The sounds of neo-new school hip-hop usually resonate with avant-garde sounding beats and an even more avant-garde emcee’s rhyming over them. And for every five or so abstract “underground” LP’s you’ll find one that you can bob your head while cruising down the block; Soul Purpose’s (Zavi, Koncepts and Mazzi) Breaking Records certainly qualifies. Many [cont.]

Many people may think of a 70-year-old pianist and completely write off that they could be a major contributor to hip-hop.  However, if you did so with Galt MacDermot, you’d be making a huge mistake. Galt is best known to the general public for composing the incredibly popular Soundtrack for the film and play Hair, [cont.]

Ah, underground hip-hop. Only a few years ago, having the phrase attached to your music was somewhat like wearing a badge of honor.   However, those days are now a distant memory.  But the four man crew from Pittsburgh, Strict Flow, reps the banner proudly.  Strict Flow’s debut, Without Further Ado, fits snuggly between Styles of [cont.]

It’s been almost 4 years since the Mountain Brothers put out their incredibly nice debut Self Vol. 1. In the meantime, Chops has been making the round producing tracks for just about everyone and prepping his own solo debut for Vocab Records. While the jazzy, smooth tribe-like sounds have been the signature for Mountain Brothers in the [cont.]

When Prince Paul dropped his storyline concept album Prince Among Thieves, I was totally floored by the amazing style of the main character Breezly Brewin. There was this thick New York accent he rhymed with that just couldn’t get out of my head - it came out and made every word seem that much more real and gritty. [cont.]

Eastern Conference seems to have an agenda to take the title that Rawkus once had as the definitive name in underground hip-hop. Building up their roster with talent they have displayed their abilities on several compilations and through several artists releases such as High & Mighty’s Air Force One, and more recently Cage’s Movies For the Blind. [cont.]

When you think of hip-hop and Texas only group seems to come to mind, the hardcore rhymers from the 5th ward the Geto Boys. It’s a sound so closely related to location that when I first heard that the Jazzy sample loving group K-Otix were from the same city and state I had to do a [cont.]