Sylle Struck Interview in Bop Gunn

 

Sylle Struck recently spoke to Bop Gunn on his upbringing in the thriving Odense hip hop scene, his recent work in Boston making Boston Diaries for Digital Monk Soundsystem, and linking up with the Greased Up Records crew, among other things. He also leaked a track, the second preview from his upcoming DMSS release we’ve heard so far – a work in progress of his track “All Day” with Boston emcee Backdraft.

Check out the whole interview here. Or, for the lazy kids, skip to the part about Boston Diaries below:

We’ve been blessed having a bunch of those cats visit us in cold Denmark. Your style of beats (or some of the styles you fuck with) is screaming for emcees to jump on. How come you aren’t fucking around with some rap shit yet?

Actually I did. In October 2012 I was touring with Danish home girl MØ in New York at the CMJ festival, which gave me a chance to hook up with my boy Gasoline Monk in Boston. I was supposed to spend 5 days with him, but it ended up being 12 because of the storm that fucked up New York. Anyway, he knew I was going, so he had set up a meeting with one of the local rappers that he’s been working with. A few days went on, we chilled and had a good time, and while this was happening the talk of the town is that “this white kid from Denmark is at Brandon’s crib with some 40 dope beats and a setup to record…”
Boom! 7 rappers through the week. I recorded 10-12 tracks for my new EP, album, compilation, mixtape or whatever it’s going to be. That was dope as fuck. I had some crazy moments and a documentary about it all will come within the next few months… These dudes have been through some shit and it really makes you appreciate what you got. This safe little country can seem kind of bland when you meet some of these guys out here who’ve been living on the streets, hooked on crack for 20 years. That’s deep.

DMSS #17 Presented By Two Beers

Two Beers, a filmmaker from Boston and walking-breathing encyclopedia of hip hop, collabs with his (actual) brother Gasoline Monk on this mixtape of hip hop classics. These tracks from the golden era of emceeing remind us how far a lot of rappers today have strayed from the soul of the music. From ODB to Slick Rick to Masta Ace to Nas, there’s only one rule to this mix – bring the dope rhymes!

TRACK LIST

Masta Ace – “Slaughtahouse (Death Mix)”
Channel Live – “Down Goes The Devil”
Lost Boyz – “Keep It Real”
House Of Pain – “Back From The Dead”
K.M.D. – “Cont_CT Blitt…”
The Beatnuts – “Dawn Of The Dead”
Beastie Boys – “Unite”
Crooklyn Dodgers – “Crooklyn”
Gravediggaz – “Defective Trip (Trippin)”
Brand Nubian – “Slow Down”
Ugly Ducklings – “Einstein’s Takin Off”
Craig Mack – “Get Down”
Ol Dirty Bastard – “Brooklyn Zoo”
Real Live – “The Gimmicks”
Nas – “Halftime”
Slick Rick – “Sittin In My Car”

Two Madlib Interviews

If you know anything about Digital Monk Soundsystem, you know Madlib is one of our main dudes. His fearless pursuit of the unknown is the same journey we embark on. He is also notoriously reclusive, sorta like us (in case you haven’t noticed none of us are the blog-twitter-status update every day type), which is what makes a new Madlib interview so eventful. This interview in Electronic Beats was conducted by Thomas Fehlmann of The Orb and other experimental electronic music projects, and the conversation ranges from krautrock to Yesterday’s New Quintet to Madlib just beginning to use the internet – which isn’t for keeping up on the times as much as tipping him off on his next record store hunt, since he’s got “so much old stuff to discover I don’t know when I’ll have time to get to the new stuff.” & we’d love to hear one of those unreleased Madlib synthesizer records!

This made us go back to Madlib’s 2009 interview in Wire, and thankfully magazine scans were posted up on 12 oz. Prophet. Read those below:

Rob Nova & Gasoline Monk’s Top 5 Albums of 2012 in Trainwreck’d Society

Rob Nova & Gasoline Monk were recently asked to be part of the group of musicians, artists, actors & writers Trainwreck’d Society rounded up for their Best of 2012 feature. The reactions are pretty diverse – no title shows up on more than 3 or 4 of the contributor’s lists. Kendrick Lamar‘s major label debut resonated with a handful, as did Nas‘ Life Is Good. But we were surprised to see Nova & Monk were the only two to mention Flying Lotus‘ incredible latest release, Until The Quiet Comes. But we aren’t strangers to being different.

Read the whole feature here, and check out our artists’ responses here:

ROB NOVA

KENDRICK LAMAR – good kid, m.A.A.d. city
FLYING LOTUS – Until The Quiet Comes
THE WEEKEND – Trilogy
KILLER MIKE – R.A.P. Music
JJ DOOM – Key To The Kuffs

GASOLINE MONK

FLYING LOTUS – Until The Quiet Comes
SHATTER HANDS – Land Fly
KARRIEM RIGGINS – Alone Together
ROBERT GLASPER EXPERIMENT – Black Radio
NAS – Life Is Good

B’s & 3’s Top 25 Boston Hip Hop Albums of 2012

Boston hip hop blog B’s & 3’s were thorough in this Best Of list, even noting beyond the Top 25 great local releases like African Man Born‘s last two albums and Notoriety‘s Road Trippin’, Kool-Aid Sippin’, Chicken, Beef Patties, And Herb. We were glad to see Retrospek at the top – they’re definitely one of Boston’s most original acts,very left field. If 2011 was the year of Boston legends (Edo G, Reks & Statik Selektah were only a few of the dudes who dropped major albums), 2012’s been the year of the underground – the city’s full of vibrant artists who’re, in a lot of cases, just getting started blowing up out of the local Boston scene. Keep tabs!

& check out a video from the winner, Retrospek –

Digital Monk T-Shirts Now Available

The Digital Monk Soundsystem t-shirts are finally in – order them here.

About time we put Dirtywork‘s beautiful art on something you can wear. Big shout out to Skurvy Ink, who made this possible – they’ve been doing shirts for Bizarro writers for a minute now. In fact, the DMSS-Skurvy connection originates with Gasoline Monk‘s publisher, Swallowdown Press (yes, Gas Monk’s written novels, under the name Forrest Armstrong). Art 24/7 over in these parts.

Noyz Denali – “Book Of Kings” (Prod. by SixFire)

 

Huge shoutout to our homie Noyz Denali, a good friend of Digital Monk Soundsystem and a member of Powerplant along with Rob Nova & Mavz (and others – although they don’t all appear on the upcoming DMSS album Magnificent Wind, Powerplant family runs deep). Noyz just released this new single on Brain Kave, the first new material we’ve heard from him in a while. Just in time too, because 2013 promises to be a packed year for him – in addition to Magnificent Wind he’s got a project in the works with Gasoline Monk called Cocoa Butter, and one with production from Rob Nova called Vintage Bottles that sounds like it’s gonna be something like Blade Runner in audio form. Which is fitting, because Noyz is truly one of the most gifted futuristic-street poets you’ve ever heard. As a matter of fact, Aggro Rag recently asked to publish some of his lyrics by themselves. Doesn’t seem like anybody’s asking 2 Chainz for that.

By the way, check for Brain Kave in this upcoming year – a lot of DMSS artists do some work over there too. Rob Nova’s got an amazing single coming Early 2013 through them called “The Wraith”.

 

Studio Footage From Czarface (7L x Esoteric x Inspectah Deck)

It’s been almost a year since we heard rumors of this album brewing up. Now they’ve set a release date – 2/19, less than two months away. 7L & Esoteric are longstanding trailblazers in Boston hip hop, with 7L’s production providing some of the most reliable echoes of the golden era in the city and Esoteric’s high-intensity delivery bringing the velocity. Their collabo list reads like a who’s who in Beantown hip hop – Edo G, Reks, Akrobatik, Big Shug, etc… in fact the last place we saw Eso was at the mixtape release party of two local Boston DJs, DJ Reel Drama & DJ On & On – Akrobatik and him were judging a blunt rolling contest.

They teamed up with Inspectah Deck back on their 2001 debut release, The Soul Purpose, on “Speaking Real Words”. So it shouldn’t come as any surprise to old fans of theirs that there’s enough chemistry between these 3 artists to build something bigger. The results should definitely kick 2013 off right. Watch a clip of them in the studio to see where they’re headed now:

Blogged via 808 Crate – been loving this blog lately.

Karriem Riggins’ Tripped-Out Video[s]

The “s” is in these things [ ] because the 2nd video is not really tripped-out, but it does go to quite possibly the best song on the album, “Summer Madness S.A.” If you haven’t checked out Alone Together, the album Karriem Riggins just released on Stones Throw, do so immediately – he’s one of the most talented musicians we’ve heard in ages, capable of anything from playing drums for jazz artist Diana Krall to making beats for Common, Erykah Badu, Slum Village and more. He fits right in with a roster of talent that includes Madlib, J Dilla, MF Doom & Jonwayne. 

It seems like he’s been one of hip hop/neo-soul/jazz’s best kept secrets for a while now, but with his debut solo album being as good as it is and videos like this first one here sending a quite strong “wake-the-fuck-up” message, that’s probably gonna be changing soon.

 

 

& here’s a bonus video: the Karriem Riggins Quartet doing their true jazz thing.

Edo G Talks Boston Hip Hop’s History

Edo G is, in our eyes, the longstanding king of Boston hip hop. This is no disrespect to the great late Guru (R.I.P.), but Gang Starr stood as very much a New York group, despite neither of its members being from the state. Edo’s always been carrying the Boston torch… beginning in 1991 with his breakout hit “Be A Father To Your Child” and maintaining strong as recently as last year, when he released A Face In The Crowd. He held it down with Public Enemy in Cambridge a couple weeks ago and it’s not uncommon to find him hosting a freestyle competition or surprise-featuring during a set of his homeboys (like Slaine or Jaysaun, his partners in crime with Special Teamz). All this makes him very qualified to educate, and that’s exactly what he does in the video above. Watch, learn, and if you’re from Boston, glow with pride.

[Note: It does feel wrong to talk about the king of Boston without at least mentioning Reks. Reks will probably carry the torch in the next decade – and Slaine never disappoints either.]

[Blogged via The Reel Ace]