New York, NY, April 30, 2007 -  Underground hip hop invades Club Midway on Saturday, May 12th.  The show marks the triumphant homecoming of Metermaids, Broke, and Domer after a twenty city guerilla onslaught of America aptly named the “Unnatural Disasters Tour.” 

After successful shows at SXSW in Austin, TX and the Viper Room in Los Angeles these emcees are back and set to rock the crowd in their homebase of NYC. (more…)

  Rating:
  Review Date: April 29, 2007
  Website: Brother Ali Website
  Label: Rhymesayers

Brother Ali “The Undisputed Truth” Album Review 
About two months ago, shortly after the 400th anniversary celebration of the city of Jamestown, one of the first slave ports of the American colonies, the Virginia General Assembly passed a joint resolution apologizing for its part in the American slave trade. Now as honorable as this act was, it actually kinda angered me because neither any other states nor the federal government of the United States followed up with an apology of their own. It appears that the majority of this country either does not believe that slavery continues to affect us today, or does not think that we should apologize for the effects it has had. (more…)

  Rating:
  Review Date: April 27, 2007
  Website: Beyond Reality Website
  Label: Independent

Beyond Reality “A Souls Journey” Album Review
Yo! I’m gonna have to watch my language, because there are children present, but this album is off the MF-in’ hook! We’ve been talking about the Northwest Territory of the United States and it’s up-and-coming hip-hop scene for some time now. And if there’s one city that seems to stand out from the rest, it would have to be Seattle, Washington. I’ve personally come across a countless number of dope hip-hop groups from this city recently, so much that I’m considering spending my next vacation out there just going to local shows. (more…)

Let’s get real people, as much as I agree with banning the use of negative words such as nigger, hoe, bitch and others from hip-hop music and our speech in general, I believe this is a small issue compared to the much larger one we have as black people.

We as a race of people in this country are being held by a racial stronghold and eliminating a few words from our music will not free us; eliminating the root of the problem will. (more…)

  Rating:
  Review Date: April 25, 2007
  Website: Domer Website
  Label: Skipping Beats Records

Domer “Work With Me” Album Review 
I recently read an interview in which the homie Domer claimed that his music is not hip-hop [1]. Initially, this confused me. I mean, his production, though unique and generally universal, is overwhelmingly hip-hop in rhythm and beat. And although he occasionally sings on his tracks, his lyrics are most often presented in rap form. To me, rapping over beats equals hip-hop … no matter what the direction or style. (more…)

  Rating:
  Review Date: April 22, 2007
  Website: XL Website
  Label: Independent

XL “Xclusive” Album Review
I realized something about myself this week homie. I’m a prejudice person yo. Now a lot of cats mistake being prejudice with being racist. But I’m obviously not a racist … I’m just prejudice. The word prejudice is basically a sum of it’s two parts: pre- and -judge. This means that a prejudice person pre-judges, or judges a person or situation before he even knows anything about it. That’s what I did earlier this week when I started listening to XL’s album “Xclusive.” (more…)

Below are the thoughts of Wise Intelligent on Interscope Records’ “lyrics committee”:

About a week or so ago, rapper Young Buck made an appearance on New York’s Hot 97’s Angie Martinez’s show to promote his new album “Buck the World”, the first single of which is incredible (I love that record).

You know, it was pretty much your typical rap interview except for one revealing exchange in particular. This was when Young Buck spoke of a record addressing Police Brutality that unfortunately did not make the record? It was said in the interview that Interscope Records (home of Dr. Dre’s Aftermath, Shady Records; Eminem, G Unit; 50 Cent, Loyd Banks, Young Buck; The Lox; Jada Kiss, Styles and Sheik, amongst others) has an official “Lyrics Committee.” (more…)

  Rating:
  Review Date: April 18, 2007
  Website: El-P Website
  Label: Def Jux

El-P “I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead” Album Review
I know this might sound crazy, but what I love most about living in New York City is the sounds. I know, I know … it’s loud and all, with cars and sirens and subway trains and people everywhere. But I find myself absorbing the noise … feeding off of it, as if it’s become a part of me. (more…)

Underground MCs Scholarman and TrueBless were featured on Maryland Public Television this week, performing “Rebel Musik” from Scholarman’s recently-released album “Candy Medicine.” Click below to view this stellar performance. And big ups to MPT and co-host Nate Howard for showing conscious underground hip-hop some love!

  Rating:
  Review Date: April 11, 2007
  Website: Cafetorium All-Stars Website
  Label: Uncommon Records

Review – “Tales From the Cafetorium”:
When I was in elementary school, my brother and I would occasionally go to an after school program called Latch-Key. This program was for kids whose parents worked late, and it gave us a place to hang out until they got home from work. Unfortunately, we hated going to Latch-Key, because to us it was just an extension of school. We would be forced to sit in a classroom and do homework or watch educational films, and it was no fun. After a while, we simply stopped going, instead opting to break into our house through a fault in the backdoor and watch the cable television stations that were denied to us when mom and dad were home. (more…)