Hocus Pocus

I happened to stumble upon this first video below, and not knowing what I was gonna see, I checked it out. I'd never heard of 20syl (say: vuhn-seel) or of his group Hocus Pocus. To be honest, I hadn't even heard of any crews from their city of Nantes, on the French westcoast. But this guy's got me hooked (no pun) and I guess I'm now officially on Hocus Pocus nuts.

20syl is not just the crew's producer, but he also deejays in the DJ collective C2C (DMC World Champions 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006), oh, and he emcees as well, just to prove everyone else a fucking idiot... ;)
First check out how he makes a beat. (I haven't figured out if they later used it somewhere.)
And then there's some more from the Hocus Pocus empire... how I could sleep on these cats I don't know.


20syl making a beat (Goddayum!)

20Syl from Hocus Pocus Crew
Uploaded by TripTuc

Hocus Pocus ft. The Procussions - Hip Hop

Hocus Pocus & Procussions - Hip Hop
Uploaded by Drine

Hocus Pocus - Keep it movin II

Hocus Pocus keep it movin II
Uploaded by hocuspocus

And now C2C (DMC World Champions)...

C2C - DMC World champions
Uploaded by mr20syl

Hocus Pocus has been compared to the Roots because they too are a real band, besides the MC/producer/DJ and their DJ. But style-wise, Hocus Pocus are on some more subtle notes (and a bit less pretentious than the Roots...) The latest album right now is a 2006 re-edition of their 2005 album called "73 touches" (73 keys) referring to the keys of a hammond organ. Anyway, their album is the most beautiful piece of music I've heard in a while, not just of those coming out of France, mind you. And here it comes... Their brandnew album is scheduled to drop like right now... At the end of May it should be out...
Also out around the middle of 2007 should be a C2C album which is bound to send bedroom DJs off crying and hiding in mummy's lap.

Nuff said. Brace yourselves...

Some more?

Hocus Pocus media section
http://www.onandon-records.com/hocuspocus-sounds.php

C2C media section
http://www.onandon-records.com/c2c-sounds.php

Peace, 9@home

Tags: Hip Hop,

My daughter found nemo, I found the new Primo...

So long time no posting blah blah. What can I say, I've spent a couple of months sorting my day job out. New job is now accepted, contracts signed, illegal substance test booked let's roll...

The year 2007 has the potential to be a good one in this thing we call Hip-Hop. With potential albums from Doom, Ghost, Brother Ali (has that dropped already?), Rakewon, UGK and so on, things look like they might be on the up.

For me though, one man might blow this shit out of the water; Common.

B.E was dopeness despite the hate. At the time it dropped heads were proclaiming Common & Kanye as the best thing since Eric B/Rakim, Guru/Primo, Dre/Snoop and yet within a matter of months the hating started. It wasn't acceptable there was an album that the general concensus liked so fuck it, we better hate on it. "Shit, Common has gone lovely dovey", "Kanye hasn't dropped a dope beat since Guess Who's Back", "shit is over in half an hour" and so on.

Fuck that. The beats were some of the best work Kanye West has done and the rhymes were the best Common has spit since Resurrection, which is widely considered to be a steller bit of work.

So with that in mind, and the fact that he's just dropped a dope track with a beast of a Kanye beat suggests that this is one to watch.

Peep it and stop the hating, believe it or not it's ok to like shit other people like. It doesn't all have to be obscure shit made in a basement with an MPC someone had to sell a kilo of crack for.

Sit back and let Common and Kanye bring the heat.

The People (Ft Dwele)

The Game

I Have a Dream (prod Will.I.Am)


Tags: Hip Hop, Common, Kanye West

Brother Ali - Uncle Sam Goddamn

I'm a major fan of this dude from Minneapolis in the middle of America's Heartland. If you haven't heard of him you should pimp-slap your record shop assistant and cop his latest album, or one of the previous releases, from somewhere else.



Once we overcome the freak show curiosity and look beyond this muslim albino's face, right into his mind and heart, we get a man who's not only incredibly talented on the mic but may be one of the few who is so brutally honest about his own life, his failed marriage, his love for his son that it almost physically hurts (and I be damned if that track dedicated to his son Faheem doesn't squeeze a tear out of my eye.)

And if you don't believe me, take THEIR word for it.
What other great artists say about Brother Ali.



Do yourself a favour and check this cat out.
This is his video to "Uncle Sam Goddamn". It gives me the shivers.



http://www.myspace.com/brotherali

Tags: Hip Hop,

The World's most unlikely Posting

I usually couldn't give a toss about either one of these two, simply for being overhyped industry names who owe much of their fame to the people standing behind them...



Even more surprising is it that the two have managed to make a track together that's not even half bad, nay, I must say, that has got stuck in my head for the last couple of days, and so, in an attempt to get rid of them, I'll share them with you lot.

The big cheeses from the left and the top coast, The "I'm on Dre's dick so hard somebody try to lift me off it" Game and Kanye "The other Jesus incarnation" West did a nice job on this one. How this could happen, I have no clue, but here it is. ("Classic material.")

The Game - Dreams (produced by Kanye)

and just the beat on its own:

The Game - Dreams Instrumental (produced by Kanye)


And then other tracks that have used the beat, which is what got me into it in the first place:

Narcicyst (of Euphrates), from Montreal has got this mixtape out called "Between Iraq and a Hard Place", (order it on his myspace for next to nothing) and it's niceness. Some of the tracks on this CD are on original beats, others cover famous beats, such as this here.

Narcicyst - Lost Dreams

And a slightly odder find is Akira the Don (UK) who, among more peculiar things has made this very good version of Dreams.

Akira The Don - Dreams (ft. Narstie & Swiss)

That should do it for now...

Tags: Hip Hop,