I’ve always loved odd time signatures, since starting out playing the drums when I was 12 years old.
Ten years ago, very few rappers were even attempting 3/4 rhymes (usually more like 6/8), let alone anything as weird as 5/4 or 7/8. To this day, although three and six have become less exotic, still no-one does the crazy stuff. People don’t even make beats on that tip unless they’re DJ Shadow, and even DJ Shadow’s not DJ Shadow anymore.
I mention ten years ago because that’s when I made this song – “Cinqo de Mayo” – chopping samples into a 5/4 beat and doing my damnedest to rhyme smoothly over it.
It’s here! Ambition and Uncle Fester show why they’re the MC/DJ duo to watch for in 2010. K.R.E.A.M a love letter to sneakers, rap music and females. Fully streaming for free on Bandcamp, also available for download. Full album includes the 40min mix without track cuts as well as 2 BONUS Uncle Fester DJ mixes…
So, Hypergraphia release date is fast approaching. The 4th of December is the day and Backburner will celebrate with a show at Rancho Relaxo in Toronto. Live sets by The Toolshed with Fresh Kils and DJ Irate, Wordburglar and Uncle Fester will be making the trip from Halifax to throw down on the 1′s and 2′s
Hypergrahia is possibly the best Toolshed related release to date and that’s saying something cause the Shed is both prolific and dope.
From Hypergrahia here’s the whole Shed back together again flexing their muscle on a track called Strong Bros!!
Backburner, as a teeming mass of individuals, has been poking Bandcamp.com with a stick lately, to see how it may suit our various needs. After maybe slurping down some free music from the likes of Del the Funky Homosapien, D-Sisive and that new group Blueprint & Illogic started, a few of us put have some jams up on there, experimentally. Perhaps you’d like to check them out!
For one thing, the new single “Lost Souls” by The Extremities has been premiered on that site… stream it below or download it for free thanks to our good friends at 5 1/4 Records.
Then also? You know that Jesse Dangerously song from 2006, “Heart Of A Girl?” It never came out on an album, except for being featured as part of a downloadable compilation called Rhyme Torrents V, but it’s great and it’s produced by Toronto’s Savilion and maybe you would like to always have it to listen to? Well, here it is, to stream or download (or both!):
Oh yeah, also – the title has been altered to a backronym, in the manner of Common’s “I Used To Love H.E.R.” Can you guess what a “G.I.R.L.” is? Hint: maybe Jesse D is a Gangster In Real Life?
The other thing we’ve put up on Bandcamp so far is both sides from The Imaginary Friends 2004 7″ single, “The ImF Ride” b/w “Even Exist (As In, ‘We Don’t…’)” As a bonus, the download includes the instrumental for each song! This one’s set up a little differently – you can, of course, stream it for free to your heart’s content, but if you wish to download the tracks individually or as a package, you have the opportunity to set your own price and purchase them through PayPal!
It just seemed like kind of a shame that so many heads without turntables weren’t able to experience these classic avant garde raps by Jesse Dangerously, Thesis Sahib and MC Frank Deluxe, so now let’s toast the sorry demise of the Technics SL-1200 (can it really be true?) by making these exclusive, vinyl only tracks just a little bit less special.
So, dear Backburner.ca regulars, how do you like these apples? Is there anything else you’d like to see or hear from us? What do you think of the Backburner Bandcamp experience?
Chokeules (of the Toolshed) is just about to release his new solo effort “Hypergraphia” and he has blessed us with his single “Stand Out”
If you’re a Toolshed fan, get ready cause this album from beginning to end is a heat rock, beats, rhymes, cuts et all. Check the poster above for the release show info in Toronto, click the player below for the stream of “Stand Out”
First leak from the Uncle Fester and Ambition Mixtape entitled K.R.E.A.M. This is the Bonus track on the Mixtape…
So you know if this is the bonus, the rest of the mixtape is fire….They boys have been hard at work and plan on releasing this in the next week or two.
Also, Ambition’s first full length solo album is being finished as we speak by Dexter Doolittle and you know that Ambition + Dex = Hip-Hop fun for everyone.
Hit the link below for the download, we got you covered with the full .wav quality….also, streaming below with a download for MP3
The following commentary is written by Jesse Dangerously and should not be taken to represent the views of any other individuals associated with Backburner.
Conflict has been tearing up the lives of non-combatants everywhere forever. It didn’t stop on Armistice Day, or when the troops came home in 1945, or when everyone realized Viet Nam was a big fiasco, or when headlines from Afghanistan and Iraq stopped being bigger than headlines from Hollywood bedrooms again.
And it didn’t start with those conflicts, either, and what you should never forget – if you are going to be never forgetting something – is that the world is always at war with itself. Massacres don’t stop. The thing that determines whether you feel like there’s a war going on or not is how much it affects white people near where you live. I’m sorry, but it’s true.
The song I’m posting today can only show you a sliver of the global condition, but what ginzu did was focus on the inevitable bystanders, the collateral damage, the human cost of violent conflict. Wherever people are killing, some contingent of the killed never asked to play.
The song is called “Civilian,” and in my humble opinion, it’s the best political song to ever come out of the Halifax hip-hop scene. For years it’s been kicking around in my headphones, haunting me. I’m privileged to be able to let you hear it now.
Did this when I woke up yesterday morning, except the accapella blends and tv samples its all one take. No planning in advance, all off the cuff. Available for stream and download. This is basically what I had for breakfast yesterday.
Be on the lookout for The Ambition and Uncle Fester Mixtape K.R.E.A.M (Kicks Rule Everything Around Me) soon. Also, The first single from the new Extremities album is dropping soon off 5 and 1/4 records.
This Episode is hosted by Creepy Mac Voice Guy….Here’s the tracklist
Intro – Large Pro
Sound The Alarm – Blackmilk feat Guilty Simpson
2 Dope Booyz – Camp Lo
Crowd Pleasea – El Da Sensei
What I’m After – Lords of the Underground (FesPrimoBlend)
How We Rock – Termanology feat Bun B
Life As A Shorty – Fashawn
BoutitBoutit – Johnson and Jonson
Fall Of The Light Brigade – Lushlife
Party Enemy No1 – People Under The Stairs
Hazy Shade of Criminal – Public Enemy
U Aint This – Ghettosocks feat D-Sisive, Rich Kidd, Munshine
I never thought of that as being something that was going to happen, certainly not back when I was nineteen.
What I did do when I was nineteen is write a song about someone else turning thirty, and how that person might feel about certain things in his life.
In retrospect, I think there’s a lot that’s immature about this song, even though I wrote it with the best of intentions, trying to inspire listeners to not be such homophobic jerks. In my ham-fisted way, I worry that I may have only made homophobia worse. I don’t know, really.
Think of it as juvenilia, something that I wish I had done better or not at all but I was a kid and I thought it was important so there it is.
It’s called “A Single, Gay Male On His Thirtieth Birthday.”
I hope you can enjoy it at all, through all the wincing at my lack of subtlety or sensitivity!
Love,
Jesse D at 30
p.s. I used to rap this song into the faces of haters at shows. I hoped it would wither their masculinity by comparison. I like to think it did, a little.
The Burners been real busy lately, most of the crew just got back off tour. After a ton of successfull shows everyone is settled back into their respective cities finishing their verses for the upcoming BackBurner crew album. More on the crew album at a later date, for now, time to share some live audio from the tour.
Check out some live audio treats courtesy of Beatmason and the Vault studios….
BACKBURNER LIVE AT THE SEAHORSE IN HALIFAX (25 mins)
(2 ToolShed songs, 2 WordBurglar songs, Possecut and a whole lotta KARG)
Today, I turned thirty.