Rap/Hip-Hop
070 Shakes second studio album, You Cant Kill Me, is her most coherent and comprehensive body of work todate. An all-encompassing aural experience, the album reads like an ethereal and haunting soundtrack to a film. Atits core, the project grapples with immateriality of self, formlessness, internal tension, the multiplicity of the ego,and ones ability to transform themselves and continually remold their core, among other things.
So Help Me God is the personal, soulful 6th studio album from Atlanta rapper, 2 Chainz. Boasting a wide range of star-studded features ranging from Lil Uzi, NBA Youngboy, Mulatto, Brent Faiyaz, plus key collaborators Lil Wayne, Kanye West & Rick Ross. 2 Chainz delivers his classic quotable bars across the 15 tracks. Captures an array of themes from 2020 anthem Quarantine Thick w/ Mulatto, the Hall & Oates sampled Cant Go For That and the melodic Feel a Way w/ Kanye West & Brent Faiyaz.
All Eyez On Me is being reissued as a 4 LP vinyl edition - the first for this double disc studio album since 2001. The album debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 upon its release in 1996. It features the massive hits, "Ambitionz Az A Ridah," "Picture Me Rollin'," "I Ain't Made at Cha," "How Do U Want It," and the remix of "California Love." 180-gram heavy vinyl.
In honor of Me Against The World's 25th anniversary, Interscope/Urban Legends is reissuing 2Pac's third studio album, considered by many to be his most poetic and cohesive masterpiece. Recorded when he was just 23-years-old, and released while facing an impending prison sentence, it is a lyrical tour-de-force that touches on the issues of poverty and violence. The album solidified 2Pac as one of the greatest rappers of all time. Includes standout anthems like `Temptations' and `So Many Tears.'
Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z... is the second studio album from Tupac Shakur. The title is an acronym for 'Never Ignorant Getting Goals Accomplished'; the 'Z' in the title makes it a plural. Similar to his debut, '2Pacalypse Now', the album contains many tracks emphasizing 2Pac's political and social views. This album saw more commercial success than its predecessor. While Tupac's first effort included a more underground or indie-rap-oriented sound, this album was considered his 'breakout' album. It spawned the hits 'Keep Ya Head Up' and 'I Get Around' and has since reached double platinum status. In honor of this classic albums 25th anniversary it will be reissued on 2LP, 180 gram black vinyl for the first time.
A.CHAL is a hot new up-and-coming artist, who has been praised by tastemaker outlets such as Pigeons and Planes, Complex, FADER, Mass Appeal, Noisey, Pitchfork, and more. This debut album was released in 2016 and is on picture disc, with a digital download card, for Record Store Day 2017. One of the songs, "Far From Home" was included in Zane Lowe's Beats 1 World Record Best of 2016 list. The album will be a picture disc + digital DL Card
01 Mardonna 02 Fuego 03 Right Now 04 Round Whippin' 05 Vibe W/U 06 Beverly Kills 07 Far From Home 08 Memories 09 4 U 10 GAZI
Its impossible to describe Action Bronson in a way he hasnt already thought of. First and foremost though, Action Bronson is a principled MC, a Queens legend respected for his idiosyncratic pen and vivid raps, now a decade into his career and still deepening his skillset. TRUST WHEN I SAY IT AINT SAFE FOR ANY OF THESE ANIMALS THE ANCIENT APEX PREDATOR IS BACK ON THE PROWL. ACTION BRONSON
On White Bronco, Action Bronson's 2018 release, he rapped "my next album's only for dolphins," and the principled MC is nothing if not true to his word. Thus, "Only For Dolphins", out this fall on Loma Vista. A Queens legend, respected for his idiosyncratic pen and vivid raps, Bronson is a decade into his career and still deepening his skillset. With "Only For Dolphins" he wants to take the listener on a tour of his creativity. Welcome to his world.
The explosion of indie Hip Hop labels in the early 90s resulted in an ongoing snowball effect that started to shift the narrative around an artists need to sign to a major label. Coincidentally, quality home recording equipment was also becoming more easily accessible and, with the rising popularity of CD-R technology, this allowed artists to write, record, and manufacture their own albums right at home.
Appleseed was a highly celebrated and influential release from that era, cementing Aesop Rock as a new face whose talent could not be denied. The album explores creative concepts with inventive writing and stripped-down yet melodic and melancholic production. Six out of the eight songs were produced byAesop Rock, with OmegaOne producing Sick Friend and longtime collaborator Blockhead handling 1000 Deaths, and the projects sole guest lyricist was Doseone.
The DIY process was followed in every aspect, as Aesop himself recalls, I did the Appleseed hand style while working at Tepper Galleries in NYC. The cover was made at Kinkos. The first Appleseed CDs were CD-Rs I duped at home and sold from my backpack at an MF DOOM show at Brownies, which was right below my apartment at the time. I continued to sell hand to hand inNY, while Blockhead started fielding some mail orders from a young internet. People would send us cash or a check, and hed cut the covers out and mail them off.
The two of them were able to move a couple thousand CDs that way before turning their attention to newer projects, particularly Float in Aesops case. As a result, Appleseed went out of print for many years before resurfacing as a merch item on tour. However, in all that time it was only available on CD, directly from Aesop.
Finally, 21 years after its debut, Appleseed officially returns, now available on vinyl for the first time!
Aesop Rock
Spirit World Field Guide (Instrumental Version) [Portal Green & Blue 2LP]
Vinyl: $37.98 Buy
Following the success ofAesop Rock's mostrecent solo album,Spirit World Field Guide, hereturns to deliver the instrumental version ofthose interdimensional adventures. Aesop haslong been celebrated for his talents as a lyricist,but he has continually grown and evolved as aproducer as well. While the originalSpirit WorldField Guidewas packed with insightful chaptersof firsthand know-how into the terrain, wildlife,and social customs of our parallel universe, theSpirit World Field Guide Instrumentalsnotonly set the tone but also provide the roadmapfor you to take your own journey. Welcome tothe Spirit World. Explore with intention.
When Aesop Rock debuted in the late 90s with Music For Earthworms and Appleseed, Blockhead was also a part of the process, not only as a producer, but also helping coordinate sales of the CDRs to hungry Hip Hop fans. Blockhead and Aesop continued to collaborate, creating an impressive list of songs along the way, including two of Aesops most popular songs to date; Daylight and None Shall Pass. In recent years, Blockhead has contributed production, as well as remixes, to many of Aesops solo releases and group projects, and Aesop has made a handful of guest features on Blockheads solo projects, but in all that time, Aesop and Block have never done a full album together, until now!
Garbology came together over the course of the pandemic, as well as in the midst of Aesop processing the loss of a close friend in January of 2020, resulting in a period of time of feeling uncreative. Looking back on that time that feels both like yesterday and forever-ago, Aesop recalls, The world got real weird during those months. I knew at some point I had to get back to making something. Make a beat. Draw a picture. Write. Just go. But the idea of making a beat felt like math homework, and drawing is just so hard. Writing is hard too, but at some point I had to pick one. With writing as the chosen path, Aesop hit up Blockhead to send over some beats. At the beginning there wasnt a plan for an album, or any particular plan beyond creating some songs. However, it wasnt long before one song became a few, and then a handful, until finally an album was born.
Garbology encapsulates the soundtrack of current times, capturing a snapshot of Aes and Block expressing a means of entertaining themselves in the midst of less social interactions than usual, anchored on a goulash of cabin fever, fear, anger and boredom, as Aesop describes it.
As for the album title, Aesop explains, Garbology is defined as the study of the material discarded by a society to learn what it reveals about social or cultural patterns. I find a lot of parallels between that and the idea of picking up the pieces after a loss or period of intense unrest, and seeing whats really there. Its information that speaks to who I am, who we are, and how we move forward. Furthermore - the idea of digging through old, often neglected music from another time with an ear tuned for taking in that data in a different way than your average listener would is exactly what Tony does. Go through the information and see what you find.