Timbo King waited nearly 20 years to release his debut album From Babylon To Timbuk2, and he’s not about to let anyone forget about the classic 2011 collection. The Wu-Tang affiliate is now unveiling the music video for “Book Value,” a knowledge-driven gem off Babylon produced by Dev-1. From Babylon To Timbuk2 features production and appearances from the likes of RZA, Lil Fame, Killah Priest, Akir, Jr. Reid, Hell Razah, R.A. The Rugged Man, and more.

Nature Sounds tells us:

Hell Razah’s medical condition made it difficult to shoot many videos from his new album “Heaven Razah,” but we’re now proud to present the official video for “Return Of The Renaissance” featuring R.A. The Rugged Man. Intro from Razah himself, giving an update on his status with brand new footage. Video also featuring Timbo King. Directed by Yoni Arava.

R.A. The Rugged Man elaborates:

My Good Brother Heaven Razah is one of the few rappers in the game who I consider family. He was rocking heavy in the 90′s with Wu-Tang and Sunz of Man, and then in the new millennium he showcased his skills on arguably the best Wu-Tang album of the past decade Ghostface Killah’s Supreme Clientele and teamed up with Tragedy Khadafi, Killah Priest and Timbo King to form Black Market Militia and drop a gem of an album in 2005 Razah continued to grow lyrically and ended up releasing one of the great HipHop albums of the 2000′s – Renaissance child – in 2007.

There aren’t many hip hop albums this year that opened on a better note than Super Chron Flight Bros.’ Cape Verde, which starts off with “Reggie Miller”. Usually thought of as a closer, the first song off of their new LP is a great distillation of their sound. It’s got a laidback, NYC vibe and, if you can believe it, more stoned out flow than MF Doom with a similar style that celebrates cartoon sound bites, snacks and weed. That being said they can flow.

Following up “Reggie Miller” they cover nearly every beloved snack in “Golden Grams” which somehow also doubles as slight social commentary. One of the most unique things about this album is the warmness of the samples. When every production seems to be either based off live music, overdone digital studio productions or deep dark grime trying to rip off 1996 Wu-Tang, Super Chron come with an album that has lots of unique sounds.

That being said the album isn’t without missteps, “Good Coutry People” deviates from their standard and doesn’t sound like them and they struggle to be cohesive with the beat. But they bounce right back with “Travailler,” using what sounds like a doo-wop sample, contrasting it’s bright singing with some of their hardest rhymes. On “42nd Street” they pull a Jay-Z (as heard on “Roc Boys) and rap over a Menahan Street Band cut with great affect. It’s a perfectly grimy sample that that actually sounds better with them on it than by itself.

What really makes Super Chron fun to listen to is their sense of humor. They’re not a joke band, but on “No Spin Zone” they turn the uplifting beat into a screed against idiotic newscasters, eventually shouting out Colbert. Some choice lines include: “Before you guys embark on 12 mile ride/to Wolf Blizers cave/where he prepares to dine, on the souls of the villagers he caught last night.”

On “Unsolved Mysteries” they pulled in Vordul Mega of Cannibal Ox, who doesn’t murder them on their own shit, as he’s a little too intense for their sound. The album slowly trails off with 20 tracks, and its not a surprise in an era where Kanye, Jay-Z and Rick Ross won’t put out an album with more than 13. While the abundance of material weighs the album down, at least half it can compete with anything out there right now.

Mos Def’s “Ms Fat Booty” producer, Ayatollah, will return on May 4th with a new digital LP, Quixotic, as we reported here last month. Check out the tracklist and the first single below.

Tracklisting:
1. The Star Of The Show
2. Harder They Come
3. Mantra
4. From Within
5. The Kids Are Crying Over You
6. Let Em Know
7. Change
8. Gods Animals
9. Livin In A Dream World
10. Cant Knock The Hustle “Part 2″
11. I Can’t Make It Alone (ft. Maximil of Regime Change)
12. The Rhyme Writers
13. Hello
14. How Can We Lose
15. When You Get Right Down To It
16. Superpeople
17. Take Me Higher
18. A Word From Derek (ft. Sadat X)
19. Quest For Fire
20. Fallin Love
21. Inside Out
22. Them Summer Days
23. Angkor Wat
24. Reflections
25. Hope Of Deliverance
26. Tollahmania
27. Heavy Traffic

Ayatollah – “Harder They Come” (MP3)

The legendary D.I.T.C. crew has had it’s ups and downs over the years, delivering numerous classic albums and singles, but also plenty of missteps. For every Runaway Slave there’s The Dirty Version, for every Word…Life there’s Smoke & Mirrors. Usually the problems with D.I.T.C.’s later releases came from them trying to adapt to the commercial sounds of whatever was hot at the time, resulting in some embarrassing blemishes on their respective resumes. Fat Joe is the only member of the crew that has been able to make the crossover relatively unscathed, but even there he has lost the respect of his longtime followers.

In the aftermath of the music industry’s ultimate failure, many aging artists have abandoned the idea of trying to be the next B.I.G., and instead have gone back to making the music that they love. With this comes Oasis, the first ever collaborative album between O.C. and A.G. What sounds like a dream on paper results in a so-so album that could have been light years better.

The album starts off on the right foot, with Statik Selektah’s buttery title track, where the two emcees pay homage to one another by building on one another’s lyrics. This leads into a pair of Lord Finesse produced cuts with “Give It Back” and “Alpha Males”, respectively, as the reanimates vintage soul samples into the perfect backdrops for them to build upon. While these tracks show that the duo hasn’t lost it, this is not the case for much of the rest of the album.

Producer E-Blaze handles the majority of the rest of the album’s beats – and like his name – the production sounds dated. The keyboard synth thump of songs like “Think About It”, “Put It In The Box” and “Keep It Going”, not to mention the horrendous club-attempt “Against the Wall”, plague much of the album, as Blaze produces 9 of the album’s 17 tracks. While many of the aforementioned tracks sound like beats Ruff Ryders may have passed on, the production fails to inspire the duo to deliver anything mind-blowing, as they seem to be both be plodding along at 94 beats per minute, looking at their watches as to when the hour might be up.

Unfortunately, the usually reliable Show does not deliver his best material here either. The murky “Young With Style” treads through the marsh with uninspiring guitar licks that sound as if they were taken from a McDonald’s “I’m Lovin’ It” ad, while “Boom Bap” sounds like a eulogy, not a tribute to a great, but unfortunately now deceased style. Just last year we saw excellent results with banging, atmospheric tracks from Show and A.G. on the Live Hard album. It’s a mystery what happened here.

There’s a common misconception that if an album is not about bling and flash, and it’s by an artist with classics under his belt, then it too must be a classic. This is incorrect. As badly as we’d like to hold on to the idea the D.I.T.C. crew can do no wrong, unfortunately the opposite is true. However, those who have followed them since Funky Technician (that would include this writer) have seen the high and low points for D.I.T.C. and cannot be fooled. While the words may seem harsh, instead they are passionate. For the longtime fans that continue to support and follow their music, we deserve better. – D.T. Swinga