While the regular content is slow to arrive I'll hold fort by introducing you to an artist you should really know about already.
Now I know a lot of you are immediately going to be put off by this but O.S.T.R. is Polish, not as in furniture polish but as in from Poland.
So OK you're not going to understand what he's saying unless you speak the language but given the amount of shite that comes out of the mouths of a lot of MC's at the moment then it's not going to be any less of an enlightening experience than listening to them.
Dude has flows and is a joy to listen to most times despite not knowing what the hell he's actually saying.
I was first introduced to him via one of the few international conversations open to outsiders on
rec.music.hip-hop (for those who don't frequent the Usenet home of Hip-Hop... Firstly why not? Secondly, talk of international artists (i.e. not ones from the US) tends to be a discussion limited to those in the country of the artists origin, for example Klashnekoff will get UK heads talking but not Yanks...)
Anyway, in this discussion (which I can't be arsed finding but you could do that easily for yourself if you're that interested) a Polish group called P.O.E. (or Projekt Ostry Emade) were introduced to the group to see what our opinions were. Initially my reaction was fairly lukewarm but there was something there which made me keep listening to the tracks put up for us. This led me to finding the album online and from there I've been hooked.
P.O.E. it was later explained to me, were producer Emade and MC O.S.T.R.
Emade caught my ear, especially after more digging for other work by him (of which there is a fair bit but this post isn't about him), but this was negating the fact that O.S.T.R. was a perfect compliment to the music. Think a similar musical connection as Gangstarr when both members are on form.
All reference to O.S.T.R. tends to mention that he is one of the few Polish MC's to have music training (being that he's a qualified violinist) which always makes me wonder how many MC's from anywhere actually have some music training beyond learnt on the job stuff... But anyway.
How being a violinist has actually helped his career I'm yet to really figure out but with 8 albums in the past 6 years he's clearly got a lot of music to unleash on those of us willing to listen.
This is a hard post to really expand on due to you usually being able to wax lyrical about the content of the MC in questions lyrics but I haven't a friggin clue. The English write ups of his career I can find tend to mention he does have 'social commentary' within his flows but you'll have to take their word for it (if it's any reassurance a track on his new album, HollyŁódź, is called 'Daj Mi Prace' (translated to 'Give me a Job', which given the nature of European Hip-Hop does tend to confirm the presence of 'social commentary', well it does to me!)
It's from his new album I shall provide you with something to listen to...
Firstly it's an obligatory Youtube video, this is 'Brother On The Run' featuring the legend Craig G.
Second is the video for the track which really dragged me into the world of Emade and O.S.T.R., 'Wiele Drog'. I honestly doubt I'll ever tire of this track...
O.S.T.R. can be found on myspace at
http://www.myspace.com/ostry (where you can currently hear his collab with the also slept on Dirty Diggers (a post about them in the near future!))
Emade can be found at
http://www.myspace.com/emadeTags:
O.S.T.R.,
Hip-Hop,
Dirty Diggers,
Emade.
