I reviewed Chief Keef’s Back From The Dead at No Jumper
Twubble Twubble drops his new mixtape March 27th
Khalil Nova - Tha Black Layne Staley (No Jumper, 2012)
Tha Black Layne Staley has arrived! Come get sucked into the vortex with Nova and the rest of No Jumper now.
Young Scooter - Married To The Streets (Freebandz, 2012)
I guess he wasn’t kidding when Scooter called it Lil’ Mexico City.
Kirko Bangz - The Progression 2: A Young Texas Playa (Warner Bros, 2012)
A week ago, I saw Joshton Peas talking about how his friend introduced him to Kirko Bangz (in a post that I can’t find because of Tumblr’s gimpy search engine/my own inadequacies). Either way, his friend described Kirko as the rapper “Drake wants to be.” Throughout Progression 2, despite borrowing instrumentals from Drake on a couple occasions, Kirko definitely feels like the embodiment of the persona Drake’s created since So Far Gone. That smooth H-Town player - not nearly as vulgar as Pimp C, and far more empathetic of the ladies. Kirko never reaches Drake’s simp levels by any means - Kirko’s anything but that.
Kirko owes his style far more to being raised in Houston than anything though. The essence of that city is far more organic, and that’s not just because Paul Wall pops his Slim Fast head up on the chopped and screwed “Knowmtalmbout”. With a debut album sure to be put into motion sometime this year off the success of Drank In My Cup, Kirko should be able to make a name for himself in 2012.
Khalil Nova - 808s of Death [REVIEW]
~by Maxwell Cavaseno
As 2012′s dawn peeks from over the hills of yesteryear, more new young rappers are poking their head out to bask in the sunlight. More than a few have managed to take their influences and spin them in ways that outsiders would find difficult to trace. One of them is Khalil Nova, a young man in his early 20′s from Atlanta. Like Tyler, The Creator and Spaceghostpurrp before him, he’s a producer with an eclectic style which looms over his vulnerable personality. A personality which is is embodied by the struggle within last year’s “808′s Of Death”.
It’s easy to see why Danny Brown declared “Khalil Nove got next!” While more and more bedroom rapper/producers are popping up out of the woodwork at an alarming rate, few of them have the immediacy in their production styles to stand out and arrest your attention. But on opener “Cloud Mover”, Khalil seduces the listener with a haze of soap-opera strings, low thudding bass, and melodies meant to pull at heartstrings. Throughout the tape, his sounds form a confusing array of realms to dwell in: whether on the murky sitar-tinged plod of “Combo”, the eski/R&B hybrid of “Freezer Bhudd” to the lo-fi could’ve-been-a-malnourished-Zomby-tune of “Internet Muzik” and the Juicy J gone cybernetic grind of “The Ultimate Track”. Khalil manages to merge the sounds of video-game bleeps from bits 8 to 32 with the bombast of modern trap production.
Spaceghostpurrp - Best Of Blackland (Self-released, 2012)
courtesy of Atrilli.net and Purrp himself, these are Purrp’s favorite tracks from Blackland, along with some other choice cuts, remastered. Includes some of my personal favorites like Mac Named Purrp and Grind On Me, this is certainly worth grabbing.
