CHRIS FARAONE

Radio days

CHRIS FARAONE — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 12:16:32 GMT

Will C.’s beyond-fresh Down the Dial comp
Will C was born 20 years too late and four skin tones too light.

The Chuck Turner conspiracy?

CHRIS FARAONE — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 23:09:49 GMT

Unheard Voices
Sure, some news outlets have competently covered City Councilor Chuck Turner's recent arrest for allegedly accepting a cash bribe in exchange for a liquor license — and then lying about it.

Starting from Scratch

CHRIS FARAONE — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 17:02:39 GMT

The Upsetter screens at the Coolidge
If the hip-hop generation ever calls for martial law, the revolution will be sponsored by Scion. The rectangularly adventurous car company is our closest corporate ally, bankrolling a large segment of the low-slung-pants community, and providing the rest of us with sweet events that rarely dent the pocket.

Deck Demons

CHRIS FARAONE — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 21:08:33 GMT

Slipwax, Illogix, Eliot Ness, and Emoh spin the night fantastic
Now that every annoyingly extroverted hipster dude and chick with implants, long legs, and Serato has a club residency downtown, it's become increasingly important for real hip-hop DJs to mix together.

LIVING HISTORY: It all started back in 2000, when Slipwax (right, with Ness and Emoh) was working with Sav the Illfinga at a debt-collection agency.

Now that every annoyingly extroverted hipster dude and chick with implants, long legs, and Serato has a club residency downtown, it's become increasingly important for real hip-hop DJs to mix together. For that reason, and because they're a bunch of junkies who can't kick the needle, New England's premier DJ squad, the Deck Demons, are getting themselves back in gear.

Currently comprising Slipwax, Illogix, Eliot Ness, and newcomer Emoh, the crew have catching up to do. After the departure of JayCeeOh for New York this past year, they lost considerable steam, rarely practicing and only sometimes rocking gigs together. But this setback is hardly unprecedented — the Deck Demons franchise has for years kept the revolving door open for top local talent.

"This all started back in 2000, when I was working with Sav the Illfinga at a debt-collection agency," Slipwax says over the phone from Beverly. "He was on 88.9@Night [on Emerson's WERS] at the time, and we just started scratching together after work for fun. Then Sav introduced me to JayCeeOh, and from there we started calling ourselves the Deck Demons. DJ Lazyboy was with us back then too."

Even though Ness and Illogix hail from New Hampshire and Slipwax has Beverly roots, the Deck Demons have long been the most feared DJ crew in Boston, and in the past few years they've also splashed heavy on the national circuit. As solo battle contestants, they're known to advance through brackets until, inevitably, they face one another. Most memorably at Roc Raida's First Annual Gong DJ Battle for World Supremacy in 2006, where Slipwax and Illogix sparred in the quarterfinals.

"It was weird because he won, but we kind of planned it that way backstage," says Slipwax. "By the time I made it that far, I was pretty much out of routines, but Illogix still had a lot more to deliver in the next round. I wouldn't say that I threw it, but I definitely didn't come with the thunder."

Although they're all aggressive individuals, the Deck Demons have clocked their biggest props together. In 2006 they placed second at the DMC World DJ Championship in Chicago, where they lost the crew competition to Cincinnati's Animal Crackers by one point. "They were good and all, but it was still bullshit that we lost," says Slipwax. "Those guys are from out there — the whole crowd was filled with their fans."

Surly you jest

CHRIS FARAONE — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 15:38:38 GMT

The other side of Big Shug’s game
He might be the toughest veteran on Boston’s hip-hop scene, but Shug is a phenomenal dinner guest.

CAPTIVE AUDIENCE: “I remember one time when I was in jail and I was snapping on this one dude who I couldn’t even see because we were all in our cells. I had the whole block erupting.”

Big Shug, "Like a Mothafucka" (mp3)

Big Shug and I have an ongoing tradition. Every time he drops a record, we gorge ourselves and talk shit for a few hours. He might be the toughest veteran on Boston’s hip-hop scene, but Shug is a phenomenal dinner guest — even if he’s apt to bury one rack of ribs, half-a-dozen wings, three sides, and a square of cornbread. “This is the first time I’ve seen you straight in a while,” he cracks as I walk into Tennessee’s in Braintree, where he owns a home. “You be getting drunk like a muhfucka at them shows, man. How’d you get home from that last one? Did you call your mom to pick you up?”

Funny as Shug is, he’s the biggest ballbuster since Alec Baldwin in The Departed. Scratch that — Alec Baldwin in Outside Providence. He’s been rabble-rousing since before Gang Starr, and even before high school. After getting expelled from the Metco program in fifth grade for assaulting curious/racist white Newton kids who kept touching his Afro, he wound up at middle school in Mattapan, where, in his words: “The kids were bad as hell — they would just show up to school with boxes of doughnuts that they stole from the grocery store.”

Even though he wound up elbow-deep in Boston’s violent drug game, in sixth grade Shug hoped to cut back on scrapping. “I was big, but I wasn’t as tough as the rest of these kids. I had this thing where I wanted to go through the rest of my life without fighting, and even though that didn’t happen, I learned how to snap. I’ve been legendary for it ever since — a lot of people thought I should be a stand-up comedian. It was just natural, and the funny thing was that I could fight, too, so if you got mad that I was snapping on you, so what — I’ll still whip your ass.”

88-Keys | The Death of Adam

CHRIS FARAONE — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 15:34:22 GMT

Decon (2008)
Kanye’s true genius has always been his leeching onto more talented beatmakers.

Millenium thug

CHRIS FARAONE — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:39:39 GMT

Rough, rugged, raw reality rap essentials from a redefining year
Forgive me for listing only New York classics here.

Joe the rapper

CHRIS FARAONE — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:50:16 GMT

Joe Budden, Freeway, and the enduring authority of street rap
"One thing I've learned is that if you write about reality, you'll never run out of material."

BEAT AND POTATOES: Budden is proof that there’s an everlasting market for grounded raps about the goings on in Everyhood America.

Millenium thug: Rough, rugged, raw reality rap essentials from a redifining year. By Chris Faraone.

Some hip-hop acts are guaranteed to draw heads around here. Boston juggernauts like Slaine and Akrobatik pack substantial spots. The same goes for whatever fad-heavy phenomenon is atop the game, whether it's Virginia blow rappers Clipse or the decadently clad Cool Kids. Throwback legends like Slick Rick and KRS-1 have enough devotees to lure crowds; so do indie staples Slug and Aesop Rock, both of whom are known to sell out in advance.

But through every trend — from hipster-hop and conscious rap to crunk and bling-bap — lyrically cunning, insightful street rap prevails. This is an easy point to prove: despite the frequent departures into materialistic territory, beneath every kingpin's style is a hardcore edge. Jay-Z first emerged as that guy who "stayed in beef and slept with a tech"; Nas was "the type of nigga who be pissin' in your elevator." Even the Game, who has no doubt marketed himself through a number of beef and ego-driven gimmicks, brings timeless ghetto rhymes that could pass for Golden Era material.

Although few Jay and Nas contemporaries have reached the proverbial penthouse, the top dogs are not the only ones who bank off hood tales and tribulations. This weekend two distinct but similarly veined urban griots will likely swell Boston's largest independent venues. At the Middle East on Friday, New Jersey blacktop legend Joe Budden headlines his Halfway House release party. The next night, at Harpers Ferry, Philly crime rapper Freeway will bring esteemed gutter-riffic game. Much like AZ and Cormega in recent sets, both Freeway and Budden are expected to draw a colorful cross-section, city cats who relate to them and respectfully voyeuristic suburbanites.

"Hip-hop that dictates reality will always be around," says Boston rap promoter Edu Leedz. "It might not always be as popular as the current commercial trends, but it will have more stability in the long run because the fans live and die by it." DJ Statik Selektah, who frequently collaborates with Freeway and a host of other exalted roughnecks including Jadakiss and M.O.P., adds: "Guys like Freeway and Joe Budden don't need radio or television because what they do represents real life. It's past being a trend — it's like listening to a sermon in church. It's more than rap music. It's a lifestyle."

Sweatshop Union | Water Street

CHRIS FARAONE — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 12:42:36 GMT

Look (2008)
Sometimes the greatest discs are the ones you least expect.

McCain in the membrane

CHRIS FARAONE — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 21:47:14 GMT

The Maverick-iest candidate has hip-hop support from R.A. the Rugged Man
Four tracks into his Monday Monster Jam performance, Brooklyn rap czar Jay-Z stops the music and points to a freeze-frame image of George W. Bush on the titanic screen above the TD Banknorth Garden stage.

Four tracks into his Monday Monster Jam performance, Brooklyn rap czar Jay-Z stops the music and points to a freeze-frame image of George W. Bush on the titanic screen above the TD Banknorth Garden stage. After prodding fans to curse and raise middle fingers for about 30 seconds, Hova poses this election season’s choice rhetorical question: “Boston — are you ready for a change?” In a second, the thick piano line for “Public Service Announcement” drops and Dubya’s mug is replaced with a beaming portrait of Barack Obama. The crowd blows its collective load.

The Obama campaign has seen celebrity endorsements aplenty, and not just by hip-hop artists. This past September, Barbara Streisand stirred angry conservatives by hosting a posh Beverly Hills fundraiser for the Illinois senator. Bruce Springsteen incurred similar Republican wrath when, earlier this month, he rocked an Obama rally in Philadelphia to swing Pennsylvania into blue waters. But the pro-Obama vigor pumping through the hip-hop community since the primaries is second to none; try finding another non-MC who’s touched the cover of The Source and Vibe in the same month.

Enter the self-proclaimed “American lowlife” R.A. Thorburn, who’s better known to leagues of underground aficionados as R.A. the Rugged Man. He is hip-hop’s political anomaly: a proud John McCain supporter who is equally down with Sarah Palin. And while he doesn’t have the reach of Jay-Z, Nas, or any of Obama’s other major-label shills, Rugged Man (who is white) is using his notoriety and knack for controversy to rally troops behind the red team.

“A lot of hip-hop heads don’t like that I’m doing this,” says Rugged Man, who features McCain, Palin, and Penthouse pet Jelena Jensen among his top MySpace friends. “The entertainment world is brainwashed by Obama — they’re falling for this guy because it’s the cool thing to do and he’s a great speaker. He’s the world’s greatest used-car salesman.”

Though Rugged Man never shies away from demeaning one-liners, his position on the 2008 presidential election is more rooted in support of the McCain ticket than in disdain for Obama. His father, Staff Sergeant John A. Thorburn, is a highly decorated Vietnam War hero who was shot down behind enemy lines in 1970. Furthermore, he describes his family as “special needs,” having lost two siblings and a nephew to microsyphalic-related complications. He says of the Thorburns’ military ties and special-needs suffering, “I guess you could say my family has more than a bit in common with both McCain and Palin.”

CMJ in one day

CHRIS FARAONE — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 17:37:06 GMT

The Gray Lady of indie music fests ain’t what she used to be

VIDEO: Chris Faraone's CMJ video diary

WEDNESDAY
I step off the bus in Chinatown and walk a few blocks before dashing up through SoHo – my homecoming routine since I moved from New York to Boston four years ago. I enjoy punching through the foot traffic with no regard for middle class materialists who troll Canal Street hunting for imposter handbags; a few months ago I swatted down a woman’s golf umbrella after she impaled my ear while talking on her cell phone.

Main Street Americans can stop worrying about Wall Street folks. They’re laughing up and down lower Broadway wielding fistfuls of bailout bucks; one woman draped with Apple and Adidas bags can’t fit through the door of a café. Shops that exclusively sell miniature Japanese robots are extremely busy, and there appears not to be a single empty table, booth, or barstool at Balthazar. I turn the corner and piss behind a dumpster. Someone has to keep this place grimy.

I’m not here to shop. I came to experience the CMJ Marathon for the first time in two years, and to do it in less than two days. Still, this plastic gentrified aroma that masks Manhattan’s spirit is more pungent than ever, and I’m sure this trip will reflect that seemingly sudden shift. It’s not possible for a festival in contemporary Gotham to be more about the music than the scene itself.

My friends can never find apartment keys that I borrowed on previous visits, so my buddy Brian cuts a new set every time I come for CMJ. If you ever find a keychain near Washington Square Park, they’re probably for his MacDougal Street studio. No complaints though – I have a place to rest within stumbling distance of the fifteen-or-so venues that I plan to crash before bouncing early Friday morning.

CMJ organizers spell my name wrong every time. This year my badge reads “Chris Faronee / Boston Phoenix.” Such errors used to aggravate me – particularly when I was “Chris Fartone” at a newspaper convention three years ago – but it’s a certainty that I’ve come to accept as a victim of the four vowels in my last name.

After checking in at NYU, I roll to 1849 on Bleeker Street, where my super rude bartender treats me like a tourist and snarls as I laugh at Onion headlines. As far as she’s concerned, I’m a Boston native named Chris Faronee who’s here to hit on her and leave a cheap tip. I suppose she’s right about at least two things.

Tax evasion

CHRIS FARAONE — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:32:42 GMT

There is such a thing as a stupid question

As John McCain and Sarah Palin crisscross the United States accusing Barack Obama of promoting naive proletariat principles, people need to look no further than true blue Massachusetts for proof that Democrats and socialists are distinctly different breeds. Around here, while liberals expectedly defend “tax me” politics, conservatives are the ones who push “share the wealth” rhetoric.

The Committee for Small Government (CFSG) surfaced in 2002 with a mission to eliminate the Massachusetts income tax. That year, committee co-founders Carla Howell and Michael Cloud landed a binding referendum on the statewide ballot that would achieve their goal. The effort ultimately failed, but only after a surprising 45 percent of voters backed the measure. That result inspired CFSG volunteers — who, according to the committee’s Web site, number in the thousands — to return in 2007 and gather nearly 80,000 signatures to set in place Question 1, on which a “yes” vote supports abolishing the state income tax by 2009.

Cloud and Howell, both prominent Libertarians, have had relative success on the Commonwealth’s lopsided political landscape. In 2000, Howell ran for US Senate and received more than 300,000 nods as a third-party candidate. Cloud came even closer in 2004 against Senator John Kerry, winning a notable 19 percent of the vote. In May this year, as the anti-tax movement was gathering steam for its latest run at the ballot, observers including Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation (MTF) President Michael Widmer predicted that, with Question 1, the pair could possibly achieve more than just a symbolic victory.

Massachusetts was virtually split over Question 1 until recently. A WBZ-TV/Survey USA poll conducted on September 24 found that 31 percent of voters favored the measure, while 34 percent opposed it. However, the most recent poll — taken three weeks following the aforementioned survey and about two weeks prior to Election Day — shows that only 28 percent of voters remain eager to vote “yes,” while 44 percent are dead against the initiative.

What happened? According to Jamaica Plain–based Union of Minority Neighborhoods organizer Horace Small, the CFSG picked the wrong state, and an even worse economy, to advocate selective socialism. While Question 1 defenders advertise that the proposed cut would save the average taxpayer $3600, people making less than $10,000 annually would only save about $53, while someone earning more than $100,000 would grip roughly $16,300.

The Streets | Everything is Borrowed

CHRIS FARAONE — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:53:59 GMT

Vice (2008)
Even though his heavy drug phase seems to be largely over, Borrowed is Mike Skinner's Sgt. Pepper .

Philly busters

CHRIS FARAONE — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 11:02:31 GMT

In the studio with Jedi Mind Tricks
Jedi Mind Tricks frontman Vinnie Paz instructed me to meet him at a barren studio beneath a highway overpass in South Philly, where they were at work on their latest, A History of Violence (now out on Babygrande).

THEIR WAY: “I’ve always had the Frank Sinatra philosophy that if you can make it where you come from, you can make it anywhere,” says Vinnie Paz.

Jedi Mind Tricks frontman Vinnie Paz instructed me to meet him at a barren studio beneath a highway overpass in South Philly, where they were at work on their latest, A History of Violence (now out on Babygrande). My cabbie gets hopelessly lost looking for it, but after detouring through an industrial wasteland, we arrive at a brick bunker in the shadow of the interstate. From across the street, the spot looks like the sort of black hole where pedophiles store their game, but inside I find a cozy lab with Vinnie and a half-dozen Jedi Mind associates who are cool enough to share some brews.

Some of Vinnie’s protégés warm the booth before the big dog barks. Recording at this studio is a rite of passage in this sect of Philly’s scene; the walls showcase discs that were conceived here, from Reef the Lost Cauze’s Feast or Famine to Ritual of Battle by Army of the Pharaohs. This City of Brotherly Love is a violent, lawless place, and many of the rappers who communicate as much through exceptionally scripted unapologetic rhymes march in Vinnie’s army.

You’re pretty much allowed to pack heat in Philly, and I recommend it since everyone else does; since I have a strictly non-violent criminal background, I can file for a permit today and be legally strapped by my departure on Sunday. It’s obvious why this is the East Coast’s model murder capital, and why Vinnie weaves more gat talk through his lyrics than rogue country singers: Pennsylvania is an NRA Graceland.

“I carry a gun, but it’s because I’m not playing — not because I think I’m John Gotti,” Vinnie explains. “I have the constitutional right to protect myself against someone who might be stupid and do some goon shit. You also have to understand that this city has been plagued with police brutality since the beginning, culminating with the Mumia shit. Everyone I know hates the cops to varying degrees; my cousin Frank hates them, but he’s the most peaceful person I know. I hate the cops and I’ll fucking kill one.”

Interview: Talib Kweli

CHRIS FARAONE — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 23:07:22 GMT

Black star
If one hip-hop album crystallized the schism between underground authenticity and mainstream monotony, it was Mos Def and Talib Kweli Are Black Star (Rawkus).

“When I first started off, I never thought of this as a career — I just wanted to rhyme.”

If one hip-hop album crystallized the schism between underground authenticity and mainstream monotony, it was Mos Def and Talib Kweli Are Black Star (Rawkus). In addition to unprecedented intellectual miracles like “Definition” and “Respiration,” the release packed cuts such as “Hater Players” that pegged the sentiments of rap purists. For those of us who followed the subterranean gospel of Mos and Kweli, interest in Jay-Z and comparable materialistic contemporary nonsense faded quicker than Ja Rule.

Save for featuring Justin Timberlake on his last release, Kweli never compromised his craft to rise above the underground, and yet he became one of hip-hop’s elite few bling-free mainstream rappers. Even while evolving as an artist and an entrepreneur, he’s remained the same Brooklyn cat who reaches “past the star status that you’re grabbing at,” and whose “battle raps blast your ass back to your natural habitats.” I caught Kweli by phone from Miami — where he’s on tour with his live back-up band, the Rhythm Roots All Stars — to see how it feels to be (what often seems like) the lone black star shining in an abyss of mediocrity.

There’s been a lot of talk that the success of your most recent disc, last year’s Eardrum, which debuted at #2 on Billboard’s album chart, was the long-awaited proof that sincere hip-hop can sell. Is that how you saw it?
That’s definitely my view, but, to be more of a realist, my success comes gradually with every album. I consistently move up on the charts, and I consistently sell more units. Not to take anything away from myself, but because the industry is tanking so fast, it makes my success look a lot bigger than it is. It exposes the myth that a lot of these other artists are so far away in numbers from guys like me.

You’re more than just an artist at this point, since you own Blacksmith Music. How has your role changed?
I’m still in the studio and on tour too much to have any office other than my laptop and my cellphone, but the difference is that this is a career for me now. When I first started off, I never thought of this as a career — I just wanted to rhyme. I just wanted people to think that I was nice.

Battling Scientology

CHRIS FARAONE — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 13:52:03 GMT

Anonymous's Gregg Housh is committed to bringing down the Church of Scientology. Is he a gadfly or a goon?
In a world wracked with uncertainty, there is at least one thing you can bet on: pick a fight with the Church of Scientology, and its leaders will fight back — always with vigor, often with a vengeance, and sometimes with litigation that can be long and costly.

Photos: Anonymous protest against Church of Scientology, Boston, MA, October 11, 2008. By Matt Teuten.

In a world wracked with uncertainty, there is at least one thing you can bet on: pick a fight with the Church of Scientology (CoS), and its leaders will fight back — always with vigor, often with a vengeance, and sometimes with litigation that can be long and costly.

The idea of locking legal horns with the CoS might be enough to cool the ardor of some critics. But that is not Gregg Housh’s style. Housh, an Internet activist and provocateur, is not an easy guy to characterize. A member of a group that calls itself “Anonymous,” Housh is pitted in what appears to be an escalating rift with the CoS. Core constitutional issues such as freedom of speech and freedom of religion are central to the dispute.

Almost 10 months ago, Housh helped launch a protest group that he now describes as the world’s fastest-growing grassroots movement (mobilizing several thousand people in less than one month). The group formed as a response to the removal of a video from YouTube and other sites that featured Tom Cruise describing CoS doctrines and principles. From a few simple mouse clicks, a mighty battle has grown.

Housh is himself a rather casual, almost random sort of activist. A seventh-grade dropout, devout atheist, and proud computer troll, he claims to loathe all political parties equally, and could give a damn about Greenpeace, PETA, or any other picket-happy causes. In fact, had the CoS not “messed” with what he thinks of as his Internets, Housh would probably be wasting his spare time sparking Web mischief instead of dedicating approximately 40 hours every week to Anonymous, his now infamously masked group, whose mission seems to be toying with L. Ron Hubbard’s minions.

Born in Dallas in 1976, Housh deserted middle school to pursue technological endeavors. He’s been a hacker, a programmer, and a hardware technician, leaving one city for another every time he got bored and found an attractive new job offer. In 2002, he moved from the Florida Keys to Boston for a gig in financial analytics, but quit after finding cubicle life to be impossibly tedious. He still lives in the Boston area and still works with computers (his current job is one of two things he won’t discuss, the other being the three months he served in federal prison for copyright infringement via software piracy), but Housh is hardly blinging off the Commonwealth’s supposed tech boom. On January 21 — the day he and four other Anonymous members (or Anons, as they call themselves) posted their “Message to Scientology” video on YouTube — he reports having had just $144 in the bank. Less than one year later, he describes his account as negative-$1400 and plummeting.

Socialist studies

CHRIS FARAONE — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 14:15:25 GMT

Um, Dianne Wilkerson and Sonia Chang-Díaz? Meet the Socialist Workers Party candidate who’s running for your Second Suffolk Senate District seat.
With his frosty hair, necktie, and wire glasses, William Leonard resembles Barry Bostwick, the actor who played Mayor Randall M. Winston Jr. on the sitcom Spin City .

THIS JUST IN: Chang-Díaz and Wilkerson got the news.

Hey, Dianne Wilkerson! Can you hear this, Sonia Chang-Díaz? There’s a Socialist Workers Party candidate who’s also running for the Second Suffolk Senate District seat. He’s the guy who gets mentioned only at the end of articles about the race. Perhaps you’ve heard about this footnoted Roxbury activist — his name is William Leonard, and he wants to debate both of you.

As suggested in a recent Phoenix blog post, it’s important to relay Leonard’s stances on relevant issues, not just to beat back third-party resentment still lingering from when “Nader” became another “N” word, but because voters in the Second Suffolk deserve — and might even desire — to smell a third turd in the diarrhea duel between Wilkerson and Chang-Díaz. A weathered union organizer, Leonard has more experience than the latter and fewer pending cases than the former, so we offered him a soapbox at this past Saturday’s Stand Up For Peace rally on Boston Common.

It wasn’t difficult to locate Leonard. Although politically he’s as much a populist and pacifist as the majority of bandana-heads who were out protesting the Iraq War and Wall Street, physically he was dressed sharper than most of his ideological peers. With his frosty hair, necktie, and wire glasses, Leonard resembles Barry Bostwick, the actor who played Mayor Randall M. Winston Jr. on the sitcom Spin City. But he’s no opportunistic line-toeing ignoramus. If that were the case, he’d be running as a Democrat.

“The Jamaica Plain Gazette ran a good article about the differences between the candidates the other day, but they did get one thing wrong,” says Leonard. “I didn’t complain that both Chang-Díaz and Wilkerson are members of a party that helps the rich elite rather than the working class — I stated it as a fact. Democrats like Governor Patrick are looking for more programs to cut, while I think we have to break out of the cycle of cutting programs for working people. We need to figure out how to expand these programs, because we need them more than ever today.”

Mad dissent

CHRIS FARAONE — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 21:33:03 GMT

NYOIL at Northeastern
Few rappers practice what they teach, but Staten Island’s NYOIL — a former member of the early-’90s outfit the U.M.C.’s and current revolutionary rap stalwart — acts as loudly as he rhymes.

Mission: accomplished

CHRIS FARAONE — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:29:36 GMT

Organic hip-hop’s good and good for you
Way before Audible Mainframe snatched the title of Boston’s dopest live hip-hop group and bolted for the West Coast, Roxbury’s Mission pursued a similar course of action.

Brooklyn Academy | Bored Of Education

CHRIS FARAONE — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 03:47:50 GMT

Gold Dust Media (2008)
The stakes are treacherous when a group wait 13 years to drop a debut album.