The Mic is the Message

http://miloraps.bandcamp.com/album/so-the-flies-dont-come

milo: so the flies don’t come

Release Date: September 25, 2015

Produced by Kenny Segal

The album I’ve been playing on repeat the past few weeks is Milo’s so the flies don’t come. Kenny Segal’s production is on point and melds beautifully with milo’s mic presence, which is the strongest it’s been. The instrumentals have an experimental synthetic smooth jazz feel that fits milo’s style perfectly. Milo has some of the most layered and abstracted lyrics in hip hop and this project seems to be his most personally revealing approach, showing the listeners a clearer picture of his concerns and perspectives.

Here’s the song that was released a few weeks before the album called Zen Scientist, with Myka 9 harmonizing on the chorus:

Zen Scientist feat. Myka 9

Each track opens a new window to milo’s psyche and follows a style that bounces in and out of genuine and sarcastic while displaying a mastery of figurative language in exceptional rhyme format.

As a big fan of wordplay, there is a section of the song below “an encyclopedia” that is incredibly satisfying to hear, and even more so to memorize (1:42 – 1:57):

Milo last seen with a poor sport, with more ass, got a passport to import more for the war stash, short leash, long lash, Long Beach, with Bombast, I palm palm trees in my thought path. This is a mason jar containing a last laugh. (Followed my a menacing laugh in the background)

an encyclopedia

Features for this project include Hemlock Ernst, Myka 9, Open Mike Eagle, and Elucid. Below is a beautiful track featuring Elucid titled “going no place”:

One of my favorite tracks of the project is “song about a raygunn (an ode to Driver)”, which is a heartfelt tribute to his friend and mentor Busdriver, which can be seen in the last post from The Mic is the Message “The Latest Playlist: September 2015”, track 3.

For a more in depth review of the album, I recommend checking out the video below with Anthony Fantano of theneedledrop.com. I feel he really nailed it as usual.

https://henrycanyons.bandcamp.com

Henry Canyons: Canyonland

Release Date: June 16, 2015

Henry Canyons’ latest album Canyonland came out earlier this summer on Mello Music Group, and has been one of my favorite hip hop projects to come out this year. The entire album has a cohesive sound with a unique fusion of blues and jazz in the beats, soulful vocalist Zoe Rose harmonizing in 4 of the tracks, and Freddy Jay on the cuts for 2. Canyons has a commanding voice and smooth cadence that blends wonderfully with this style of instrumentals. His wordplay is articulately constructed at an advanced level, and often approached from a more poetically abstracted perspective.

Below is the bandcamp bio given for the project by Henry Canyons:

“Canyonland is not a mythic, unworldly place or a complete invention of my imagination. It is rather, the encapsulation of my experience that became my world five years ago; that of a half-French, Jewish Brooklynite transplanted in Los Angeles. The canyon is the point of the vista. From the top you see where you stand in respect to where you’ve come from, and where you’re going. Canyonland is my experience getting adapted to this environment, struggling to do so, finding my personal and professional spheres, further embracing my identity, my challenges and success with women, witnessing a completely different lifestyle with its various breeds of people, and the place where “dreams come true.” This is my journey through the desert in the hopes of finding the oasis.”

While Henry Canyons has a cohesive idea tying the project together he does not allow it to box him into his writing process. His lyrics are largely guided by the assembly of wordplay, which he uses to weave in and out of the overarching ideas more naturally than a strict cohesion to the concept might. As can be gathered by his bio above, the primary ideas presented are personal to Canyons and his perspective, including struggle and transcendence, music and hip hop, abstracted observations of contemporary culture, and relationship/escapades with women. These ideas are often intertwined and revisited from track to track.

Mixed By: Matt Bowen

Produced By: Keor Meteor

Mastered By: Willie Green

Executive Produced By: Matt Bowen & Henry Chanin