Franchise & Yung x Nick Greer - 3 EP

The homies, Franchise & Yung, have teamed up with Nick Greer of Mantis to bring you 3, an EP featuring rhymes from all three artists and production from Franchise and Nick. For the intuitive few that are now asking themselves if the EP's name, 3, is indicative of the fact that there are three of them, I'm happy to report that it is.

The project is refreshingly different. 3 takes chances with its sound and overall styling, which results in some fairly unique and dope hip hop. Nick Greer, who has collaborated with hip hop artists in the past, most notably Houston's The Niceguys, is in part, (if not, large part) reason for the imaginative direction that this project takes. Nick's hooks, which grace 5 of the EP's 8 tracks, are excellent. His crooning-styled choruses have an earnest, slightly haunting, but beautiful essence and really lend an interesting (in the best sense of the word) vibe to the project. I wouldn't mind if Nick sang me to sleep every night.

The beats are another highlight of the project. Nick and Franchise offer up some really nice, unique backdrops to rap over. Franchise goes outside his usual beat box (no pun intended- that wouldn't even make sense), and comes up with some nice dub and dub-step style beats on “F*cked Up” and “Crazy”. Franchise's production is at its best though on the type of beats that we are more accustomed to hearing from him, particularly the EP's bonus track, “City of Lights”.

Nick's beats possess an almost ethereal quality. On tracks like “Hallways” and “Ohm”, the melody seems to float in background. Actually, “Ohm” is jointly produced by Nick and Franchise, but Nick's imprint is clearly evident. The track was released as the EP's single several months ago and its unique sound had me looking forward to the release of 3 ever since. Tell me the synth chords at the opening of “Ohm” don't slightly remind you of a slowed down, perhaps Screwed, version of Enya's “Orinoco's Flow,” which after drawing the comparison, has been stuck in my fucking head all day. Now you get to suffer.

                              Let me sail, let me sail, let the Orinoco flow,
                              Let me reach, let me beach on the shores of Tripoli.
                              Let me sail, let me sail, let me crash upon your shore,
                              Let me reach, let me beach far beyond the Yellow Sea.

                              Sail away, sail away, sail away
                              Sail away, sail away, sail away
                              Sail away, sail away, sail away
                              Sail away, sail away, sail away

You're welcome. And now I arrive at the rapping portion of the review. Without wishing to go into too much more detail, knowing that only a third of the people that started reading this review are still reading it (given the average attention span), I'll say that I had mixed thoughts with respect to the rhyming aspects of this project. The real issue was that the three emcees seemed to shine at different times and on different tracks. To have had consistently good lines from all three throughout the project would have elevated 3 to potential epic status. Don't get me wrong, for the vast majority of the EP, the three emcees' delivery and lyricism are pretty much on point and well done. The project is filled with funny, even hilarious anecdotes, clever imagery and well thought-out lyrics. But there are also a handful of corny and unimaginative verses, a few limp deliveries and the odd errant flow that went awry of the beat. These missteps are nowhere near bad enough to overshadow the greatness that is this project, but they do slightly shade it.

Overall 3 is a breath of fresh air. It's tremendously innovative and a really nice listen. I'm looking forward to seeing Franchise & Yung and Nick perform these tracks live.
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Contact info for Franchise & Yung:

Website: franchisenyungonline.tumblr.com
Facebook: facebook.com/franchisenyung
Bandcamp: franchisenyung.bandcamp.com
Email: franchisenyung @ gmail.com
Twitter: @FranchisenYung

Contact info for Nick Greer:

Website: wearemantis.tumblr.com
Facebook: facebook.com/WeAreMantis
Twitter: @WhereIsMantis

I Got Swag, Because Everybody Needs Toucan Stubs

Herman Cain - Everybody Needs Toucan Stubs



Rick Perry - Save A Pretzel For The Gas Jets



Mitt Romney - Stuff The Ice Chest




Check out all the BadLipReading videos. Shit's hilarious.

The Sunday Soapbox - CQ Muzik & t.h.e. MisFit Crazy 8

The Sunday Soapbox is one of those conceptual projects that works in part because its vision is not over-thought. A mix of honesty and tongue-in-cheek humor, the tape is meant to be a soundtrack to a laid-back Sunday afternoon. Crazy reveals that the entire project was actually recorded in successive Sunday sessions- and one does get some sense of that relaxed Sunday vibe laced throughout it.

As different as the two MCs voices, delivery and styles are, they're fairly complementary in this joint effort. In comparison to previous solo works, Crazy tells us that this project freed him up to experiment a bit with his persona and approach to rapping and also allowed him to explore new subject matter. The choice to use J. Dilla instrumentals, (which grace 90% of the tracks), while unoriginal, certainly makes for some smooth-ass beats over which CQ and Crazy rap.

The listener is first greeted by a short, but solid set of verses from both MCs on the intro/title track, "Soapbox Sunday" which gives way to the boom-bap beat of the second track, "Be Me," a song about maintaining integrity and belief in one's self- likely the best track on the tape.

"You Can't Hide" is a nice track midway through the mixtape which has CQ and Crazy calling on fellow rappers to embrace the real and stop faking the funk (something TL happens to do on the regular).

"Elroy Jetson" is another track of note and given the casual vibe of the rest of the mixtape, its up-tempo, techno-backed sound would stand out if only because it is polar opposite in style and tempo from the other tracks. In some sense it's an odd fit for this project and likely would work best as a hidden or extra track. In his own review of The Sunday Soapbox, the Houston Press' Shea Serrano felt that the song should have been left off the tape entirely, explaining that it, "sounds way too much like a grab bag of sounds and ideas," and "works entirely too hard to impress, which is antithetical if you macro view the project." I think Shea was a bit too quick to dismiss this track. Its theme and beat, while perhaps a bit silly, nonetheless remain fairly consistent throughout the song- we found no evidence of grab bagging. As for the second part of Shea's criticism, it's unclear as to whether he didn't recognize the facetious nature of "Elroy Jetson"... [the chorus is provided below]:

          "I'm ready to give you a night that you won't regret,
          One look and you know I'm ready to Jet-son,
          Come hop in my ride, that's if you're ready to fly,
          She looked at me and said, boy I'm ready to Elroy"

...or if he realized it was largely tongue-in-cheek and was actually saying that the duo were trying too hard to be clever and funny. Either way, the track is far from bad. In fact, the damn thing is catchy as hell and if you don't over-analyze the lyrics or expect to fall off your chair laughing at them, it's entertaining. Best of all, the beat provides the most effective backdrop on the mixtape for CQ to display his abilities- he really shines on this track.

If I had to cite one major critique, it would be that the project could have benefited from having more inventive and slightly better executed hooks for many of the tracks. Not all, but certainly a good number of the choruses were bland - a few even corny - which was really unfortunate. Overall though, The Sunday Soapbox is a solid effort and well worth the listen, download, and a FB "thumbs up".

sOuL - The Unspoken Word

Oakland, CA based MC, sOuL just released his newest project, a 7 track EP called The Unspoken Word. We were introduced to the artist through a dope video for the album's single, "I Am You". Check it out below.

sOuL - "I Am You"


Although perhaps new to most, sOuL has been at it this for a while. In 2002, he released his first album, A World Without End which he recorded in just one day. After another double-sided vinyl release in 2006, 5 years would pass until the debut of his latest work.

We sat down with sOuL (via the interweb) to discuss his latest project, The Unspoken Word : "...a cure," as the promo for the EP describes it, "for an artist haunted by a 1,000 half written songs, but chose 7 to capture the sore of police brutality in a city with sleepless nights, pondering triumph and time travel – amongst other things."

TL: Can you tell me a little more about what went into making this EP; The theme behind it, or at least, what sparked it?

sOuL: I've been working on a 2nd record for a minute, a record that I knew I would want to have a more political undertone to it, especially after the Bush administration, the continuous wars, etc. Then there was a cat that worked at my neighborhood grocery store who was murdered by the local transit police by the name of Oscar Grant. And that kind of made feel like I needed to include the song "CopX" and the photo on the cover, to pose the question, 'What has really changed in our country, society etc.?' The woman at the end of that song is Oscar's mother. Oakland held protests at the transit station he was murdered at. There was graffiti on the streets saying "fuck the police," so the feeling was very much alive that police murder was ok, and we weren't ok with that. Also when the officer who murdered Oscar Grant got away with it via a manslaughter charge, when he clearly drew a gun on a defenseless man, made the impression even more clearer.

TL: So it seems a fair amount of time - about 5 years or more - passed between each of your releases. What's the reasoning behind that?

sOuL: Well I focused mainly on performing here in the Bay for 2-3 yrs after my first record. During this time I had a 3-4 piece band and we had some nice shows, opening up for Zion I at the Great American Music Hall, a college festival at UC Berkeley opening up for Crown City Rockers etc... Then there was a serious desire to make my next record much, much, much more polished than my first record. The first record was cool, but it was more a sign of potential than a fully baked and executed artistic idea. This was followed by what some might call "writers block". I discovered it was more of a myth and illusion than anything real. I kept writing, performed at open mics - one especially influential one was at a place called the Eastside Arts Alliance in east Oakland. There, I was pushed by some really good musicians and MCs to keep it moving. One such influential MC was Bicasso of The Living Legends crew who would always be in my ear like, 'Yo! Get up on the stage and do your thing!' So that experience really got me back in the frame of mind an artist should be in. The time away recharging and focusing my lens really helped me - Then I look up and yeah, it's been 5 years, but a good 5 years. Even dropped a vinyl single during that time.

Another note about the record, The Unspoken Word, there was this thing about making a record that had to do with what's not being said, by me, by society, etc., as well as a sort of elixir for writer's block. So the notion of the "unspoken word" held a lot of meaning for me in that way. In every song there's some political undertone present. Not just about police murdering citizens, but how the people are really one, our struggles are universal [which is examined] via the "I Am You" track or perhaps how I want to "Go Back" [track #3] to a time that was fresh, but to also show my ancestors how we've come (or perhaps how far we haven't come) and still be entertaining, and something you would want to knock.

TL: Yeah, it turned out well. It's a great project. Are you down with Bicasso...?

sOuL: We're not best friends, but he did the open mic and would always be like, 'Come up here and do ya thing!' He invited me to participate in the Malcolm X Jazz Festival here in Oakland in 2009 and 2010. He recorded the session of "CopX" [the first track on The Unspoken Word].

TL: That's dope. I came up listening to Living Legends. Actually, I grew up listening to a lot of Bay area acts. In the early to mid 90s I was listening to Del and the Hieroglyphics crew, Grouch and the rest of the Living Legends, and also The Coup. At that point I was living outside of Texas and I vibed much more with that style of hip hop than what was coming out of Houston at the time. Toward the end of the 90s/early 2000s I was listening to Planet Asia, Sole and some of the Anticon artists, Mystic, Zion I and Azeem, so I've always been into Bay area hip hop.

sOuL: Yeah! That's what's up! Funny, a lot of those cats I've been to house parties where they're there and it's like dope! Before the videos and stuff, the Bay was like that in the 90's. You'd go to Berkeley on a Saturday night and you'd see the Hiero slanging tapes or see Pam from The Coup spin your friend's house party etc.

TL: So cool. In preparation for this interview I was looking online for some info and came across a forum where the question was asked if Houston or the Bay Area has produced better hip hop. In less than a year, that question generated 37 pages worth of responses from hundreds of people. Some of the back and forth was hilarious. You ever listen to any Houston acts either now or back in the day?

sOuL: These things are really silly... Scarface and the Geto Boys were huge for me! Especially the "Mind Playing Tricks on Me" stuff. They were the ones I knew from TX mainly. I liked the Suave House cats too.

TL: A friend of mine pointed out that Oakland (and the Bay Area in general) and Houston have both had some pretty instrumental artists that helped influence hip hop over the years, but both cities have gone through huge dry spells as far as national recognition and respect for their native scenes and talent.

sOuL: For real. I can feel that!!

TL: Back to your album. What's in store for you now? You doing shows to promote the EP?

sOuL: I should be performing again in the next 2-3 months. Right now I'm doing more videos for this record and stepping up the media visual element that seems to have captured music these days. Gigs will be a bigger deal, I want to lay more groundwork for the media presence and have that be able to drive stuff.

TL: Finally, can you give us an update on the whistle tip phenomenon in Oakland? Are people still putting whistle tips on their mufflers ala the YouTube video everyone saw a couple years back?

sOuL: Ha! Funny! No more whistle tips. I live in east Oakland (I think it was an east Oakland thing) and to be honest, I only heard one or two cars with whistle tips... 3 yrs ago. I think that was more of a media/news/YouTube thing. I hear more cars with 15's in the trunk than any high pitched exhaust modifications.



Contact info for sOuL:

Website: www.11525.com
Email: sOuL @ 11525.com
Bandcamp: s-o-u-l.bandcamp.com
Facebook: facebook.com/soul11525
Twitter: @sOuL11525