A fourth album from Birmingham’s Mike Skinner and it seems the further he goes from the bedroom dynamics which formed his début record, the worse he sounds. Its almost as if Mike needs to have tales from “the street” to build records around, his last effort seemed to be a dig at the celebrity lifestyles and when this record starts with lyrics like “i started with nothing, and leave with nothing but love, everything else is just borrowed” you feel like its not going to have the grit of “Original Pirate Material” or even “A Grand Dont Come For Free” which was built around tales of a failing relationship. Read the rest of this entry »
Reain (pronounced Rain) is a British emcee hailing from West London, England and he’s just about to release his debut album entitled The Metaphorcast. As well as being a solo performer he’s also part of a Jazz band called The Mighty Jeddo… that’s all I got… he’s a hard man to track down on Google. Read the rest of this entry »
Skandal, formerly a member of Chain of Command, just dropped his debut e.p. on Kilamanjaro under Chemo Production and boy is it heavy. The E.P. contains dubs and clean edits of three tracks from Skandal; Dark Times, Venom and Warning. As well as the fantastic production provided by Chemo (JOE BUDDEN / KOOL G RAP / ROYCE DA 5’9) Skandal is all about crystal clarity when it comes to lyrical delivery. This is evident right from the off and not to mention the fact he’s supporting the likes of Immortal Technique, one of my favourite emcees of modern times. Read the rest of this entry »