As I’ve mentioned before, Amen has been one of my favorite MC’s for a minute now, but he doesn’t get anywhere near the exposure he deserves. He’s gearing up to release more music than ever these days and after dropping Head On recently, he’s back with his “Entourage” inspired project, Queens Boulevard.  Check it out…
Download here.
He’s baaaaaaaack!
One of my favorite MC’s and the longtime homey, Amen, took the last few years off from the game to handle his grown man biz but he just dropped his new Head On project for y’all. We did a really dope mixtape together in 2006 called Legend Killer (download here) that’s still smashing most of these rappers so it’s great to see A back on his grizzly. He hasn’t missed a beat either, peep this album ASAP.
Here’s the press release with a little more info about his upcoming projects:
With several years of life experience under his belt following the release of 2006’s critically acclaimed mixtape Legend Killer with Seattle resident and Kube 93 personality DJ Hyphen, Amen has returned with his latest full length endeavor – Head On.
Head On is meant as a primer for forthcoming releases from Amen – as it encapsulates a mix of 11 new and/or unreleased material into a single, cohesive project. Featuring production from longtime collaborators DJ Forge, Khrysis, and Johnny Drama; as well as relative newcomers MG the Future and Midi Marc – this album serves as the first offering in a five album series.
All five albums will be released digitally for free and will follow a theme inspired by the HBO television series – Entourage. Each album will be titled and share a loose thematic influence from each of the fictional films featured on the show. All five releases will contain a minimum of 10 tracks, resulting in the distribution of over fifty songs worth of free material. Video and audio will be posted consistently at www.goldstandardlp.blogspot.com, including behind the scenes footage and exclusive songs in addition to the album material.
As with the film in Entourage, Head On is designed to be the first “starring†role for this 27 year old MC, and ideally will deliver the optimistic promise to listeners of greater and more entertaining projects for the future.
Download here.
“Khrysis on the boards with the heat!”
New ish from Pooh off his Delightful Bars album. Sidenote: the girls in this video are…well…delightful.
Peace to OnSmash with the premiere.
What better place for Ev to shoot visuals for “The Layover” than at an airport? I was waiting for that final scene to happen the entire time I was watching it hahah. Ev’s EP drops on Nov. 25th and you already know it’s gonna be fire. He’ll be in Seattle soon, so look for another appearance from the Weatherman on Sound Session in the coming weeks.
Swiped from the Dopehouse.
Wow, it’s been a minute since I did a Throwback post. I’ve been meaning to toss up this gem from the homey K. Slack for weeks and I finally got a free minute so here goes.
You may remember Slack from his work alongside J. Gunn and Killa K as part of TheThyrDay, a really dope group from North Carolina. While they did release one (classic) album, Perfection Xperiment 2, unfortunately they broke up shortly afterwards and moved on to solo projects. Slack and Gunn have actually linked up recently for a few tracks, so I’m hoping we’ll get to see some sort of 3D reunion, at least between those two.
Before their album came out, Slack posted up a few of his solo tracks on Okayplayer and I remember stumbling upon that post and being blown away. I think this was fall of 2002 and I was in my first semester of junior year at college. This track, “broKen AnJel,” was produced by 9th Wonder and Khrysis (the beat is split in two) and it has that vintage Justus League sound. The market has been flooded with those kind of beats since Little Brother blew up, but I’ll always look back fondly on 9th and Khrysis’ early work. They definitely inspired a million copycats.
If I remember correctly, Slack wrote this track to his girl at the time and all the lyrics were heartfelt and truthful to the situation he was in. Part of the reason why I fell in love with the track is that I could apply almost the entire thing to the relationship I was in as well. “Seasons change, mad things rearrange,” and my girl and I broke up after a few years but I think we always hold on to certain songs because of the memories we attach to ’em. This is definitely one of those joints for me.