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If you don’t have any of the recent releases featured below, your local hiphop collection is incomplete.
Wade
Orthros Pura
Lightsleepers
Orthros Pura is the solo release from Wade of the Nomasterbacks crew, part of the Lightsleepers family of hiphop disciples. The entire album, which is Greek for “early morning fire,” is well-executed, from the production to the packaging to the cover art by Aaron Yoshino. Crisp, playful, occasionally funky tracks back Wade as he delivers rapid-fire salvos of positive wisdom. I want to call it testimonial rap, but it may be doing the album a disservice to slap a new label on it. Temptation, righteousness and love are favorite topics and one track is literally a preacher preaching for two minutes. But hiphop is hiphop and even divinely inspired beats and rhymes have to be tight, and this is. The album also boasts the standout track “Upperoom Melody” and the best local posse cut we’ve seen in a while, “Creature of Habit” featuring Staplemouth, Ghesol, Omega6, Joe Dub and Topik.
Creed Chameleon
Defy
self-released
Creed Chameleon of the Direct Descendants crew has one of the most charismatic deliveries on the underground scene. Two years in the making, the songs on his album “Defy” veer from hard-hitting (“Overtake”) to introspective (“Apart”) to fun-lovingly ironic (“Young Girls”), with varying degrees of impact. Production is handled almost entirely by Old Joseph a.k.a. Joe Dub, a dynamic presence from the Bay Area now married to a local girl. Creed’s Direct Descendant cohorts show up on a couple tracks, but for the most part, this is his solo and he’s very much doing his thing. Physically, the CD is a half-step above home-made and the volume level is not 100% consistent, but “Defy” is enjoyably multi-faceted.
Flip the Bird
Mixtape Volume one: Time Zones
By far the most prominent hiphop movement in Hawaii is Flip the Bird Entertainment. They’ve released two mix CDs since the 2003 release of Emirc’s nationally recognized “Rhyme and Punishment” LP. Mix CDs, often still called mixtapes, these days means: a DJ takes a bunch of hot songs, includes some rare or upcoming releases, shouts out all the crews involved and pushes the featured artist(s). Time Zones is more conceptual, with DJs from four time zones taking over a quarter of the album each, dropping music from Kanye West and 50 Cent to the underground banger you needed to hear. Four or five tracks are devoted to Hawaii-affiliated artists, including must-haves like Microscopic Syllables w/Todd G.
Flip the Bird
Bigger Problems w/DJ Minh1 feat. Emirc
In the case of Bigger Problems former KTUH/Radio Free DJ Minh1, who has been doing radio in NYC for over 10 years, selects hard-hitting artists that don’t get heard enough, like Ras Kass and Smif & Wesson feat. Talib Kweli (heat!), then he peppers the mix with freestyles by the hometown hero, Emirc. Both mix releases are highly collectable, snapshots that are local and national.
Audible Lab Rats
The Balikbayan Project
Tektonic Productions, 2004
This album came out last year, but I’m including it here because like many, I slept on the Audible Lab Rats—DJ Skid and emcees S.T.U. and Nomadd. The dj element of hiphop maintains prominence on the otherwise unfocused Balikbayan Project through DJ Skid, a battle-honed turntable champion and club dj, who’s scratches and presence add flair throughout. The beats and instrumentals, credited to the group, sound nice for the most part. The 19-track album runs a bit long, but it is a significant step in the evolution of the local scene.
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