub and English psychedelia, and 1970s public informational films. A common element is the foregrounding of the recording surface noise, including the crackle and hiss of vinyl and tape, calling attention to the decaying medium itself.

According to Nature Sounds, the new instrumental album The Gold Room by Sadhugold was "conceived as the score of a prequel to Stanley Kubrick’s classic film The Shining" but it also feels like a perfect embodiment of hauntological music. An instrumental homage to a classic ghost story film that creates a spectral vibe of its own thru dusty, lo-fi analog elements and distorted, mutating melodies that feel like they're emanating out of a haunted jukebox. Or the analog dispatch radio in the office of The Overlook with the call letters KDK12.

I've been very impressed with this album, captivated by Sadhugold's chunky kicks-and-snares and the way he toys with and distorts each beat. Also interesting to me is how this is a straight instrumental record, no vocals at all, not even any kind of clips of voices from The Shining. Through the track titles and the movements of the song, though, Sadhu creates audio spectral visions of the themes of the film. One of the best examples is on "Dull Boy" where the melody, an absolute banger of resonant organ keys, gives the sense of a spiraling descent into madness and chaos, confirmed by the track title referring to that iconic scene of The Shining where Jack Torrance's wife discovers every page he's written says "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."

Kubrick's 1980 film is one of the greatest cinematic puzzles ever devised, a labyrinth with a life of its own, springing forth elaborate subjective interpretations, theories, and homages from creative souls who become allured into its layers. I've gone thru my own phases of obsessing over Kubrick and The Shining and written about it in this space. That film seems inexhaustible, a classic in every respect, and while it has inspired a whole subculture of devotees (including previous attempts at hauntological musical renditions) this new project from Sadhugold was an ambitious idea that he executed with a mastery worthy of the filmmaker he's paying tribute to. The whole album is a banger that can stay on repeat, revealing new ripples and distorted spectral disturbances with each listen.




(Thank you to my friend Angelo for putting me on to that concept of Hauntology, a word combining haunting and ontology.)

(Video) RZA Shares the Wu-Tang Secrets, Takes Us Thru the Martial Arts Film Chamber

Thank you for this, RZA. Thank you, Vanity Fair. Thank you to everyone who made this video happen. One of the coolest Wu-Tang clips you'll ever see.

"Education"

"Education"
Freddie Gibbs ft Yasiin Bey & Black Thought
Produced by Madlib

I'll take Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def) over dusty Madlib beats all day. Black Thought rhyming on a Madlib track sounds fresh too. And the Madlib sounds remains as gloriously lo-fi and cassette tape fuzzy as always. Which reminds me, it seems we've heard less and less from Madlib the last few years. Need to get back to that ten album per year pace he was maintaining for a while. You know he's got the material. 

For the 25th Anniversary of the Almighty Wu-Tang Clan

from here.

Been needing to compile this for a little while. First, I want to share with you a few videos from this past year when the Wu-Tang Clan celebrated the 25th anniversary of their seminal LP, Enter the 36 Chambers (1993). Wu-Tang was all over the place in 2018, these are just a select few vids that stuck out for me. Then I want to briefly share my personal history as a fan of the Wu-Tang Clan starting as a kid growing up in Staten Island in the 90s, when the imprint of Wu and what they stand for became foundational building blocks for the person I have since become.

First, here is an interview with RZA at the Oriental Theater in Milwaukee from last August. RZA gets into some stuff here that I've never really heard him talk about before. Typically in Wu-Tang interviews we hear the same origin stories repeated, whereas here RZA gives some insights on identity and the eclectic array of cultures that combined to form the core elements of Wu-Tang Clan that he doesn't often get into this much detail about. (Side note: this is the first time I've heard him share this amazing factoid: that while all the early Wu-Tang LPs were crafted to sound like movies, ODB's Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version album was made in the vein of a Richard Pryor record.) I often criticize RZA's musical evolution on this blog but I've said it before and I'll say it again: my mind grows when I listen to The Abbott speak.





The Wu-Tang Clan, minus Mef and Ghostface, put on a show for NPR's "Tiny Desk Concert series" in December. It was a thrill to see them perform in this format, ad-libbing, freestyling, taking turns throwing darts, with RZA playing the role of DJ. I wish they'd do this kinda thing more often, it's fresh as could be. Since it's a live show and there are so many members, there's some noticeable discord---especially between Raekwon and RZA who've been on different wavelengths for years now---but Wu-Tang performing live is still one of the greatest shows on earth. I especially love RZA's verse at the end here (19-min mark), a typically scientific-mystic Abbott verse that sounds like a taste of his long-promised album The Cure, delivered over classical orchestra strings. "Wu-Tang is for the kids!"





In October, the entire WTC formed like Voltron for a live performance of their classic single "Protect Ya Neck" on an episode of the Jimmy Kimmel show filmed live at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Howard Gilman Opera House. It's rare to see the full collective come together and perform on a platform like this. Altogether this was a fantastic Wu-Tang showing, not in the least bit sullied by the lame audience clearly not being a typical Wu crowd.




There have been a few attempts at making a Wu-Tang documentary, none of them truly hitting the mark thus far, but this newly announced series on Showtime called "Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men" definitely looks promising. Here's the trailer:




And here's an interview with the director of the new documentary, Sacha Jenkins, who rocks a Mets ballcap and therefore shares not one but two of the greatest loves of my life. This looks like it'll be dope:

*   *   *

(Video) Madlib Meets Ethiopian Legend Ayaléw Mesfin

Madlib meets legendary Ethiopian funk musician Ayaléw Mesfin whose music he has often sampled. The story of Ayaléw Mesfin, his struggles under an oppressive government, his humble appreciation of political asylum in America, and his emotional return to the stage to perform his music years later---there's a lot to appreciate in this 13-minute video. Ayaléw was jailed by an oppressive Communist regime that took over Ethiopia in the 70s. Arrested for distributing his music to the public for free, released only on the terms that he stop making and performing music.

A student of music in all its forms, we witness Madlib meet one of his idols and discuss their respective crafts as well as the harrowing story of what Ayaléw suffered through. Had to post this here as it really resonated and I'm glad to see Madlib showing love to one of the musicians whose work he's inspired by, while shedding light on an obscure artist for the fans.

Album Review: Ghost Files: Bronze Tape

Ghost Files: Bronze Tape (Remixes) - Ghostface Killah & Bronze Nazareth
(released Nov. 30, 2018).

It finally happened: in the year that marked Wu-Tang Clan's 25th anniversary, we were finally blessed with an album from one of the nine generals fully produced by their most talented Wu-Element, Detroit's "hip hop blues" wizard Bronze Nazareth. After a productive decade-and-a-half waiting in the wings of the W---producing or featuring on tracks with virtually the entire Clan* and producing albums for Wu Killa Beez like Dom Pachino (of Killarmy), 60 Second Assassin (Sunz of Man) and Timbo King (Royal Fam)---in 2018, Bronze Nazareth got to design the soundscape for an official Ghostface album. Tony Starks, whose penchant for soul sounds is right in Bronze's wheelhouse. Indeed Bronze, given a chance to take a Ghost album for a spin, roars out the gate in a hail of fire, jetting along curves like a Bugatti, carting a dump truck full of jukeboxes jangling soul sounds over a rocky road of chunky bass and snares. That's the sound of Ghost Files: Bronze Tape. Keeping with the motorcar metaphor, the journey is punctuated by a few brief stoplights featuring dramatic dialogues from dusty old films while soul jams loop quietly in the background. With such heavy presence by the producer deploying cinematic clips and heavily orchestrated bangers, manipulating beats to embellish bars, the overall audio experience conjures classic Wu in a fresh form.

The project began in October with The Lost Tapes, a new album from Ghostface stuffed with notable features and fully produced by talented beatmaker and imposturous internet author, Big Ghost Ltd. Eight weeks later, fans were gifted a special double-edition of remixes to that album, the Bronze Tape (prod. by Bronze) and the Propane Tape (prod. by Agallah). While the Agallah version and the original Big Ghost Ltd version are both solid, in what amounted to a three-sided producer battle to craft the best Ghostface album, the kid from Motown put on a clinic. In this review I want to focus on how the Bronze Tape embodies what sets Bronze apart as a producer and why this record offers promise to diehard Wu-Tang fans hungry for fresh production.

Looking Back on 2018

Mural seen in Antwerp, Belgium June 2018.

Looking back on it, in many respects, 2018 was not a great year for me. Had lots of drama and bullshit in many of my relationships with those close to me. Suffered thru four months in the middle of the year where my across-the-street neighbor descended into a drug-addled psychotic collapse featuring, among other things: angry threats, kidnapping someone's dog, damaging property, going in neighbors' yards, lying down in the middle of a busy street, chasing random cars screaming, and even covering the entire outside of his home with creepy spray-painted screed of lunacy and racist, alt-right garbage. It was daily escalating insanity. This being the heart of heavily-armed Texas, every day it felt like the neighborhood might collapse into a Tarantino scene. Shit was a horror movie for a bit there. Seriously. Mercifully, that bullshit finally ended. He's gone and the whole neighborhood came together, so now we've got cool neighbors as friends.

In 2018 I also worked a lot, at a fairly challenging job, and spent an absurd amount of time commuting in heavy Austin traffic. With all that, it's always refreshing to assemble a piece like this and realize I also made the time to do a lot of the things I love. Writing this reminds me of what an awesome year 2018 was in many ways. I got to deliver lectures on Finnegans Wake at two universities this year, one in Florida, one in Belgium. I got to travel to cool places, read lots of cool books, write some things worth reading, watch good movies, listen to good music, meet cool people. Here's a brief recap of cool stuff experienced in 2018.

Album Review: Orpheus vs. the Sirens by The Hermit and the Recluse (Ka & Animoss)

Orpheus in Hades  (Beronneau, 1897).

"Judging from my cover, each chapter's a revelation" 

- Ka

An emcee who delivers even one artfully arrowed dart or whole song weaved of references from Greek mythology would be worthy of praise. What Brownsville rapper Ka did on my favorite album of 2018, Orpheus vs. the Sirens (a collaboration with producer Animoss under the group name Hermit and the Recluse), deserves accolades of the utmost extreme. This ten-track album must be the closest thing Hip Hop has come to James Joyce's epic novel Ulysses. Whereas Joyce structured the 18 episodes of his modern text Ulysses around the wanderings of Odysseus, the 10 songs of Orpheus vs. the Sirens follow the adventures of Orpheus accompanying the Argonauts on their quest for the Golden Fleece. Notice how the style of the title on the cover of Orpheus vs. the Sirens even resonates with the cover of the American edition of Ulysses, as seen below:

A Brief Note on "Marksmen": the Intricate Lyrical Design of Citizen Ka

Preparatory to an upcoming review of my favorite album of the year thus far, Orpheus vs the Sirens, by the Hermit and the Recluse also known as rapper Ka and producer Animoss (of the Arch Druids), I'd like to briefly make a note on a lyrical tactic from a different song involving these two. The song is "Marksmen" from Roc Marciano's 2017 album Rosebudd's Revenge, featuring Ka on the first verse and production from Animoss.




I love this beat from Animoss, it seems so odd and simple. The distinctive short looped sliver of lightly dribbling guitar string was shrewdly selected out of the original sample "Love Feeling" from Mecki Mark Men, the song title "Marksmen" partly an homage to them. The tiny piece of sound Animoss chose here, and how he deployed it in the beat, fascinates me. Only somebody in a crew with a name like the Arch Druids could have devised this sound.

I've listened to this song frequently the last few months while binging on some of the more recent music from Ka and Roc Marci. The more I've heard this the more things I've noticed in it. The track interests me for a number of reasons. Besides Roc Marci's verse weaved as an array of interlocking musical instrument references, what stands out to me is Ka opening with what seems like a hook over the beat's initial bridge and how he then transitions into the verse. It is that transition from hook into verse and especially the final bars of Ka's verse, that I want to focus on here. There's a fascinating bit of self commentary on the design of the verse itself.

At the end of Ka's verse he says:

"A true verse but too terse
I hope the hook grab em"

and then repeats "I hope the hook grab em."

There's no obvious hook on this track though and certainly the repetition of "I hope the hook grab em" isn't a hook. So what he's referring to here then is the slower delivered set of lines that open the song. Ka rhyming over the beat's precursory windup, beginning of course by saluting the production itself:

"To our production, much destruction for our appetite
With steel fist, if meal missed wasn't for lack of might 
We been binging, we purging dividends with snub nose 
My buds rose, my service citizens..."

I add the ellipsis at the end there because this transitions directly into the first lines of the verse, "My service citizens... Cain and Abel my rapping plight." I believe when Ka mentions he hopes the hook grabbed em he means I hope the listener is drawn to the hook and the clever triple entendre I built there. He draws our attention to it and by doing so gives even another layer of meaning to it.

The first connection that stands out is to the film Citizen Kane, wherefrom the "rosebud" of the album name Rosebudd's Revenge came, with allusion to it in "My bud's rose" and the aural sound of "My service citizens/ Kane." Of course there's also the allusion to the Biblical twins Cain and Abel. And to service citizens cain would be to serve dope to the citizenry, Ka often invokes the economy of crack cocaine cooking and dealing. (Using this last angle then "My buds rose" would also be cooking crack like baking bread, rising yeast.)

So already that quick transition from the final line of the "hook" into the first line of the verse has at least three references:

- Citizen Kane
- Cain and Abel
- Selling crack

He doesn't have to say much in order to invoke these, it's basically all stuffed into one line or one and a half lines. That alone is extremely clever. The creative tactic of directly feeding from the "hook" into the verse, that alone is cool too.

Then to actually make a reference to this "hook" and confirm that the opening is a hook while also explicitly hoping the listener picks up on what he's doing in the hook, you catch the last trick he embedded here: that line "I hope the hook grab em" refers to the hook which hook's right into the word "cane" after all. He hopes to hook you in as with a cane. Or to get citizens hooked on cocaine. Or provide a service to the citizens in the form of cooked verses, an addictive crack of intriguing lyricism.

This little bit of ornate lyrical design, finishing the verse by sending the listener back to the beginning to focus on what he planted there while layering one last bit of meaning onto that part of the song, is just the type of lyrical craftsmanship I've come to associate Ka with. Much as with dudes like DOOM and GZA, Ka is a writer intensely devoted to devising the cleverest turns of phrase, puns, and triple/quadruple entendres with every chance he can get. It is the artful verbal tricks deployed in the hooks throughout his newest album Orpheus vs the Sirens that intrigue me the most about that record. Fitting, then, that I've been so preoccupied with this clever lyrical device from Citizen Ka attempting to pull the listener in with the hook of "Marksmen."

Healing Ingredients for Hard Times

Greek street art from here.

"A middenhide hoard of objects!" 

- Finnegans Wake, p. 19

"To clean and tidy up Matter...

To put back all the things people cluttered up

Because they didn't understand what they were for...

To straighten, like a diligent housekeeper of Reality,

The curtains on the windows of Feeling

And the mats before the doors of Perception...

To sweep the rooms of observation

And to dust off simple ideas...

That's my life, verse by verse."

- Fernando Pessoa (as Alberto Caeiro), 17 September 1914 

(from A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe: Selected Poems, p. 56)

Besides the increasingly entropic, sad and infuriating thunderstorm of drama unfolding daily in the news, my closer circumference has also been racked with scary, turbulent, and unpredictable drama lately. The tension of the times is inescapable, it seems.

Besides the weight of experiencing people close to me fighting life-threatening illnesses, family friends passing away, and cherished friends leaving town, the last few months have featured the misfortune of a nearby neighbor exploding into a dark psychotic and meth-aided breakdown bringing nerve-eroding levels of disturbance and threat to my immediate community. My strong woman is terrified, deeply rattled, and my infuriated Italian Staten Island dude energy is trying to force its way into the situation. Plus it's Texas so the entire neighborhood is armed. Dealing with all of this has been rough.

What's helped me keep my head on straight is regular indulgence in the following ingredients: reading the poetry of Fernando Pessoa, exploring the music of rapper Ka, vibing off daily doses of Fela Kuti or lines from Finnegans Wake, and both watching and playing lots of baseball. Here are some thoughts on all of those.

"Conflicted"

"Conflicted" 

by Ka