Currensy "Fast Times at Ridgemont Fly"

I suppose a good thing can’t last forever. I would of liked it to last a bit more than one tape though. After the rousing Super Tecmo Bowl that showed me a Currensy I’m familiar with he comes back a month later with Fast Times at Ridgemont Fly - the title and the fact that it’s the second to last had me holding high hopes even before I started this little mission of mine. Unfortunately I was wrong.

Gone almost completely are the smoothed out beats he appropriated on Tecmo Bowl, in their place are an assortment of more intense and at times grating beats. I remember being into “All About the Benjamin's” in middle school, but today the beat sounds terrible. I don’t even know what Spitta was talking about there.

I’m going to take a leap and say that the amount of ladies Currensy was getting with over the course of 2008 went up as his productivity did. Fast Times at Ridgemont Fly is full of songs about random ladies. Meeting them in the club, kicking it at the crib playing video games, girls rolling up planes, and more adventures with the opposite sex dominate the air time here. On a song like “Navigation Pimpin” you can’t be too mad at it but they don’t maintain this level.

As the tape progresses I loose interest. I’m baffled by how this project is letting me down like none of the previous one’s (except for maybe the early two) have. Currensy seems to be a bit distracted, seeing his clever self gone with a stiff unlikeable emcee in his place just reciting run of the mill bars about non sense. If you are gonna rap about this subject matter you gotta make it exciting and not come off as a lame. Here he fails on both counts.

Completest eat your heart out, download here.

Currensy "Super Tecmo Bowl"

Currensy has finally got a tape in his canon I won’t look down on. Fear and Loathing in New Orleans got pretty close, but Super Tecmo Bowl sees the Hot Spitta finding both his voice and the right style of beat for him.

Throughout the bars he spits here there is a confidence I’ve not heard on any of the previous projects. He touched it on Life at 30,000 Feet but his youth and the Cash Money influence are heavy burdens on his earlier tape. Here he is on top of the world. He attacks tracks with a passion. He is five tapes into the monthly mixtape series and it’s starting to pay off, he has captured the attention of the bloggeratti and was probably seeing some doors open via his own work. That has to be an invigorating feeling, this feeling is expressed through his flow.

His rhymes cover a lot. He’s got a lot on his mind. Weed is starting to be talked about more, girls are front and center often, he boasts on one song that he has no game chicks just know his story. His fashion sense is on display as well. While anyone can talk about these things, Currensy delivers his talk in quite clever rhymes that humanize what it is he is talking about.

He isn’t totally caught up in the material world however and on a song like “I Did It Myself” he bounces back and forth between his fly talk and some serious introspection about his career path and the work he has done. This is a reoccurring theme throughout Super Tecmo Bowl, addressed in different scenarios He talks about the blogs, the series, his homies he intends to put on - perhaps this doesn’t sound interesting when read about but the way he rolls all of these things together he shows his fans his life through his rhymes. His life just happens to revolve around his music and clothes.

He talks to the haters on “Top Shelf” and gets as close to his old gangster threats since before the series began with the line about his homies not responding kindly to disparaging remarks and points out while that’s not really his steez, it’s how it’ll go down so just keep them thoughts to your self. He gives us a weed song in “Blaze Something” certain to piss off any club promoter, owner or security staff as the hook incites anyone with chronic in the club to light it up.

A big part of this tapes playing as a whole are the beats he selected. Most I recognize, few I’m able to place which is driving me crazy but you can’t know all. The common theme with most is their more musical than much of what we’ve seen in the past. Many of these feature horns, what sound like live drums or at least live played via the producers machine of choice. While not exactly what Ski is on with his current Karate School sensei’s they mesh well with Currensy’s voice.

Maybe it’s the weed, maybe it’s the success, maybe it’s the good times he is having living life with his crew recording raps, playing video games and going shopping - whatever it is that makes Currensy happy was going on in his life while making this record and he gave that back to his fans.

Download it here.

Currensy "Fear & Loathing in New Orleans"

With tape number four in “Spitta’s Monthly Mixtape Takeover” (his name, not mine) he shouts out his home and a classic book about a wild drug fueled journey. I’m sure Fear & Loathing in New Orleans was fueled by as much chronic smoke as any other tape Currensy has released, but he isn’t one to rep for much else - he even goes so far as to say on the intro he doesn’t “pour anything up.” Regardless of what ingests, he has delivered a pretty good project this time around, maybe the first of his tapes I could see myself going back to as a whole project.

He introduces the tape over Kool & The Gang’s “Summer Madness” before jumping into the title track sounding great over a smooth jazzy beat that I swear I’ve heard before but can’t place. He is talking about his home here, he talks about the hood, friends passed, and his first rap that was “full of bullshit and lies” about doing dirt. I can dig this.

The tape kinda falters for a sec after with a couple ho hum joints. “Murda” comes and goes with Spitta talking about how he can take out anyone with his bars while “Movie Writers, Bussiness Men & Gangstas” features a terrible beat with no life for Currensy and Mr. Marcelo to talk about nonsense, and some contrived connection between the three. Well I guess their could be, but they don’t capture it in the slightest.

He and Roddy take “We Major” into “Sky Barz” talking about their typcial Fly Society type shit about just how fly they get and over a Neptunes industry beat he talks about “World Class Bitches” who love him. He sounds good over the Neptunes baby making tune, and he keeps it light and funny throughout, he just wants to get highed up with the fly ass chick who snuck the planes into the club.

Many of the tracks on this tape only feature a verse and a hook. This isn’t a knock against the tape, one of the flaws in the previous ones relates to how they could drag on. That being said, it’s an easier task to write a hot 16 over a hot beat, coming with a complete idea is a whole different task. Of course he has proven today he has no problem being creative, if anything these days the guy is being too inspired... nah, no such thing.

“Lost In Transit” is one of the best Currensy song I’ve heard in my going through the discography. Over an awesomely spacey beat that features very mellow drums just playing in the background, whoever played the synths on this tack wins big in my book, I want more! Currensy gives us some high talk about rappers being parents to kids who’s biological don’t bother, education getting you killed, and of course he has a couple lines about how dope he is.

He raps about being new age technology, tell dudes how to get on in this new Internet driven rap biz. He rocks over Ski’s Camp Lo classic, continually demonstrating the chemistry they have goes deeper than just knowing Dame. He pulls on Ced Hughes for an awesome track in “Calm Down” and reminds me why I interviewed dude, why I hate that I don’t have the audio any longer, and just how dope he is. He has a much more precise flow next to Spitta, but they compliment each other here awesomely well.

Fear & Loathing in New Orleans has some gems. Like most mixtapes it’s not flawless, that’s ok. Like all of these proects it’s free and it’s another notch in Currensy’s belt. He wasn’t dropping these tapes to make people believe he was the dopest on the mic but to prove that he could rap and you should listen to him. What he lacks in lyrical dexterity he makes up for with charisma and a knowledge of rap that only the biggest of heads would put on display. He rocks “Intergalactic” like it was his own. Enough said.

Download the tape here.

Fresh Daily "Mothership/Land"

Hip Hop has been seeing a lot of changes and growth this year. The music has stayed flowing with a constant stream of free “mixtapes” being dropped online everyday. Fresh Daily is a young kid from Brooklyn who raps, and does it well. He dropped an album earlier this year called Mothership/Land. On the cover Fresh is their looking suspiciously like Afrika Bambaataa and the spacely feel that Bam so often infused into his early visions of Hip Hop music is here loud and clear.

“Space x Time” is a great tune that captures the dichotomy of time passing and how we choose to spend it. TreZure The Empress sings with an awesome voice the hook, contemplating what is a waste of time and what you as a person have to decide is important. Freshes verses will provoke you to consider that lateness you are running with today.

Elsewhere you will hear a cross between original production and some beats you might have heard before. Flying Lotus “Do The Astral Plane” is flipped into “AstralDance” fitting considering it’s the most dance friendly cut on all of Cosmogramma. If you aren’t familiar with FlyLo, do that. Fresh rides this beat of his to perfection, sounding crisper than ever and truely on his way to living his name should he consistently stay fucking with sounds like this.

The original production on the tape is nothing to bat an eye at. While he did choose to use a few others tracks, overall it’s all exclusive to this project and you will have plenty to digest. Like any NYC raised fan, there has to drums and Fresh doesn’t have an ear that appears to let him miss much. Tracks knock when need be, they float in the ether sometimes, and even feature the most aggressive duo’s vocals sampled over a beautifully subdued beat with a hook that says “Throw your guns up in the air.” Hearing it over the mellow soundscape makes me smile.

Electronic influences are obvious here, and help support the notion Hip Hop’s relationship shouldn’t be as fractured from the forward thinking producers of those styles. Both creators use the same or similar tools to make what they do. Hip Hop tends to be heavier on the drums and funky samples, while much of anything in the electronic realm will feature faster paced tunes that sometimes can feel hollow, sometimes full and mind bending and sometimes harder than the most grimiest of Primo bangers.

Lyrically Fresh covers a lot of ground here. Sometimes he gets lost in his abstractness but for the most part he is conveying passion. Feeling. His life put to ones and zeroes. He addresses love, only giving us a snippet but that two minutes of “Starshine” should be enough to have even LL Cool J approving. “Feel Me” is a powerful track about exactly that. He spits “They say Fresh how you feel man/I say with my fingers nigga whats the deal fam” which is the kind of real world slap in the face listeners need sometimes to feel.

I’ve been playing Mothership/Land for the last month off and on, digging deep, comprehending what he was getting at. I’m not one to say everything has a deeper meaning. You might find one in this album, I found some great rhymes that made me think about life, some beats that made me move and a young emcee who isn’t afraid of his own ideas. Get on board with this audio spaceship, expand your mind and listen to something that will remind you about what you’ve been missing yet also give you a sound unlike that which rappers have yet to truly explore.

Give the album a listen below and download it for free here!

Late Birthday Gift

Since we haven't thrown this up yet, and it does NEED to be thrown up. I'll be number 300 to hit you with it. On Monday March 22nd Seattle legend Vitamin D celebrated his birthday. If you don't know Vita then find another blog to read, this shit aint for you.


I'm not sure quite how, but this year Vita's birthday seemed to hold endless presents for the town as a whole. He held his party at Members Only's very own Jet Set (Monday nights at the Capitol Club) with a special performance from Dap Confuser bred and Metal Chocolates bound O.C. Notes and Rik Rude. To everyone's surprise (including ours) he treated us all to a special freestyle session with Otis on the boards before taking control of the wheels himself. Then pulling a move only one with true clout could pull, he coaxed 206 mayor J. Moore to grace the mic. Maybe the first time Ive seen this happen in an impromptu situation like this.

All that withstanding, the best gift Vita gave us this year for his birthday was the Bornday EP I'm not gonna go into trying to describe how filthy this shit is. I'm not nearly a good enough writer, and I think my dude Larry already did it justice over at Raindrop Hustla. Anyways you guys are big kids, make your own opinions. Just dont miss out on this album.

Vitamin D - Born Day EP