Intuition & VerBS: The Buzz EP

Intuition & VerBS team up for this dope new EP

PPP - Abundance

Ubiquity. Release Date January 20

J-Boogie’s Dubtronic Science - Soul Vibrations

Om Records / Stomp. Release date September 27

Ankh Amen Ra - The Sun Raise In Dark Dayz

A nice a debut mixtape with some big name DJ’s behind him. Ankh puts you in the mind of a mix of Dead Prez and Styles P. He spits plenty of knowledge and knows his subject matter.
With creative lines like “…heard from Assata in Cuba, said they got Pac and shot Big, and called it [...]

Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury

Anticipation. If this albums comes down to anything, it’s gotta be anticipation. First, the Virginia duo ride an album of Neptunes beats to double platinum success. Flippin some of the best coke rap in years over some truly avant-garde production, Clipse are the most unlikely group to taste success in 2003. Next up is three [...]

Frank N Dank - Xtended Play Version 3.13

Like most people, I first caught these dudes on the Jaylib album. I liked their style so I copped their album 48 Hours and liked F&D even more, how could anyone fail with an entire album produced by Dilla? Now with Xtended Play Version 3.13, Frank & Dank step out on their own. You could [...]

AZ - The Format

While we look to the big names (Game, Jay-Z, Nas etc) to save what has been a fairly stale year in hip hop, there have been some pretty solid underground releases poppin up here and there. AZ’s The Format is another such album, which will unfortunately end up being slept on I expect. What do [...]

K-Fed - Playing With Fire

Album of the year! Oh man, dude’s got it all! Personality, lyrical skills and an unrivaled ability to pick a beat. OK, OK yea picking on K-Fed is like shooting fish I know, but this album really sucks. The thing I hated was that I was expecting this to suck in that way that makes [...]

Game - The Doctor’s Advocate

After hearing the first six tracks of this album I was ready to turn this website into gamehiphop.com and start up a new fan club. Well, maybe not, but the album opens with some fire. In particular, Will.I.Am’s Compton is a hard-edged, bouncy track that allows Game to do what he does best; reinforce the [...]

Lloyd Banks - Rotten Apple

G-Unit / Interscope
What happened here? Seriously. I was a big fan of Banks; the mixtapes were standard listening for a good 6-8 month period of my life all those years ago. The Hunger For More wasn’t fantastic but I still liked it. There were some exceptionally good tracks on there.
Now it’s time for the sophomore [...]

Ludacris - Release Therapy

DTP / Def Jam
“I’m bout to carry Def Jam on my back.” Someone call Nostradamus and tell him he’s got some competition. Def Jam has one of the best rosters in hip hop (spare maybe Aftermath), but can they get it together? Hell naw. Can anyone write a number one song? Can anyone outsell Janet [...]

Ty - Closer

I’d never heard this dude rap before. You can say what you like about me but I just never really liked UK hip hop, I couldn’t really get with it. Things changed when I popped this one in the player. Hip hop is rarely this upbeat and musical but still actually good. There’s 12 tracks here, 10 of which have guest vocalists, but the album never feels disjointed, nor does Ty’s personality ever feel distant. The guests range from Arrested Development’s Speech to De La, Bahamadia to Rich Medina, each contributing their own personal flavour to a particularly colourful album. I’m not about to start buying up big on UK hip hop now, but I will be checking out Ty’s previous releases after hearing this one.

The Tongue - Bad Education

Elefant Traks / Inertia
What’s up with the coverart here Tongue? This shit is creepy, I’m not gonna sleep well tonight. Tongue does his thing here on his debut EP though. With beats from The Bagraiders (who produce the title track, which is my personal favourite on the EP), J.P and Fame, the short playin’ EP [...]

Astronomy Class - Exit Strategy

Elefant Traks / Inertia
It feels to me that this one came out about a month too soon, but I’m in Melbourne and the members of Astronomy Class all reside in Sydney where the sun shines and the weather is already heating up. This is summer on wax. The production duo of Chasm and Sir Robbo [...]

Jase - The Jase Connection Volume One

Australian hip hop heads require no introduction when we’re talkin about Jase, the man has been holding the city down for years and his quality is only getting better. Jase Connection Volume One is audible proof of the Melbourne producer’s awesome talents and should also serve to win him some new fans around the country.

I’m gonna have to kick this review off by praising track fourteen. I’m sorry to skip so far ahead but I just can’t hold it in. The Jase / Phrase / Daniel Merriweather collaboration is equal parts musical, soulful and genuinely grimy Australian hip hop …