About two weeks ago, Queen of Ex released her first track of the 2016 year. The track entitled “Doppelgänger” starts with a sample of a string arrangement. Soon after, heavy hip hop influence kick drum comes in, trailed by 808 bass lines. But by the times the 808 enter, you’ve already been rocking with the finest.
Lyrically, Queen of Ex verses are delivered with the esteem of a Boom Bap veteran. It is easy to sit back and listen to the virtuosity of Queen of Ex. She’s very lyrically and but never loses focus of the rhythm of the track. This track is Hip-Hop flavor to the ears. I just can’t wait to watch her or her “doppelgänger” perform this track live.
June has been a active month for hip hop across the bay area. One emcee in particular, making waves is Mc Kenna. Recently the emcee released a video for a track called “Off the Grid.”
“Off the Grid” is Kenna’s first single from his third mixtape Ble$$. The track was produced by Vern Sr. and the video directed by Pablo Vasquez.
The collaboration of these three very distinctive styles and minds give insight into why the duality of Mc Kenna. Lyrically touching base on not selling anymore to just doing his on shit, Kenna keeps the focus of his verse on his music, his art, and his future.
The video features Kenna waking up in a strange location with a map laid next to him. As he tallies his days of the grid and continue on his grinding. The video ends with Kenna gathering his belongs and continuing his adventure off the grid hopefully to go hang out in Hawaii with umbrellas in the cup.
Mushmindreleased their Better life Ep in April of 2016 and followed the released with a visual filmed from I’m Clean by JosephRodriguez at Resonate Media. Now only two short months later the boys of Mushmind are back with another visual for a track from Better Life, Lady Luck.
Lady Luck is driven and fast pace Mushmind magic that listeners are used to, depicting how the limitless highs and bottomless lows of lady luck.
Turning to the genius of Resonate Media again the video depicts the fast lifestyle of glory-starved gamblers gone wrong. If Casinos, drugs, and armed robbery are what lady luck is all about to you then Mushmind video might just be for you.
From robbing convince stores to doing lines of cocaine during taxi rides, I can't get enough of this video. What's really trippy about the video is the main character and of this video, Zach Strickland has a run in with the main character from Mushminds I'm Clean video, Chris Campagnano. Details like this show how much thought goes into the visuals produced by Mushmind.
With it only being the begging of summer I wonder what other experimental, natural, avant-garde or sampled sounds we can expect to hear coming out of the bay area over the next coming months.
