Swad - Boyz a Liar / Telling Everybody

For most of its existence, Hot 97's Summer Jam has been held in New Jersey. It's like Jets and Giants games in that way—ostensibly for New Yorkers but really only those who will make the trek to a neighboring state. In 2023, the rap music industry's major public-facing annual trade show returns to New York for the first time in 20 years. But it won't be held in New York City. Instead, the UBS Arena in Elmont will play host to the event. Will any of the performers taking the stage June 4 realize let alone acknowledge they're in Nassau not Queens County? Who knows? But you can bet that the show's promoters know it, and let it ride that there's some corporate tax benefit at the heart of this relocation maneuver. Box that like the Belmont Stakes. Hopefully, the audience will know where they're at, too, and in this recognize that Long Island is as inextricably linked to hip-hop's past, present, and future as any of the five boroughs. Like I was saying to one of my favorite musicians earlier tonight, there's the politic and then there's the emotion. Beyonce and Ice Spice offer plenty to consider in terms of both interpretations. And Swad's remixes of their recent hits relish in the interconnectedness of the two.

MeccaGodZilla - "Tread" ft. thekeenone & Eric Bobo

MeccaGodZilla was a flagship producer for billy woods' Backwoodz Studioz, Eric Bobo was a percussionist on Ill Communication, and thekeenone was the first person to express to me the value of streaming platforms for sharing one's music. This was in the days of divshare, which still exists somehow—wild. All of these artists are also much more than these minor credits. And in 2008 they coalesced for a Bobo song soon to appear on MeccaGodZilla's compilation, Hidden Jewels of Mecca.

Thekeenone obliterates everything here, on some BFG-9000 clear the room, take no prisoners shit. 

WilliefromtheDrive - Lose Until You Win

Job hunt, love life, house hunt, channel surfing, crate digging, competitive sport, poker, trading stock, fantasy sport, acting, songwriting, sentience, conception, evolution, the big bang—there are exceptions, of course, but generally it's all Lose Until You Win. Know the ledge and still jump like Geronimo on some "Ordo Abchao." The Myth of Sisyphus is about becoming the most superhumanly diesel version of yourself, like Pumping Iron.

Being an 80-year-old man, I've taken some lumps in my day, but it's not how many times you get knocked down—it's cushioning the ground beneath you such that getting knocked down becomes unbothersome, pleasant even. Keeping with that thread, WilliefromtheDrive would be the second artist posted here who I first heard about via an aforementioned PDF that hipped me to the fact Hempstead has a thriving drill scene. Lose Until You Win dropped in January, making it a semi-ancient artifact of said scene, but like I said, I'm 80, so times fly.

Kush Blank - Walking LLC

The farther east, the fewer the sidewalks, the closer the sands, real ones or deposits become real, oceanic countersprawl, low-tide phonk, high-tide subterranea. No waterworks, the waters rise, reclaiming mansions and making beachfronts of bungalows. Pocketbooks overflow, pharmacological and/or horticultural. SpongeBob: the whole operation's underwater. The fisherman comes back for revenge, visiting Jason Vorhees hockey penalties on retro-dandy price gougers, high sticking, slashing. New Zealand harbor mates communicate via whale calls and dolphin carrier bottle messages. "I get my powers from the water."

K.Sole - Purple N Passion

When purple haze dropped in New York, it so impressed, overnight every "kind" strain was branded "haze." This was a time of lower THC counts and less variety. Haze delivered an entirely different experience, so desirable it shifted consumer expectations. Nowadays (big lawn maintenance vibes), there are no fewer than 615 cataloged hazes, and Cam'ron's Purple Haze is to millennial rap fans what Hendrix's "Purple Haze" was to boomer rock fans. Purple flower put a generation through college, so don't talk to me about purple drink. K.Sole's Purple N Passion [PNP] dropped within the first few weeks of another big P, like only fogs can overshadow clouds.

Who Is Gustavo Louis?

MF DOOM used to say he rocked a mask to keep the focus on the music rather than the musician—a noble cause and a clever device to maintain one's anonymity, but I can't help imagining that it also has the opposite effect. Humans are inherently curious animals. When we see a mask, we automatically wonder whose face is under it. Is it horribly mangled ala Viktor Von Doom? Or is it the familiar visage of someone we've known all our lives? Or could it somehow be our own face under there, an evil twin come back to collect its revenge for some unseen slight? In Mexican wrestling, it is considered the ultimate disrespect to unmask one's opponent. 

Like the traditional Mexican wrestler, Gustavo Louis dons a luchador mask. Over the past year, he's put out no fewer than 10 projects. However, he actually came to my attention via a retweet from fellow Hempsteader SmooVth regarding their shared origin. Of course, the mask in the profile pic made me wonder 'who's that,' not necessarily in terms of the person's identity but more their profession, as in, 'Is there a rapper coming out of Hempstead wearing a luchador mask?' Yes, there is. His (rap) name is Gustavo Louis, and he releases music under the auspices of Narconomics Records.

The latest release in terms of albums and mixtapes is The Love Tape, which aptly dropped on Valentine's Day. But even newer than that is the Mixed for Narconomics playlist he compiled on Soundcloud, featuring just a couple of his songs as well as a number of LI familiars, including The UN's "Mind Blowin" and De La Soul's "Lovely How I Let My Mind Float" ft. Biz Markie (the LIRR post no less). Both projects provide a solid introduction: the former showcasing his flare for animated hustling and affinity for Phat Bastard beats (the two have three projects together with a fourth on the way), the latter highlighting some of his compatibles and inspirations. Both stream below, along with a clip from a new song produced by Jay Be Ill, possibly from their upcoming Illnarco tape. Get familiar.

🎙️🙌🏾🏚️ @lowe_jadon pic.twitter.com/RdLzPlgUii

— Narconomics records❄️🚤💨💨🚁 (@Narconomic) March 27, 2023

Azomali - A MANGO A DAY!

Imagine complete civil unrest, as in every person in every city taking to the streets. At first, of course, it's met with the weapons of the state: police brutality, human rights abuses ... you know the drill. And as the cities burn with revolution, the rainforests burn for industry. Now imagine all that coming to its only logical conclusion. At the end of the day, even military oppression is a Band-Aid. Or, like my father always says, you can only put down a people so long until they pull you from your fucking home. When the revolution ends, then the hope, at least, is that the rainforest and its people can both breathe again. Obviously, there's more to it than that. Revolution, by its very nature, is unending. Rainforests regenerate except when they can't. 

A MANGO A DAY! (Keeps the Colonizer Away), Azomali's first multi-song release since 2019's Guyaba Mixtape, feeds on the nuance undergirding all these generalities. If you've been following his Instagram over the past few years, then between some of most impressive off-the-head freestyles ever recorded, you've witnessed a number of scenes not unlike those generalized above. But seeing is one thing and feeling another. As opposed to social media, AMAD! has a deprogramming effect. It bumps in the corazón, jump-starting empathy. Impressively, it accomplishes this in under 20 minutes with just six songs and five field recorded interludes. For my part, it certainly didn't hurt that one of those six featured Johnny Storm and Azomali together on a track for the first time since they were known respectively as Sky Walker and Kaotik Ellement. But I digress.

Azomali's music ranges from transportive to outright transcendent. The scary thing is that it's only getting better. This naturally should tempt you to wonder what's next. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. For now, I suggest simply taking as prescribed...

Marley Marl Remixes Two Public Enemy Classics

Two years ago, writing about a Public Enemy LL Cool J blend, I said it "reconciles Rap Attack's infamous on-air diss of 'Public Enemy No. 1' by placing Chuck and Flav's voices on beat over a Marley Marl loop." I sometimes write stupid shit. This is Chuck D at Mr. Magic's funeral service. Little did I know that Marley Marl had already remixed my favorite Public Enemy song, "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos." Apparently he put hands on "By the Time I Get to Arizona" at some point as well. 

Nyah'Zo - Flourish

According to a recent study, young and old people's perceptions of time flipped during COVID lockdown, with young people feeling time flying, and olds imagining it slowed to a crawl. Normally, children, young adults, and even some middle-aged folks tend to think time drags while seniors by and large see time speeding by in front of their eyes. I have a theory about this. Maybe humans have evolved to experience time moving slowly for the sake of productivity. We perceive a lag so that all of us may get more done in the relatively little time we have on this planet. Time and space being so closely related, this might help explain how we're able to walk just a few years after we're born. For the sake of energy efficiency, the same genetic knowledge that lets us quickly adapt to our spatial environment also renders us relatively ignorant of our inherent temporal limitations. Life on Earth constantly multitasks so that it might one day flourish.

Nyah Zo's Flourish EP dropped about 10 months ago. She'll be performing at Lithurgy Brewing Co. in Farmingdale on March 31. Use promo code NYAH with your ticket purchase to support her.

Gudda Vell - Champion Season

I found Gudda Vell by stumbling across the video for his song, "Indigo (Here We Go)," possibly because it featured cuts by DJ Stitches. From there, I back-tracked my way to Champion Season, a mixtape from the early days of this website. December 4, 2015 was the advertised release date. The songs were posted individually to Soundcloud some seven years ago. I found them in March 2023. "Real Talk," the first I played, concluded with the voice of Gil Scott-Heron. Though the accompanying art featured a track list, the songs weren't compiled together on the platform as an album or playlist so I grouped them as such. The mixtape largely concerns Gudda's return from a five-year bid.