Cape Verde

by Super Chron Flight Brothers

To people who complain about the lack of innovation in hip-hop these days, the first group I would hold up as a counter-example is the Super Chron Flight Brothers.  This group, consisting of rappers billy woods and Priviledge, consistently push themselves to find new flows, or to rap over increasingly experimental beats.

On this twenty-song album, they work with their usual producers, Bond, Willie Green, and Nasa (only one track), and their sound has not so much improved or matured, as become more rich.

The album is peppered with TV clips and samples that fall into a few broad categories - 80s TV, infomercials (I'm pretty sure that's Vince, the SlapChop guy I hear on the third track), and post-Obama racial pride gone wrong ("The minute Obama became president?  I got the right to do the Hell I want to," proclaims a teenage girl who goes on to describe her activities in group sex and fighting on 'Strangers With Candy'). 

Lyrically, woods and Edge are as incredible as always.  They extend their verses long beyond the standard 8 or 16 bars, letting their material determine song length.  They are not as literary here as they have been in the past, but their lines are highly intelligent and usually need a couple of listens in order to catch every nuance.  The focus on this album is on how media-saturated we are, as they call out TV Republicans and bad hiphop.

The SCF Brothers are joined by long-standing allies like Zesto, MarQ Sekt, Vordul Mega, and HiCoup.  Less familiar collaborators include Masai Bey, Lord Superb, Pastense, Bigg Jus, and Johnny Voltik.  The liner notes are filled with notes from woods, Bond, and Green, explaining some of the work from behind the scenes on the album.

This is one of the best hip-hop albums of the summer.  Recommended.

Deleted Scenes

by Super Chron Flight Brothers

In preparation for the holiday season, the good people at Backwoodz Studioz gave us a free Super Chron Flight Brothers mixtape.

While by no means a classic mix, this does work as a good way to introduce someone to Billy Woods and Priviledge. And for a real fan, there's plenty to hold your interest, as you run through these21 tracks of remixes, or otherwise unreleased gems.

Production is by Bond, Marmaduke, Willie Green, and a couple of cats I've never heard of. A lot of the usual suspects appear on this: Cannibal Ox (together and individually), Invizzibl Men, Trife da God (now called Trife Diesel?), and some other up and comers.

I found the Willie Green remix of 'Guy Fawkes' sucked a lot of the energy out of the original, but the track 'Forms', credited to AM Breakups featuring Billy Woods is worth downloading the whole file for.

Crate Digging: Golden Gunn

by Bond

I like this now way more than I did when I first got it. If I remember correctly, this came with the Reaver's album, which I proceeded to play the hell out of, while this little gem got over-looked.

Playing it now, I can really appreciate Bond's production. About half of the tracks here are instrumental (or at least as instrumental as Bond gets, as he constantly samples from news broadcasts or other spoken sources), while others are remixes of tracks he had done with Backwoodz mainstays like Super Chron Flight Brothers, Vordul Mega, Keith Masters, Hasan Salaam, Akir, and more.

What I liked best would be the instrumentals to 'Low Tide', a song that appears as part of a medley track on the end of the first Super Chron album. On here, without Woods vocals, the sampled song plays longer, and it's a nice piece of music.

I would love to see a Bond solo album right about now...

Of Heroes & Villains

by Willie Green

This summer has been severely lacking in two things: nice weather, and musical releases. Backwoodz Studioz has helped with the latter, releasing Willie Green's debut instrumental album as a free download.

Green has put together a strong, half-hour collection of beats, with the requisite cartoon voices (including samples from He-Man!), that place him somewhere this side of Madlib in terms of sensibility.

There are twenty instrumental tracks, all short, and two bonus tracks featuring instrumentals by Nasa (of The Presence, whoever that is), and Billy Woods. As is to be expected, the Woods track is pure fire.

This is a nice album, and I hope that a longer, proper release from Green is on the way.

Crate Digging: The Chalice

by Billy Woods
This solo album from one-half of the Super Chron Flight Brothers is a masterful piece of work. Woods is definitely on some next level with his writing - the songs here are as much spoken word poetry as they are rap. He switches up his tempo and style on a number of tracks - some are very hard, while others are more reflective and poetic.

As usual, his lyrics demonstrate a well-read individual, with songs about smoking weed sitting next to others about the situation in Iraq.

Production on this album is mostly by Bond (007), although some of the other Backwoodz mainstays make appearances on the beats. It's mostly a minimalist album, with very little provided to distract from Woods' lyrics. Appearances are by the usual crowd too: Thrill Gates, Priviledge, Mighty Joseph, Kong, and of course, Vordul Mega.

This isn't an easy album to find, but it's well worth tracking down.

Camouflage

by Billy Woods

I'm very thankful for that fact that Backwoodz Studioz decided to re-release this album. It's considered to be Billy Wood's debut, even though he goes to some length in the liner notes to credit it as a collaboration with Bond and Vodul Megallah, who appears on a number of tracks.

It definitely sounds like a Bond album - even the tracks he didn't produce have that recognizable feel, with random samples, and a dirge-like quality to the music.

Woods sounds fantastic here - all of the clever wordplay and literary references he's known for are present, and songs like 'Amazing Grace' are perfect exemplars of his talent. Vordul provides a nice counterpoint to Wood's flow, as does Thrill Gates, who also shows up for a couple of tracks.

Indonesia

by The Super Chron Flight Brothers

Ever since their Emergency Powers album, I have been patiently waiting for something new from the SCF Brothers. I am a huge fan of Billy Woods and his unique style of rapping, and I don't think he could have a better partner than Priviledge - they off-set each other so nicely.

This album has been released two ways. There is the free download, but there is also a super-limited double cd, the first disc of which is the album, the second being a hodge-podge of remixes and instrumentals. Being a fan, I of course had to buy the actual cd.

The album is nice. It's mostly been produced by Marmaduke, who has done some work with The Reavers, the super-group that SCFB are a part of. Most additional production is by Dr. Monokrome, also a familiar name around the Backwoodz. They continue to experiment with these songs, pushing the beats deeper into the realm of electronica.

Woods and Priviledge continue with their usual original lyrics, which reference politics, The Wire, and literature. Apparently they are working on a new album, and this was just a side project. I hope that means we won't have to wait too long before we get to hear it.

Mega Graphitti

by Vordul Mega

Whenever I would listen to Cannibal Ox's 'The Cold Vein', I'd think that while Vast Aire is more lyrically clever, Vordul Mega is the more intelligent.

On this album, he has crafted a number of very good songs that fit into his usual formula - quick, short lines about 'hard times', 'the streets', being 'on blocks', and the quality that some have to transcend their environment and situation.

His voice oozes self-confidence, and he stays within his usual comfort zone, with the exception of 'Beautiful', which discusses beautiful music, and shows emotions outside of his usual range. The other songs are gritty and street-based, without following the old hip-hop formula of guns, money and revenge.

Vordul is joined by a familiar group of past collaborators - we see Vast Aire on two tracks, putting an end to any thoughts of an irreconcilable break-up. Billy Woods graces four tracks, leaving the entire album better for his presence. The Invizzibl Men, HiCoup, Karniege, and Tommy Gunn round out the guest shots.

The production on this album is fantastic. Backwoodz regulars like Bond and DJ Marmaduke come correct, as does Sid Roams and Zach One, who nicely book-ends the album. Bronze Nazareth and El-P both contribute a track, adding a certain level of prestige to the whole thing.

It's been clear for a while that there will never be another Cannibal Ox album, but Vordul Mega's doing perfectly fine on his own. He is a consistently strong artist, who's work continues to improve with age. He might be somewhat predictable, but he's predictably good.

The Unveiling

by Invizzibl Men

Anything from Backwoodz Studioz is an automatic purchase with me ever since The Reavers album came out a couple of years ago. When I bought this album, I didn't know much of what to expect - the Invizzibl Men are Karniege, who I'm familiar with from the Reavers projects and the Mighty Joseph album he dropped with Vast Aire earlier in the year, and Marq Spekt, whose work I only know from the odd appearance and mix-tape. Their song 'Jimmy Swagger' had popped onto my radar a few times, and I liked it a lot. It had that standard Backwoodz sound to it, and had clever lyrics.

Unfortunately, the entire album is not as good as it could be. There are some great tracks on here, but about half of the album suffers from uninspired raps and subject matter, and sub-par beats. There are no songs produced by Bond, Dr. Monokrome, or the other usual Backwoodz suspects. The nicest beat is on 'Darkroom', produced by Omega One, who is the only producer on here that I've even heard of.

The strongest songs on the album are the ones with guest appearances. Billy Woods absolutely kills on '52 Lashings', and wisely, the Invizzibl Men stand back and let him do his thing. The lyrical bar also gets raised on 'Zookeeper' by Vordul Mega, and 'T-Rex' by C-Rayz Walz. 'Mightybroady' reunites Mighty Joseph by including Vast Aire, who excells at these types of short appearances. The two songs where the Men do best on their own are 'Thin Air' and 'Stories of a Ghost', but their subject matter is not anything new or unique.

Tour Support

by Bond, featuring the Super Chron Flight Brothers

Ever since the Reavers' Terra Firma album dropped a couple of years back, I've been a huge fan of the Backwoodz crew. This mixtape was released at the same time as the Super Chron Flight Brothers' superb album 'Emergency Powers', but I never got my hands on it until this summer.

This disk shows off Bond's complicated, multi-layered approach to sampling and constructing complex backdrops to the SCF Brothers' equally complex rhymes.

As usual, everything that comes out of MC Billy Woods' mouth is pure truth. This is one rapper who deserves a much higher profile - his skills on the mic are unbelievable. I often find that I back up and listen to a verse a couple of times, just to catch everything he's said.

His partner, Priviledge, is a rapper who is really growing on me. I think his slightly hysterical cadence is a perfect counterpoint to Woods' laidback, laconic flow.

The songs on this disk deal with exactly what I've come to expect from the Reaver's crew: tight examinations of the current geopolitical situation around the world, and they make reference to
literature, philosophy, and the news with knowledge and foresight (Obama vs. Clinton is a nice example).

Tight guest shots from Marq Spekt, Vast Aire, Vordul Mega, and Megalon round out the package. There's a free-download album - Indonesia - due to come out in January, which will be followed by a physical album sometime after that.

http://backwoodzstudioz.com/