Here we have a nice album birthed from the collective efforts of wacky rapper Jack Topht, crafty producer Chauncey Tails, and RADARADA’s wonderful Little Cake. The cover photo is a scene that every Buffalonian can familiarize with all too well. It’s a shot from the front of a car, driving down a snowy ass road under an overcast sky that could potentially cause many ‘new true depressions.’ However, the music behind it provides accurate guidelines for having a damn good time during this cold unforgiving season. Get some beers, get some pizza, play this album, and wile out.

Jack Topht is forever earnest, rapping lyrics that can be silly and childish as well as gut busting and inappropriate. He can spit stream-of-thought cut-up ridiculousness that cover topics from Scientology to taking oiled up shirtless pictures of himself to post online. Little Cake’s soft and playful singing style is key to the innocent-not-so-innocent vibe of the thing. Her voice gives the music a sort of sing-song nursery rhyme feel amidst the randomness and sex jokes. Chauncey Tails really shines here, tearing shit up and reconstructing it in mesmerizing ways. He’s a sonic craftsman, laying down multi-textured sounds that glisten. See the up-and-coming master in action when he DJs at our upcoming 4th birthday party. 

Particularly enjoyable is a song that really made me hungry called "pizza grrrrrrl." It seems to be about a date over pizza, or at least a boy and a girl really diggin’ pizza together. Things get bad though. Don’t do pizza with another dude if you’re a devoted pizza girl or pizza boy. 

They keeps things real thoughtful and stuff by musing on the absurdities of InstaGram in brad grils of instagram ("H8er B8"). The beat is funky and sparkling as Jack lampoons the act of liking and sharing personal pictures with complete strangers, “you’re checkin’ people’s pics/don’t even know they is.” 

Dissecting this album in a review feels as ridiculous as reading an in-depth review of a Big Mac from a gourmet food connoisseur (incidentally, a McDonald’s sign is featured on the album’s cover.) I say this mainly because the musical treats that jump around in this beast don’t need to be explained, just enjoyed and blasted from a car stereo. Or the stereo in your room. Or your friend’s stereo. Or your mom’s. 

Or if you you want to party real hard, you can probably hear these crazy tunes live on Jack Topht’s LIL RAP TOUR.

Lazyrus happens when you pair spoken word influences with shrilling guitar melodies and alternative rock roots into a weirdly experimental and exhilarating chorus of sound. Buffalo slam poet Thomas "Lazyrus" Panzarella and Erie, PA producer Nick Price are the mad men behind this cohesive and kinetic rap rock machine. Each brings to the table elements of expertise that fit comfortably into this marriage of punk and hip hop. Panzarella has frequented local mics and poetry slams, including the city's more recent monthly-run competition, the Pure Ink Poetry Slam, for almost a decade. He has won twelve head-to-head slam competitions and was a member of the city's National Slam Team in 2008. The singer songwriter has worked with several Buffalo-based acts and names including Bogustice Tundra Kidz, Wise Mecca, and Taariq Abdul Salaam. His partner, sound engineer Nick Price, a digital media arts graduate of Canisius College, has assisted in the mixing for high profile artists such as Ciara and Nas and in 2005, began his own multimedia company, Northstar Media.

After joining forces in 2010, Lazyrus released their first project, 13, which caught on to international airwaves and earned them overseas acclaim. 2012 saw the independent release of N.O.M, an album which included the video for their debut single, "IRock." The video was filmed by ThreeGloves Productions in Erie, PA in a vacant space above The Crooked Eye Bar. Technical rigging and lighting transformed the buried treasure of a basement cave into a warehouse of artistic impulses pawing at the soul. What keeps this duo current is their ever-evolving mode of being and unbiased attitude toward experimenting with different sounds and emotions. Panzarella's lyrics project images of wild metal head mayhem in one song, and in a different song, they emit aromas of an acoustic jazz set in a coffee shop. The team is currently working on their next album, which I'm sure will be nothing short of spectacular.

As a woman in a predominantly male-driven arena, some might think that Jamie “Jay Mf G” Gugino is playing with fire. But when you’ve got her kind of credentials, who could blame the femcee for walking straight into the flames? Jay G is a revolutionary, a mother, a student, a chef, and a self-published author. She’s also one hell of a lyricist, packing just as much force as her male counterparts on any given day. As the female stand-out of Essential Vitamins Crew and the only real feminist voice representing the local underground hip hop scene, Jay G proves she is the true first lady femcee of Buffalo hip hop. She has gathered all of the brilliant facets of herself that give truth to this under her first official LP, Food for Thought, a project that took two years of planning and producing to complete.

On this project, Jay G dishes out a mouthwatering collection of masterpieces inspired by her Sicilian roots and the traditional 8-course Italian meal. She starts with the savory “Sauce on SunJay,” a track with cuts complimentary of DJ Optimus Prime and Grandmaster Flash’s “The Message.” In it, the femcee delivers her own message, a constructive critique on the state of today, through swift cadence changes and a call out on “idiotic ideologies.” Next she dips into the “Duck Sauce” featuring Keith Concept. Concept humbles those living the wack MC lifestyle by serving them up a raw platter of “vagina meat,” while Jay G throws a flaming pile of “my shit don’t stink” in the faces of haters everywhere. The pair boasts a tenacious spirit and a tag team lyrical approach, proving they have nothing to hide in this game. 

And just when you thought you were full, love comes to bite you in the ass in “Burnt Toast,” a menu item that comes with a side of lies and a glass of “fuck you.” The lady MC attacks with venom in this frightfully scrumptious treat produced by EVC’s Cove Blackbelt, steering us through the trials and tribulations of a tumultuous relationship. It’s a track any woman could feel the fury of and also feel devilishly empowered by. Lastly, we get served some steaming hot “Va Fangool & Pasta Fagioli” featuring Legal the Lifesaver, a rap rock dedication beat that tantalizes the taste buds in every way.

This album is unapologetic, intelligent, fearless, and audacious, just as every woman should be. You don’t have to dumb down, sell out, or put out to get anywhere in life—especially as a woman in hip hop, and Jay G is proof of that.
 

Level 1: Fantasy. Level 2: Ecstasy. Level 3: All the Way Turnt Up. If I had to describe Joe Locus's latest project in stages of a video game, that is how I would categorize the 26 tracks on his latest project inspired by virtual play, Long Swords and Sine Waves. As 1/4 of the 716 hip hop crew Prime Example, Joe Locus is an integral part of the production and direction of the group's wistful sound. In this solo project, he focuses the listener's attention on his gaming wizardry and the all-consuming pastime of his childhood by completing each track as if it were a stage in a video game. According to the producer, that is how he best works. Joe delivers the popular motif softly to the ear through nostalgic sounds of the '70s and '80s in "Party People," and "Listen" even brings to me a different kind of nostalgia. Though not a video gamer, I was a mallet percussionist all throughout middle and high school (cough NERD cough), so the xylophone vibrations and marimba grooves in "Listen" got my heart all a flutter for a few minutes. Anyway, enough about me. Listen as this gifted emcee throws down the funk and ride the sine waves.
 

The more poetic half of Dead Trash Mob Records' alternative hip hop duo The Greys and scholarly older brother to his precarious younger sibling Bagel Jesus, Trè Marsh, also known by the monikers Trè Ocho and Trè Guevara, is an emcee of a different feather. The 28-year-old Lenny Kravitz look-alike (when his hair is in au naturale mode, of course) is implementing a different strategy to stay ahead in the game: read up on the greats. I'm not only talking Biggie Smalls, Rakim, and Public Enemy, but literary greats like David Foster Wallace, Thomas Pynchon, and James Joyce. "A lot of the music that I do make is literary, and that’s only because as an emcee, you have to step away from what everybody's doing. If I have to separate myself individually from any other artist it's going to be the fact that I read a lot," he said while hanging out downtown with me at the Nickel City Records studio.

The former New York University attendee is a slamming sensei of sorts. His love for spoken word and zest for knowledge both musical and literary provides context, balance, and satirical stylings to an odd genre that The Greys have creatively carved into, trash hop, alternative rap. The musician thanks a mix of musical influences for contributing to his creative salivation. "It was wrong for me to listen to a lot of music growing up because my mom was very religious at one point and she heard a line from Michael Jackson saying, 'Even sell my soul to the devil' in regards to talking about a girl and she was like 'Hell nah!' It was really bad for me to listen to certain things and that made me want to listen to it even more...Like at one point, I was like nine or ten years old and I was big into The Smashing Pumpkins, which pretty much got me into rock."

On his latest solo album, Trècubessence (due for release in April but can be heard in pieces on Soundcloud), the savvy master of wordplay fiddles with the English language while we float into the stratosphere of his mind. He dreams up his perfect mate, a woman as dark, seductive, and dangerous as Morticia Addams in the gothic fairytale, "Filthy, Fishy Dreams of Persephone." He states his belief in not compromising himself for anyone else's tastes in "Arthur Miller," another personal favorite of mine. "Nothing that I do is really personal, but the feelings that I do have about things are relative. Everyone feels that when you're talking about people trying to crucify you, who literally in the game, doesn’t feel like they’re being crucified for how they feel or what they say," he says of the song. Each track so far being released on Trècubessence is a piece of lyrical madness. The emcee is the Phantom of the Opera behind his words, inventing the plot as he goes, taking the story through climactic twists and sinister turns until insanely lost in the drama. 

Whether his head's in the clouds, in a book, behind a camera (He's also an assistant manager at The Nickel City Blend project), or listening to Madonna behind his mother's back (Yes, he's down with Madonna), Trè Marsh is continuously learning, always astute, and forever the rebel.

I take a sip of coffee and scroll through Facebook on my phone inside Cafe Aroma on a cloudy autumn afternoon. 12:30 pm approaches and I patiently await the arrival of my interviewees, Mic Excel and Short Moscato. 12:45 approaches and still, a no-show. Seconds later my phone rings. "Hey, It's Mic calling from Short's phone. We're running late. But we're like five seconds away," the voice says in a laid-back demure tone. "OK!" I say professionally, trying to disguise the irritation in my voice. "Wordddddd," Mic replies "cooly." He hangs up. Two minutes later the guys walk in with a swagger step that would put Shaggy to shame, and stuntin' with some gold chains and baggy Sean John pants sagging down to their man jewels. I instantly perk up. My panties drop at the sight of this fine, fresh-lookin' hip hop collabo. "Can I be in ya'lls video?!" I scream like a school girl. "Hey girl, we got a list goin.' We'll put you up at the top though if you do a little somethin' for us, shawty," Short Moscato whispers in my ear. I drool all over the counter.

That's how the scenario would have gone had I met two typical hip hop meatballs into over self-promotion and Black Panther rap. In actuality, the gentlemanly, humorous, and free-spirited duo, whose latest project The Ren and Stimpy Show, is a not-so-serious project that avoids the divisions and collisions of overly serious hip hop, is nothing of the sort. I spoke to them about their music, Batman, and much more during our not-so-serious rendezvous.

JB: How did you guys meet?

ME: Mutual friends. A promotional company called After Dark put on an event called the Hip Hop Hybrid at Broadway Joe's. I was hosting it for a few months. They put his act on the bill (Short Moscato's), and that's how we first met. We didn't really start hanging out until like four or five months ago, when he started mixing up stuff with EVC crew and he was leaving Koolie and trying to do his own thing. And I was trying to do my own thing. And for some reason it ended up us doing something together, and that's really how R&S came about. LOL.

JB: Let's get to The Ren and Stimpy Show. Tell me about the concept behind it.

ME: The real push behind that was that Short and I were just talking about hip hop and seeing people being super, super serious about it like, "Oh I'm gonna put out this album and it's going to change the game. I recorded it in my garage, this shit is real...we gotta unite as a people... and everyone starts to gets so serious, and because of that level of seriousness they become easily jaded and that how enemies form in hip hop.

SM: And they made it (hip hop) corny.

ME: And corny. They made it corny because they made it so serious. If you listen to like DeLa, their just having a great time. Jay Five. Great music. But...we were like these dudes are real serious right? LOL. No, we hope this album doesn't change the game, But with R&S it was the beginning of the summer and we just wanted to have a lot of fun and we needed a reason to record. SM: I think the album is a satire theme. It's real brash. Half the stuff we're saying is pretty horrible.

ME: Womanizing and degrading. And thats not how we are.

SM: We're just trying to take ourselves less seriously. Just superficial, stupid stuff stuff. Like girls, drugs...

ME: We usually just write it on the spot, record it, and it just kind of stays with us....That's why Short and I got along so well. We have the same mentality of recording music. It's not like mega preparation... For me, when I first hear the beat, I write whatever I want to write, but it has to be the day off, or else I'm not going to feel the same way tomorrow and I'll write something completely different. And a lot of people don't like that about MCs like me. they're like, "Oh you didn't prepare for it?"...I'm not knocking them but...

SM: No I'm with you. Like back in the day when Miles Davis and Coltrain were playing together they...sending each other emails. They were getting together and doing it. That's how real music's made. With this generation its so easy for everyone to be a hip hop star on their Facebooks and record in their closet.
Where do you usually record?

ME: All over...Usually we've been recording downtown at the Nickel City Records studio downtown.

JB: Jamie Catania (producer at NCR) he's a nice guy.

SM: Super nice guy. He's got two beats on the project.

JB: Ian (Ian Cochran, Nickel City Blend co-creator), has some beats on R&S two. I really like (the track) "Untamed World" he produced. It's really weird, but the beginning of it sounds like some Moulin Rouge-like stuff on there...like I could see a burlesque troupe doing something to it...I'm a dancer so when I heard it I was like, I could really make this work.

SM: You wanna be a dancer in the video?

JB: Yeah, I'll do it. DROOLS.

SM: Tighhhhhhht.

JB: So Short, are you in love with Iggy Azalea?

SM: Yeah. A lot of things about her amaze me. She's Australian. She's a model.

ME: She's got the baddest ass.

SM: And the best thing. She has this accent right. And when she talks, she tuhks like thees. And when she raps she sounds like a black chick.

Then we segwayed from accents to Christian Bale in Batman....what.

JB: I'm not into Batman.

ME and SM: What?!?!

JB: Yeah...or Superman.

ME: I hate Superman.

ME: It's like being Bill Gates, its not fair. You can do whatever you want. That sucks. You should have some limitations. It affects my day. I think about Superman. I'm like, "I hate you, Superman."

SM: Yeah you gotta have limitations, man.

Last question, favorite track you've recorded off of R&S?

SM: My favorite song is "City Hicks" with Jake Freeman.

ME: I like the one with GoGev.

SM: That one's good too. Anytime she sings is great.

ME: "Space Madness," just because it was the first one. It was our defining moment that we were going to keep recording to that criteria of stuff. Like we knew R&S would be funny, and we don't know what the hell it means yet. Then we recorded that song, and then we just kept it going.

SM: If you know Mic and I and the music we've put out...the project isn't really us at all. It's a left field-type project.

ME: It's us when we're out drinking. (Laughs)... a lot of people stress out about lyrics. I don't get it.

SM: You can say whatever you want.

ME: You just got to stand by it.

Ask any Buffalo MC and they’ll tell you the heart of a true hip hop scene pulsates deep within its city’s walls. If you listen closely, you can hear it. If you’re looking carefully, you’ll know where to find it. But one thing you must know is that the scene isn’t necessarily opposed to a change of scenery itself. And tonight, Buffalo hip hop (and a few other varieties) is invading the ‘burbs. ADDICTED TO HIP HOP, presented by Sickboy Productionz, will feature a delicious buffet of Buffalo’s finest hip hop acts performing in Amherst. They’re getting shuffled throughout the night to keep fans on their toes and ears satisfied. “Acts will play two songs and jump on and off stage switching the whole night…think of it as an iPod on shuffle playing music from each performer,” said Mark Miller, president of Sickboy Productionz, who will perform under the stage name Emcee M.D. tonight.

The wildly talented hip hop collective Prime Example will also be tearing up the stage this evening with their anthem-driven sounds. Expect some classic material mixed in with new tracks off their latest EP, Modern Marvels, and energetic, live jams with member Steve Syracuse going hard on the drums and bass. Joining them in the lineup are the soulfully splendid Type Relevant, a group prepared to electrify fans with their skilled musicianship and jazz-rooted style, the ferocious Hi-Lo and the hip hop group Free At It. Akron native Emcee M.D., who’s known for his Andy Milonakis, Beastie Boys-esque rap style and persona as well as his humorous but meaningful viral music videos, will also be gracing the stage. In a space invader suit. And probably with a few more tricks up his sleeve. It may get weird up in here, folks. Brace yourselves. This eclectic gang is going to serve up bars and hooks you’ll pound down harder than a Bud Light and provide an interesting experience you’ll definitely be able to make the most of. Word on the street is that some of them are dishing out freshly baked mixtapes, too. 

The show is 18+ and starts tonight at 9:30 pm at The Forvm located in the Maple Ridge Plaza. Tickets are $10 at the door. “Expect the unexpected,” Miller said. Go for the hell of it. Go because you give a damn. Go to support local music. Oh, and if you truly support local music, comment on this post, we enjoy the feedback from you lovely people.

Happy hip hop holidays! Here's some fresh, festive beats to brighten your spirits on Christmas day, brought to you by Cove BlackBelt of Essential Vitamins Crew, along with the best selection of home-grown hip hop that Buffalo has to offer: L-Biz, Frank Cross aka Scrooge, Legal the Lifesaver, Clark Griswald, Jay MF G, Linus Van Pelt, Goodman Brown, Lucy Van Pelt, Specill K, Mic Excel, Scroeder, DJ Optimus Prime, and the Vince Guaraldi Trio.

Scantron is what you would consider a 21st century musical virtuoso. Though he has risen in the local music scene because of his beat-box skills, he also raps, plays the guitar, the keyboard, and perhaps most intriguingly, a traditional Chinese guitar-like string instrument called the Zhongruan. On top of that, he manages to utilize all these trades in one performance. He's played in many local venues:  Broadway Joes, Nietzches, Soundlab, Duke's,  Hallwalls, and the Albright Knox Gallery being among them.  He sets himself apart from other Buffalo rappers in that his locus of inspiration a product of seemingly disparate influences, as in, influences we wouldn't associate with rap or hip-hop- his travels in Asia (an underground rave scene he was a part of in Taiwan) and classical western music being among them.

On top of all of that, this year he took leave from his job as an ESL instructor in public schools to film a low-budget film/musical, the script of which he wrote. He is also designing an after-school program on hip-hop for a local public school and among the files in his computer is a half-completed science fiction novel. Is it even worth mentioning that he is trilingual, fluent in Japanese and Mandarin?  It's not necessary to interview him yourself to be able to gather the simple fact that during given any time of the day, his mind is actively wandering in many different places at once. But as he explains himself, he thinks of it all as falling in line under one vision.

When did you start beatboxing?
Scantron: Middle school.  I just saw it on a few commercials here and there, and then I tried doing it and practicing it more and more. Pretty much, I was never taught. I went back and listened to the earliest beatboxing, and that was the main thing I was listening to and then I just developed some of my own sounds after that.

How did you get into playing other instruments?
Scantron: I taught myself guitar when I was in middle school.  I used to play rock songs on the guitar and beatbox. I used to go to Borders to listen to music, I spent whole days there. The thing that made me go in there the first time was that I was only listening to rock music, like Nirvana, and one day when I was in the supermarket with my mom I heard something on the radio, it was a an old jazz record by this guy named Wes Montgomery, and I never heard guitar played like that. So I went to find that record. I got that and two other jazz records, jazz fusion records. That's when they fuze world, rock, and jazz altogether. So that set the stage for me to think of music in a more open way. Another CD I got was a Zhongruan CD, which is one of my main instruments now. When I went to Singapore for the first time, I was taught the instrument by a local chinese orchestra conductor, and I actually practiced the songs on my guitar until I got my own Zhongruan. 

Where did you find musical inspiration did you get while traveling.
Scantron: There's a universality to music because a lot cultures are pentatonic. When I was in Japan and Taiwan and Singapore, I saw people were playing just on the side of the road, like old people, or people down in subways that are blind, and they were all playing music. They were one of my biggest inspirations. I also used to get little cds that people were selling on the street, they're not online, and I have a whole collection of those.

Talk about the music you're trying to create now, what instruments are you trying to incorporate, or anything conceptually thought out.
Scantron: There's something I try to take with each of the fields of I try to do.  For the power and loudness, I take inspiration from rock, the pedals and things. For the scales and emotion, I take a lot of inspiration from the blues. For the complexity, I'm trying to make with the chord patterns I take a lot of inspiration from jazz. For some of the feeling and emotions, I'm taking inspiration from Chinese classical music, and for the structuring, Western classical music.

You think things through very thoroughly.
Scantron: I feel like I'm at a conceptual level now, it sounds different every day in a better way. Right now, I'm mixing a lot of Chinese classical music theory with the blues. A lot of people know me as a beat boxer, but I've been studying Chinese classical music and playing in rock bands, but beat-boxing overshadowed that, and I've been progressing in those things these years. So now, overall, all of it is catching up to one level, and I think crowds are going to inter-merge.

So, what exactly do people expect when you play under your moniker "Scantron?"
Scantron: They expect things to be different, like one time I wore a Superman costume. I work with so many different populations and I know a lot about different cultures. So I try to interject that in, once in the beginning of my set I chanted the Koran. I'll try to do things to shock people. I try not to make the music easy. I try to make a statement and make people think, the concept is always important. I also think about how to improve each show from the last one.

What about your set-up?
Scantron: In terms of the set-up right now, I have everything going into a mixer. I have a laptop, which has the DJ software that I use, sometimes I run my synths through there, through like Ableton. I have an analog keyboard, and microphone, a guitar, and a Chinese Zhongruan. My mixer goes into an effects rack. I use a basic wah pedal, a delay pedal, and a loop station, which I ultimately use to loop everything.  I try to have each section to be a cohesive theme, but have peculiar differences. You can have chinese rap going into blues guitar over a hip-hop beat or a Chinese classical instrument over beatboxing with some bright analog synth thing going over it. Have it be one cohesive thing, but if you come to it in different sections they are highly distinguishable.

What do you have in store for the show that's coming up?
Scantron: Well I'm really excited about it. We're designing a whole set that will replicate a subway car, 8 by 12. I'm working with some people who've worked on plays and things like that and also some graffiti artists in Buffalo. I've been studying New York subway grafitti from the 80's and 70's. I have a couple books on it in my car actually, we're trying to replicate that style. We're also making an 8 foot version of the Tapei 101.  I take a lot of inspiration from old-school hip-hop, which incorporated separate elements into one culture, the words, the music, the visuals, and the dancing.


And there you have it, I edited out a lot of portions from the interview, tangents about musical inspiration from James Joyce's Ulysses and details about the beetle-nut prop in his movie, for example, just to make the interview coherent to you buffaBLOG readers. And during the interview, while trying to keep up with his rapid speech, I gathered the impression that the only thing that distinguishes his hyperactive mind from one that would be typically labeled as having ADHD is his startlingly bold ability to materialize his ideas, make them happen, as small or large as they come. As a result, he serves as the perfect counter-example to a popular misconception we all can't help but believe at times; the impression of Buffalo a dying city ridden by apathy.

The highly-anticipated performance which will include rapper  Jeremy Jermaine Jerome (aka Just Ending Now) will take place at Soundlab on the 1st of December. A preview will come, but just in case you don't catch that, the show is 18 and over, starts at 8pm, and the tickets are $10.

And here is a video of Scantron playing the Zhongruan.

#1 . Bagginz aka Trevor Eckman

Hometown: Rochester, NY

Age: 21

Genre: College Rap

Sound: “I guess I’m compared to Mac Miller or Sam Adams, but only I feel because I’m another white rapper. My voice I feel like is unique just like anyone else’s.”

“God bless the internet.” It’s what Rochester native and Youtube sensation Bagginz, aka Trevor Eckman, opens his latest track up with. It’s true; Bagginz owes a lot of his success to the mastering and maneuvering of Facebook and Youtube marketing. In 2010, the rapper’s name created a buzz when he tweaked party pop culture staples such as Demi Lovato’s “Don’t Forget” and Rebecca Black’s “Friday” and put them on Youtube. As a result, he gained a large following among college crowds and at his own alma mater, the University at Buffalo. The senior Communication major’s online and word-of-mouth popularity led to student governments taking a liking to his sound and style. He was invited to headline with some of hip hop’s greatest names, including Lupe Fiasco at SUNY Brockport in 2011 and Chiddy Bang at UB in 2012.  They were opportunities of a lifetime that Bagginz seized with tremendous pleasure. 

Relief is experienced through his Christian faith, and so he keeps his lyrics clean and in agreement with his beliefs, though he doesn't consider himself a "Christian rapper," just a guy with strong values, hustling for a dream. Bagginz is also extremely family-oriented and has little sisters to look out for, which is why he’s not running around rapping about the expected and overrated: thug life, drugs and the materialistic. What saves Bagginz from being placed into the category of “another white boy rapper from the suburbs” is the sincere force behind his words. He doesn’t play pretend. He raps about the real, his experiences; childhood memories have become a big inspiration. After a brief hiatus spent contemplating what he truly wants out of life, Bagginz is back. Download his mixtape, Only a Matter of Time, on Facebook.

BuffaBLOG's pilgrimage to Pitchfork Music Festival is out of respect for the voice that Pitchfork Media provides for independent music all over the world. It's no secret that their media facilitates the exploration of music while also providing opinionated reporting that allows the readers to decide what they like and dislike. Because Pitchfork reaches so many unique individuals across the world, they and their readers help to expose the freshest Artists.

When it comes to Hip-Hop this is most certainly the case. While not ignoring the Commercial Hip-Hop industry, Pitchfork's coverage tends to lean towards the Rappers of the underground. Focusing on up-and-coming individuals with unique talents.

A$AP Rocky: photo by Brock Fetch

This year's Pitchfork Music Festival at Union Park in Chicago July 13-15 will feature many of those same buzz-worthy artists. Most notable is A$AP ROCKY who came into the light last year as a young buck with a high-talent ceiling. His interesting music on the mixtape LiveLoveA$AP excited many and caused him to get so much attention via the internet. Likely because five of the tracks on that mixtape was produced by another critically acclaimed Pitchfork Music Festival artist CLAMS CASINO. He gained notoriety for his brilliant genre-bending productions for both A$AP Rocky and also The Based God, Lil B. Many will tell you that both he and ARAABMUZIK are two of the best Hip-Hop style producers outside of the mainstream right now. Along with producing, AraabMuzik is an incredible performer. Using multiple samplers as live instruments he precisely plays unlike any other.

Young Southern gentleman BIG K.R.I.T will also get to display his talents. His sliding country style is definitely influenced by his predecessors Outkast and UGK. He is one of the unknown true talents in the Rap world, producing tracks for artists like, Wiz Khalifa, Curren$y, Smoke DZA, Ludacris, and Chris Brown.

Kendrick Lamar: photo by Jeff Forney

Additionally getting the nod from Pitchfork are South-Central Los Angeles rappers KENDRICK LAMAR and SCHOOLBOY Q from the 'Black Hippy' Hip-Hop group. Lamar's Independent release of Section.80 last year turned many heads and was revered as new Alternative Hip-Hop. It's a smooth laid back style, very California, but more importantly lyrically relevant. Unlike the Commercial Rappers of the world these two artists, and for that matter all of the Hip-Hop Artists at the Pitchfork Music Festival, are spitting lyrics that tell a story about humanity today. Not Diamonds, nor Yachts. And who couldn't that be more true about than DANNY BROWN? His "Radio Song" is a original slam at Rappers who are complacent making songs for profit only rather than creating meaningful music. He will be front-and-center on Saturday night to show off his zany personality.

Danny Brown: photo by Ysa Perez

One commonality of the Hip-Hop artists at this year's Pitchfork Music festival is that they all are going agains the grain of what Rap music has become. So although people can tend to scoff at the terms used to describe these branches off like "Alternative Hip-Hop" "Trillwave" or "R-Neg-B" it may very well be these sub-genres that save Hip-Hop from itself. Pitchfork Music Festival has curated the best of these acts to showcase the potential of where Rap music can go in the future.

The Pitchfork Music Festival is July 13-15 at Union Park in Chicago, IL. For the entire schedule and lineup check out their festival website HERE.