Your plug for New Indie Hip Hop News and Reviews.

Peace and Blessings Fellow 88er’s. I apologize for the delay in the Weekend Bag New Music Review Article. This past week we hosted the HOMEBOY SANDMAN & E-TURN Tour in Miami Florida and it ended up being a complete week of supporting the Tour. Made some great connects during the week and got some great footage for both the SOUTHERN COMFY – HAPPY ME video feat Homeboy Sandman, and the New Video for BELLS & WHISTLES, the upcoming 1st single off of the NATIVE SLANG sophomore album, SLANGUAGE ARTS. I want to take a quick minute to thank my 4K Productions Team, NORTHSTAR THE GENERAL, LEX, BLACK SNO, P.P. ARMSTRONG, & EKYM1536, and everyone else who took footage, pictures, worked sound, held down a Vendor Booth and helped make HOUSE PARTY JANUARY 2023 a huge success. Our out of town guests were over the moon happy and LINCOLNS BEARD BREWING has agreed to give us a monthly home for South Florida Indie Hip Hop. We could not have done it without yall and the crowd that came out last Saturday. We look forward to seeing yall at our next show on the last Saturday of February, where we will be announcing our next big Headliner for HOUSE PARTY MARCH (8ch Aries BDay Jam). Mark your calendars for Feb 25th and make sure you are in the building. Til then, we will continue to bring you the dopest Indie Hip Hop on a weekly bases on WVCC Radio, and the Weekend Bag. Speaking of which, here is the latest WEEKEND BAG. ENJOY.

SPEAK THE REBEL x PROMOTHEUS – COSPATRIOT JUNKBOX

Boston MA Doom Poet, SPEAK THE REBEL, is back with another blazing critique of the United States Status Quo on his latest Solo full length, “COSPATRIOT JUNKBOX”. After dropping DOOM POETRY and group project, The SCUMLORDZ EP with fellow Beantown Debaucherer SHA-ELEMENTAL in 2022, the filthy simile spitter known as SLOB ROSS is back with producer PROMOTHEUS to provide you with an all new soundtrack to the collapse of the “North American Empire”.

After providing some of the hottest beats on DOOM POETRY, Alberta Canada Production Brute PROMOTHEUS handles 100% of the savage soundscape on COSPATRIOT JUNKBOX, which the “Godfearing Athiest” SPEAK uses as his personal Soap Box, where he stands warning the Underground Hip Hop Community of the quickly approaching hard times for all, not only Hip Hop Heads, but Americans of all walks of life, all beliefs, all colors and creeds. According to SPEAK, we are all in for some dark times, which will eventually even the playing field once and for all. He has aligned himself with some strong warriors for the pending “NEW REVOLUTION”, including GENOSHA RECORDS’s GHOST OF THE MACHINE on the Album Titled intro track, and PARANOAH who shines on DICK SPIN & YO! CTE RAPS which were released earlier this year on the DICK SPIN teaser EP. It’s on his solo joints where THE REBEL gives his listeners a full dose of his unique interweaving of idioms. Over hard head nodders like CARVAGGIO, GRETA GOONS (featuring SPEAKS Scum Bag Street Villain Alter Ego “JUDAS PRESLEY”), & PARADISE OF THE LOCUST, SPEAK slings punchlines hard enough to “Knock Bitches out like a dressing room at the Cosby Show”. NEW REVOLUTION, PLATINUM ZAMBONIS, & MASKED DOWN NIXON are joints that will increase your heart rate as soon as you press play. You need that extra motivation for your morning or evening run? Play these joints back to back and get a burst of energy that will help you run through brick walls. Looking for some food for thought to ponder upon while you burn some highgrade? Press play on NOT YOUR ANSWERS & HAPPY WHEN YOU CRY for some self-reflection/ introspection vibes. The album ends with a surprising twist like a Shyamalan film. After an album full of Hard Drums, Dystopian Synths and Brutal Baselines, album closer HEDGEFUND HANDGUN brings the 12 track LP to a close with an intimate unplugged reciting of “The type of Shit that would make an Honest Man Flip”. SPEAK THE REBEL was surprised earlier this week when I told him we had broken HEDGEFUND HANDGUN on WVCC RADIO, since he expected us to play one of the Harder Boom Bap joints which obviously fit our format better. I shared with him that, shockingly, the heart felt, apocalyptic rhymes over bare naked acoustic guitars received a warm welcome from our Cyph Lyfe audience, who all agreed the joint was Fire and led one of our listeners to rush to SPEAKS Bandcamp page to purchase her own copy of the new album. He shared with me that he had been contemplating experimenting with some more of these Unplugged renditions of his songs, but was scared of how they would be received by the crowd. Hearing that our Audience reacted so well to HEDGEFUND HANDGUN was somewhat of a confirmation that he might be on to something with this new avenue of presenting his work in a live setting. After an album full of beats that will leave you needing a neck brace, the acoustic cooldown of the final track is theraputic, but make no mistake, PROMOTHEUS brought every degree of heat known to man and an additional level known only to the fallen angels in hell, which SPEAK “The Godfearing Atheist” is desperately trying to help you avoid. In his own twisted way of course.

Head on over to the SPEAK THE REBEL Bandcamp Page and get your own copy of COSPATRIOT JUNKBOX and enjoy the rest of his discography while you are at it. In the last 6 releases, SPEAK has yet to miss the mark once. Hear for yourself and get familiar with THE REBEL before we have him as our Special Guest on WVCC RADIO on Feb 28th to unpack the deeper contents of COSPATRIOT JUNKBOX.

JHEST – MORK CALLING ORSON

This has been one of my favorite releases of this 1st Weekend of February. The 6th Full Length by the U.K’s JEHST, “MORK CALLING ORSON”, continues to confirm my comparison of JEHST to such wordsmiths and Master MC’s as YASIN BEY, BLU and the God RAKIM. His pen is just that precise. On MORK CALLING ORSON, he uses classic episode samples and audio clips from Comedy GOAT Robin Williams, to set the scenes for the 12 track project where the ExtraTerrestrial Emcee communicates with mortals who may look a lot like him, but are far below his level of Flow and Vocab. He welcomes fellow UK Spitters LEE SCOTT, CW JONES & SINDYSMAN, CONFUCIUS MC, & EVA LAZARUS While doing my research on the new album, I came across the following Press Release from Jehst and his YNR PRODUCTIONS Label which describes the album in a lot better detail than I could. Here is the in-depth breakdown right from the source.

Referencing the cult alien sitcom from the turn of the 80s, ‘Mork Calling Orson’ is Jehst’s sixth album reaching a typically supreme standard of syllables and similes bearing a red-eyed hue.

Featuring the tracks ‘Daily Planet’, ‘One Horse Town’, ‘Wild Herb’ and ‘Autumn Nights’, and with Confucius MC, Eva Lazarus, Lee Scott, CW Jones and SINDYSMAN guesting, Jehst continues to unlock his superpower of making the melancholic incisively slice through all before him.

His partiality for provocative references to the fore, and sloganeering that “you hear the voice of God when I rock the mic”, “Jehst for president” and “I’m Nas in that ‘Illmatic’ phase” without either irony or pretence, ‘Mork Calling Orson’ begins as drowsy, clouded and dry-mouthed, occasionally letting light peer through the curtains, otherwise at peace with self-imposed exile (“ain’t no sunshine, regardless of climate change”). Nostalgic soundbites are interspersed with namechecks of Audio Two, Vanilla Ice, Daley Thompson, Mayor Quimby and Aloe Blacc, and Keor Meteor and Beat Butcha provide subtleties of assistance on production.

The classically 90s, NYC beats of ‘Footsteps’, and ‘Lonely World’ mutedly following its lead, have Jehst rising up, alert to self-examination and the outside world. Returning to familiar sticky green comforts on the G-funked ‘Wild Herb’, is a trigger for the album to find strength and leave its shell, with the subsequent ‘Doctor’ and soft rock lineage of ‘Daily Planet’ and ‘Flight to L.A.’ allowing for streams of consciousness and the sort of word association and reactions to reality that have been Jehst’s hallmark for decades.

The lullaby of ‘One Horse Town’ is the album’s centrepiece, gently ascending and fighting any previous pessimism, before Jehst retreats behind the ‘Front Door’ and on the graceful ‘Skyline’; a fractured soul conflicting his previous status of “mentally irate, physically primate”, stays eloquently, edgily tack-sharp to the last.

Produced by Sonnyjim (1/2/12) Jehst (3/5/6/11) Sam Zircon (4) Mr Brown (7) Beat Butcha (8) Keor Meteor (9) Taharka (10)

Get your own Copy of JEHST – MORK CALLING ORSON at his Bandcamp or directly from the Artist at his website jehst.co.uk

K.RIME x HINEZ – CONFIDENTIAL: MANUSCRIPT OF KRIMINOLOGY

We have been preparing our audience for this release for several months now, as Bronx NY Producer HINEZ has been slowly leaking singles from his new EP, “CONFIDENTIAL: MANUSCRIPTS OF KRIMINOLOGY” with Queens Mic Strangler K.RIME. HINEZ has made believers out of Cyph Lyfe Listeners and Readers with his wave of collaborations with spitters like ISIS ASET, LOPEZ MILANO, PAYSO JACKSON, & Houstons HUGH STONE. Now after months of anticipation, the CONFIDENTIAL Files have finally been disclosed to the public and what HINEZ & K.RIME have compiled is straight KRIMINOLOGY.

Over beats that “Bump more than Monkey Pocks” K.RIME delivers “Flows that could get him convicted of 1st Degree Murder”. One listen to the 6 track EP by K.RIME, would convince any opposition that they “Butt Dialed the wrong number if they calling him out”. Each verse he drops atop the HINEZ cinematic baps is a lethal head shot from a Marxman with a Silencer on the barrel of his blicky. The sound suppressor does little to muffle RIME’s strong baritone vocals or the impact of his punches and wordplay. Appearances by Co-Defendants LOPEZ MILANO (KRIMINOLOGY & QUEEN SYNDICATE), WILLIE STUBZ ( GRAND LARCENY….Top Joint on the album), and HUGH STONE on DISTORTED RECORDS (Another Cyph Lyfe Pick) add some extra fire power to the EP, but its not really needed as K.RIME can take on a whole brigade on his own, like Frank Castle going up against the entire NY Mafia, 1 vs 400. On short cuts like album opener MURDER IN THE 1ST & ESCAPING CUSTODY, you get a sense of the damage K can do on his own with the right beat from HINEZ to back him up.

The EP is a quick listen with replay value at only 6 short tracks. It is not without flaws tho. As I listened to the whole project from start to finish several times, I couldnt help but wish that HINEZ got the same level of engineering on the rest of the project as he got on Lead Single GRAND LARCENY. You can immediately tell the difference in Audio Quality when KRIMINOLOGY 23 flows into LARCENY and then flows into ESCAPING CUSTODY (Which is one of my favorite verses from K.RIME, but unfortunately was only one short verse long. Would have really liked this track to be 2 verses long, making it a complete song.) Those are my only 2 “Cons” on an EP full of “PROS”, as in Professional Hitman Music.

Stay tapped in with Producer HINEZ on his Bandcamp and IG so you can stay up to date with the constant releases from his FOREIGN SHOOTAZ faction in 2023.

MIDAZ THE BEAST – THE DEVILS PLAYGROUND

Orlando’s MIDAZ THE BEAST has stayed busy pumping out quality Indie Hip Hop for well over 20 years now. On his latest release with long time collaborator, DELLE DIGGA of Montevideo, Uruguay, MIDAZ calms his brain waves just long enough to give you a peak into THE DEVILS PLAYGROUND of his Idle Mind.

On 15 tracks of Minimalist Swavrosura chopped and looped beautifully by DELLE DIGGA, MIDAZ holds a Fire and Brimstone Hip Hop Revival where he struts around the stage wearing “A Zoot Suit, but only fly cuz the Wing Tips/ The Wind Wisp, Wouldnt bat an eyelash from it / The Blood of Christ, The Jesus Peace Started to stab my stomach/” -(Sugar Water). MIDAZ is a Wordplay Magician and Master of Lyrical Illusions as can be heard on chin checkers like PLAYGROUND, EL CANTANTE, KEGELS, the picturesque WATCHING, or the Soul Wrenching off tempo bop HERCULES which is way to short for my taste. I need to replay that one several times. The breezy NOWHERE feels like a Sunday when the grill is loaded with your favorite kabobs and LAZ PIT is the joint you play in the ride while you and your cousin drive to the Gas Station for some more beer. If you find THE BEAST guilty of killing every beat DIGGA serves him, he will quickly say The Devil Made him do it. Whether that defense helps him get away with murder is yet to be seen, but revisiting the scene of the crime on THE DEVILS PLAYGROUND, will be an enjoyable journey for any devout Indie Hip Hop Head. By the 2nd listen, MIDAZ THE BEAST will be a name you will be adding to your list of Emcees to follow and DELLE DIGGA will have your Idle Minds full attention.

Get your copy of MIDAZ THE BEAST & DELLE DIGGA – THE DEVILS PLAYGROUND at their CHONG WIZARD RECORDS Bandcamp Page – https://midazthebeast.bandcamp.com/album/the-devils-playground

**https://www.youtube.com/@Barcodez_Podcast**

SUBSTANCE 810 x D-STYLES – HE WHO LAUGHS LAST

Written by: Presha

The album “He Who Laughs Last” by Substance810 & D-Styles is a collaboration between Substance, an MC from Port Huron, Michigan, and D-Styles, a producer from the world famous Beat Junkies Crew. The album features guest appearances by Josiah The Gift, ethemadassassin, XP The Marxman, Jay Royale, Napoleon da Legend, Maze Overlay, and Nowaah The Flood. The beats on the album are solid, with D-Styles delivering his signature sound, and Substance’s rhymes are on point. The guest appearances add depth and diversity to the album. Overall, this album is nothing to laugh at and a must-listen for fans of that superb sinister brand of hip hop we’ve come to expect from Substance.

#CyphLyfe #SingleFiles

LERICS DALYRICIST – FEARLESS feat ES

Quebec Emcee LERICS DALYRICIST is warming up the winter season with his 2nd release off of his upcoming Ep, “NO SHORTCUTS”. Featuring Mississauga Canada’s ES, the KILLABONG produced “FEARLESS” is an instant head nodder about the power of Hip Hop to push us to be better. ES, who recently got a huge cosign from Hip Hop Icon CHUCK D, uses the intro and 1st verse of the song to describe how Hip Hop molded him and shaped him from a soft spoken introvert to the confident public speaker he is today. LERICS shares on the 2nd verse how his love for music and writing helped him through the hardest periods of his life, helping him to push through the sickness that tried to take him out of the game. As he recites “As long as I keep going I dont fear the sickness/ My craft like an MMA Fighter Knocked Out my Illness/”. With SKINNY BONEZ DA GODFATHA laying down cuts for the hook, FEARLESS is an inspiring jam with a slapping beat that will be in heavy rotation at WVCC RADIO and should be on any Hip Hop lovers Playlist. After all, hasn’t Hip Hop made you feel FEARLESS at some point?

Follow LERICS DALYRICIST on Bandcamp to make sure you are notified when his next project drops in the months to come.

RHINOCEROS FUNK – DUMB SMART feat RODRIGO STARZ

El Proffe, Rhinoceros Funk, returns with the New Visuals for “Dumb Smart” featuring Rodrigo Starz of REBEL DIAZ. The two proud Latino Emcees drop knowledge on a banger produced by Rhino Funk himself, spitting gems about our Heritage and a message of power in unity, strength in numbers, and Knowledge being the key to our Social and Economic Freedom. This is a Hip Hop Revolution Anthem, challenging the listener to lift their minds out of the Dumb Down rap and into lyricism that makes you want to pick up a book and become Dumb Smart.

Instagram: @rhinocerosfunk

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6Te9YpRTSSRNdEiqe6RfdO?si=r-sXXP7pSIy6cis7bndPrQ

JFLIZ – DIAMETRIC (CABIN OF HATE /ALWAYS KNOW)

Boston’s JFLIZ kicks off 2023 with a tale of two sides to the same Emcee. On his latest Double Sided Single “DIAMETRIC” produced by Sonic Mad Scientist ODD PILOT, FLIZ explores his personal duality. On one side, the Microphone Gladiator who will fight to the death against hi opposition on THE CABIN OF HATE, and on the other hand, the Every Day Human who expresses himself through grown man bars about the all to real fear of death and leaving our families unprepared.

Even though the beat on CABIN OF HATE is hard as they come and FLIZ comes out swinging a sledgehammer in each hand, it doesnt hit home as hard as ALWAYS KNOW, which literally rocked me the second time I heard it, while running my 6am jog on a Friday. I couldn’t help but relate to J’s recounting of the hospital “putting his father down like a stray dog” as he lost his fight to cancer, having lost my own father to cancer 9 years ago. When he expresses the fear and anxiety of leaving his wife and his kids alone should he Die too early, is something I think many husbands and fathers go through when they start coming face to face with their mortality, and JFLIZ captures the sentiment perfectly. Anyone can write a song about being a bad ass rapper, but not everyone can deliver a solid soul touching song about being a Father and Husband that is just grateful for every morning he gets to wake up next to his wife, and ever night he gets to read his kids their favorite Bedtime Story, while listening to their favorite lullaby album (the beat and hook of the song just happen to come from the album of lullabys JFliz has been playing for his boys since they were born.) The fact that JFLIZ can pull both off in the same single further proves why he is an Emcee to follow closely.

Get your copy of the Double Single at JFLIZ’s Bandcamp, and dive into his extensive catalog while you’re there. https://jfliz.bandcamp.com/album/diametric