these shoes productions

2 Mello’s first album, Super Producer, is now available for free download at 2 Mello’s new Bandcamp site! Click the photo or link to head through and get this HUGE LP release from These Shoes Productions, featuring 14 tracks produced and written by 2 Mello and featuring Vagrant Black, KD and Devine Carama!
http://2mellomakes.bandcamp.com/

Tracklist:
1. Enlighten You
2. Ten Years (single)
3. Shake It Out (single)
4. The Master
5. Cool Music
6. Hope
7. Hip Hop Heroes (ft. Devine Carama)
8. That Fire
9. Punchlines (ft. Vagrant Black and KD)
10. Life Addicts (ft. Vagrant Black)
11. Into You (ft. KD)
12. Ghost Town
13. Twice The Man
14. Cincinnati  

MELODIES OF A MASTERMIND - KD
6-track EP AVAILABLE FOR FREE DOWNLOAD TODAY!
 
Click on the photo to head on over to KD’s new Bandcamp to stream or download his brand new EP, Melodies of a Mastermind. This is the first July release from These Shoes Productions.

With roots in poetry and dramatic performance, KD broke onto the hip-hop scene in 2010, working with producer 2 Mello to create his unique musical vision, combining meaningful lyrics with exciting new sounds in a first EP that retains the integrity of classic hip-hop. This is Melodies of a Mastermind. 

http://kdmusic4.bandcamp.com/

Must-Haves of Hip-Hop: 
Diamond D and the Psychotic Neurotics - Stunts, Blunts & Hip Hop
by Matthew Hopkins

There are so many great producers working in the hip-hop industry that some of them are pushed back into the shadows, outshined by superstar producers like the Neptunes, Timbaland and Kanye West, and never see the notoriety they deserve. Diamond D was not one of those, so in 1992, he released his debut album, Stunts, Blunts and Hip Hop, on which he acts as both producer and MC.

The album is notable for several reasons, one of which being that it is massive. We are lucky if we see the standard 15 or 16 tracks on a hip-hop album today, but Stunts, Blunts and Hip Hop boasts 23 tracks. 23. Some of them are skits, sure, but that is quite a package. Another thing that is great about the album is the variety of guest stars. Fat Joe and Big L, both far less notable then than they are now, helped with the MCing, while Large Professor, Q-Tip, Jazzy Jay, Showbiz and Mark the 45 King (producer of Jay-Z’s Hard Knock Life, among other famous beats) helped with production.

A strange but endearing thing about Stunts, Blunts and Hip Hop is the fact that some of its tracks were so ahead of their times in terms of sampling and arrangement that they could almost have been produced today, rather than way back in 1992, like the R&B-infused “Confused”, the raw, stripped-down “Best Kept Secret” and the jazzy, experimental sound of “Feel The Vibe”. Most of the singles on the album are strong, classic examples of boom-bap production (“Red Light, Green Light” and “Sally Got A One Track Mind”).

Today, Diamond D is remembered for being one of the founding members of the D.I.T.C. (Diggin’ In The Crates, a phrase describing the eternal search for samples in vinyl record bins), and Stunts, Blunts and Hip Hop is not one to miss if you want to trace the progress of East Coast hip-hop production, and have knowledge of a gem that should impress any hip-hop historian.

Listen to the full album for free via Spotify by clicking on the cover above.

Must-Haves of Hip-Hop:
A Tribe Called Quest - Midnight Marauders
by Matthew Hopkins

Midnight Marauders came about at a time when West Coast gangsta rap was at its peak, undoubtedly the most profitable and popular sub-genre of rap music on the shelves at that time. However, something completely different was happening on the East Coast; the already legendary hip-hop collective A Tribe Called Quest (Q-Tip, Phife Dawg and producer Ali-Shaheed Muhammad) was crafting the follow-up to their sophomore album success The Low End Theory.

That album had created a new sound for rap music: lush jazzy backgrounds, a calming and intellectual lyric flow commenting on social problems, and of course, lots of heavy bass lines. Midnight Marauders took this sound one step further, with more complex productions and a collection of some of the best and most well-remembered samples in all of hip-hop, including the ingenious sample of Minnie Ripperton’s “Inside My Love” on the track “Lyrics To Go”, the bass line from Ronnie Foster’s “Mystic Brew” on “Electric Relaxation” and Busta Rhymes’ voice from their previous song, “Scenario”, being sampled for the chorus of “Oh My God”. This was one of the first instances in which a rap group sampled and re-purposed their own work. 

There is also an evident improvement in Tribe’s lyrical content in this album. Their first album, People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm, featured lyrics mostly dealing with common problems arising in everyday life, spiced up with humor and a great deal of silliness on Q-Tip’s part. The Low End Theory, however, saw Q-Tip and Phife taking on much larger social problems, such as violence among youths, prostitution, the drug trade, and date rape. With Midnight Marauders, the group was able to combine the humor and “relatability” of their first album with the social consciousness of their second, making for an undeniably powerful combination. This album is absolutely essential to anyone wishing to understand the progression of hip-hop and collect the best works of the classic era.

Listen to the album for free via Spotify by clicking on the photo above.

PRELUDES.