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.

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.