Nickelus F & Shawn Kemp – Trick Dice [Mixtape]

Nickelus F and Shawn Kemp team up for a new project titled, “Trick Dice”. Says Shawn Kemp aka Lil Ugly Mane: “‘Trick Dice’ isn’t really an album as much as it is a compilation. Tracks we started and finished and started over and redid and reworked, forgot and remembered, lost and found. I feel like its important for a producer to work against the MC as much as it is to work for them. I think especially when you have a MC that’s as versatile as Nick you need to challenge that skill and really try to get the most original content out of them. Maybe you don’t have to do that, maybe that’s why i don’t work with many people. Regardless, Nick was always down to spit on anything i sent over and i think we ended up with interesting tracks because of that. Trick Dice is a dirty record. It feels mish-mashed, it feels live, it feels uncut or unedited or something. To me, listening to it conjures the imagery of what i love about Hip Hop. It’s a cut and pasted scratched together, beat up composition book with a busted spine, filled to the brim with rhymes scribbled in wild handstyles and doodled bubble dollar signs. It’s raw saturated blown out soul and breaks chopped through dusty speakers. Scattered styles and schemes done for no other reason than to do it. Or better yet not done at all. The rap music that you make in your head

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Sadat X & El Da Sensei – We Must Stand [Audio]

Fans of East Coast rap stalwarts Sadat X and El Da Sensei have been anticipating something collaborative from the duo known as XL for several years, and it’s finally come to fruition today with the first hint of their group titled release, a non-album standout in “We Must Stand.” If the soul-sampling production here sounds at all familiar, that’s because it’s handled by none other 9th Wonder. The North Carolina producer laced these two living legends with pure, neck-snapping fire that they use to kick knowledge about their worldwide travels, staying independent in a shady industry, and simply keepin’ it movin’. As for ‘XL,’ the album is coming soon on AVX Records/Empire Distribution.

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