One year ago yesterday, Broadway shut down. Four days later, New York schools shut down, as did all restaurants, bars, movie theaters, gyms and casinos in the tri-state area.
You'd have to be excused for missing any album that dropped at this time, even one as notable as what Lyrica dropped March 12, 2020. As it turns out, Notes to Self was not just appropriately but presciently titled, as every repsonsible adult would spend plenty of time with themselves over the next year. I wish I'd have known to recommend this album at that time, even if only to myself.
So it goes, a year late and a salary short.
"Who is Lyrica?" All I have is her notes. Still, I'm happy I'm hearing them now and hoping you are too, whoever you are.
Imagine Muggs' record stacks, like bookshelves in grandpa's house — plain sight occultism, totally nonchalant, no attempt at hiding anything, the rhetorical "what of it" toned accordingly. Rome Streetz gives dramatic readings from and of the texts, true to atavistic form like a third-generation Soul Assassin assassinating the souls of grandchildren. This film is based on a truestory.
Even when he brings Disney+ level production value and commercial appeal, Sugiwon still manages to slip in something for the astigmatic set (see: "Circle small as ever, I did this on Cedar Road / Everything I say is gold, I'm C-3PO"). This is why I do this.
AZOMALI burns down UGHH Blog's Mic Session then kicks a freestyle that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt he's one of the dopest poets alive. (This appears to be from an appearance on the LA Natives Podcast, whom he has also given a very insightful interview.) If you haven't been following him on Instagram, you're missing out on so many brilliant off-the-head sessions like this one.
There could actually be a summer, like a real one. I'm going to have to finish writing this book, start editing it, get these screenplays going, buy a ring, line up LIRR03, unload the rest of these LIRR01 tapes, spend more time with family and friends, get a raise, and listening to She Is Me by Rian Wyld makes me feel I can definitely do all that and more this year.
She Is Me is the latest release on Hofstra University's student-run label, Unispan. The album came into this world at the same time Wyld did something more trying than all the stuff mentioned above: brought another person into this world. Check out three videos from the project below and stream it in full here.
Deaf 2 U aka Deaf 2 U Productions/Inc. was the production duo of Lucious "Luck" Mercer and Neal "Purp" Forrester, who first met at Amityville Junior High School. The group produced three songs for Gee Street singer Ambersunshower (previously a member of the duo Groove Garden) and another three for De La Soul, culminating with masterpiece "Trying People," the final track on AOI: Bionix. Shortly thereafter, they reemerged producing and rapping under the new name, Mood Doctors, with their debut album General Medicine released independently on a label called Deaf 2 U. (Mood Doctors have since released no fewer than seven albums, but that's for another post or seven.)
Mercer and Forrester did also rap under the name Deaf 2 U on at least one song, "Caution," which appeared on Tags Of The Times Version 2.0, a compilation put out by Japanese label Mary Joy Recordings in 1999. An interesting artifact of its times, this compilation series featured tracks from some of the most popular underground hip-hop acts of the late '90s and early '00s, including Company Flow, MF DOOM, Talib Kweli, Aesop Rock and Aceylaone to name just a few. Nevertheless, Deaf 2 U's appearance stands out and not just because it's the only song they released under the name. It's also noteworthy to hear two artists who came up under De La Soul (if you haven't figured it out already Luck is Posdnuos's brother) rapping on a song produced by Da Beatminerz's Mr. Walt in a kind of alternative hip-hop setting. In that sense, "Caution" foreshadows the turn De La themselves would take on their AOI albums.
Below you can hear "Caution" followed by Deaf 2 U's first credit, Ambersunshower's "Blue Skies Butterflies" (1995), and De La Soul's "Oooh," "Foolin'" and "Trying People." (For the other two Ambersunshower tracks Deaf 2 U did, you'll have to dig up her Walter T. maxi-single.)
Repping NYC's Tase Grip by way of our Wrong Island, Lungs aka Lone Sword spits on this, his Osprey Tape, like a rap fiend scripting bars far beyond a regular user's fatal dose o'er beats like flakes picked from carpet, gathered together and sculpted into one glorious hit. A 26th birthday present to self, it's his longest and most complete project to date, which also makes Osprey a fittting, though long overdue, debut for Lungs on this here site. Stream continuous.
For "Why You Do That," Dunbar summoned up the type of Josh Lamont beat that helped make Rozewood's The Ghost of Radio Raheem one of, if not the, last decade's dopest documents of Amityville hip-hop. It's short, slow, and straight to the point of slapping the shit out of you. Sure Shot and Bunchy Cartier's No Hook 3 has been operating in kind since October 2020.
The words "it's been a long time" speak more than volumes in hip-hop; they speak classics bridgingdecades. When Kaleber raps them on "P.T.I.," they speak too of the silence between now and the stated departure, of an endless unspoken void all the more familiar now in times of isolation and distance, and of the indescribable regret one knows feeling they could have done something more to prevent that departure, to close that distance. "P.T.I." embodies the indescribable and in so doing, one hopes, helps to heal the lasting unimaginable trauma Kaleber has endured losing his brother and going on in this world without him.
