Mixtape Street Album of the Week:
S.O.U.L. Purpose City Permits

Street ‘album’ may be pushing it a bit as this has a number of interludes from a Mick Boogie interview with Mazzi of S.O.U.L. Purpose, but nonetheless, a number of standout tracks make this an enjoyable listen. Highlights include the classic Statik Selektah produced ‘Talkin’ bout You,’ remixed with a feature from New York Nick along with ‘Keep Movin remix’ featuring a verse from Fresh Daily. The mixtape also has a joint produced for Peter Rosenberg’s Real Late on Hot 97. Presented by Mick Boogie and Terry Urban, who’s stamp of approval is often worth the download alone.

Download here.

Mixtape of the Week: Outasight From There to Here an album prequel

Mick Boogie jumps in to produce a new tape from one of my favorite unknowns of 2008. After checking this kid at the Brooklyn Bodega showcase for CMJ I quickly wanted to find out more and downloaded his last free album Radio. I’ve included a video post from Outasight and since then have seen him starting to get a little shine on the nmc blogs, mostly from 2dopeboyz.

As a prequel to his upcoming album, Outasight is releasing some of the obscure tracks from other project and some new remixes to Radio. If you aren’t familiar, its worth checking out. Highlights include a remix to ‘Radio, radio’ with a verse from Ced Hughes, and his Oddisee produced track ‘Exclusive.’

Stay tuned for more from this up and coming talent and download the tape here.

Mixtape of the Week: Charles Hamilton x 3

I really wanted to write this last Saturday, when all of these mixtapes were released, but there just was not motivation. In hindsight, I’m glad I was able to wait it out a bit longer, as I’ve had more time to give Hamilton’s latest onslaught of releases a more complete ear.

From Feb 14th through the following week Hamilton dropped three different mixtapes, each with their own concept and this last week, an additional tape from his crew. I haven’t listened to the latest but, his three solo efforts, Well Isn’t This Awkward, My Brain is Alive and Every Charles Hamilton Ex-Girlfriend’s Worse Nightmare.

Amazing for an artist to put out so much work, but with a large number of tracks, each has standout of its own, and some that could have been left alone.

This first of the three, Well Isn’t This Awkward is a concept album for Valentines Day featuring stories about love, and relationships. Topics Hamilton seems to really thrive while recording. His L Word mixtape was a standout from his previous series, The Hamlitization Process, dealing mostly with the same topics of dealing with multiple women and near addiction level for his love of attention. This first mixtape has a few standouts, with Neverland, his Match.com commercial spoof, and the intro itself. A continuing strong point for this, and most of Hamilton’s work is his ability to pick beats. He flips sample rarely heard on other mixtapes and although few of these would ever make it as commercial tracks on their own, as part of the set they fit well together.

In his second release, My Brain is Alive, Hamilton takes the beat selection down some familiar and unfamilar roads. The track from this mixtape that stood out to me the most, Pleasant Overthinking (Cold Chillin’) used samples that would be familiar to anyone who has heard Mos Def’s The New Danger. Another favorite is the track Freshman Orientation, but again, this comes from an appreciation of the musical choice, and less because of Hamilton’s vocals.

The last tape, Every Charles Hamilton Ex-Girlfriend’s Worse Nightmare, was the tape that impressed me the most. A number of MC’s have rhymed over tracks from Kanye’s 808’s and Heartbreaks, but few completely rebuilt the beats as well as Hamilton does here. On many tracks he keeps the original feel of Wests album (Shayna, Tiffany and Keana) and other tracks makes it complete his own. On the track Shantel, Hamilton chops the line from Kanye “look back on my life and my life gone” from Welcome to Heartbreak to create his refrain. I love the playfulness of Brittany with the Kanye sample sped up in the chimpmunk style that made West famous. The song features a classic opening line, “We started off as a Facebook poke war, as so normally does but not no more.”

Part of the reason I think I had a closer tie to this tape over the others was getting to hear Charles talk about it months ago at the Puma showcase in Williamsburg. Before his performance I tagged along to dinner with itsthereal, Hamilton and his crew for Sushi. On the walk over Hamilton mentioned wanting to re-do the entire album, and he has probably been sitting on parts of this for a while.

Overall, a strong outing from Hamilton on all accounts. My biggest issue with his music is that many of his hooks blend together and often make me want to skip before the next verse.  He is certainly growing as an artists over his prolific number of releases, and I can’t wait to see what a major label release would sound like.

Download:
Well Isn’t This Awkward
My Brain is Alive
Every Charles Hamilton Ex-Girlfriend’s Worse Nightmare

See previous Mixtape of the Week:
Dj Sean G Presents: Lever 2009