IB TOP 5 RAPPERS #3

3. Chali Tuna
Although Mr. Tuna has never put out a real solo album, His work on all of Jurassic 5's albums is enough for him to hold my number three spot. As a rapper with a deep voice, I am usually compared to Chali when people hear me for the first time. I have even been dubbed "albacore" by one Burnt MD, which if you are not aware is a white tuna. Pretty funny...

Anyways, I can probably say that I have never heard a Tuna verse that I have not loved. Aside from his always recognizable voice, Tuna has a spectacular flow that has only gotten better over the years. With J5 breaking up, who knows what is on the horizon for this MC. Their most recent album showcased what was in my opinion some of his best work. Every song he was on and every verse he spit... he destroyed. In fact, writing this now is really making me want to go back and listen to that album. It has been a couple months.

If you have never heard of Tuna I suggest the first track you check out should be "Coming War" with Ozomatli. This track features Tuna as the lone MC, with the Ozomatli backing him. unfortunately I couldn't find this track on youtube, but here it is on lastfm.

http://www.last.fm/music/Ozomatli/_/Coming+War

After that track I really just recommend listening to any of J5's album. He is easily the best MC of the bunch and you will recognize his voice immediately. Do It!

IB TOP 5 RAPPERS #2

2. Common - Up until very recently Common had held the number one spot for me. It was the release of his newest album coupled with the release of Atmosphere's latest that bumped common down to #2 from #1 (a spot he had held since at least 2002). Nevertheless, I can never get enough of Common. He is another one of those MC's that I got into when I was first discovering that real hip hop flavor at the beginning of the 21st century. I'll never forget the day I heard I Used To Love H.E.R. off of Resurrection. To this day and probably forever more it shall remain as my favorite song of all time. If you only know of common from his most recent songs that have made him somewhat of a commercial success then you need to hear this. Not only this song, but this entire album. For those who have never heard it I won't ruin it for you. Just listen to it for yourself, although you may have to play it two or three times to really get the gist of the concept.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y12YgEIFcAY

He has always had my favorite flow in the game. Laid back and very pleasing to ear, it seems as if Common is always having fun on the microphone, especially on Resurrection. The man keeps turning out great tracks and he tends to drop more knowledge than most MC's of his stature and presence in the game. For me, his older material will always be his best work though. I have listened to his newest album and while I respect what he was trying to do with the music. I think he needs to stick to what got him to where he is. Making that laid back-vibed out hip hop track for us to nod our heads to.

My favorite tracks of Commons are all on Resurrection so here is another choice cut from that album. Track 13 on Resurrection really showcases the fun that Common has with this record.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywVRX2jE8wg

Common is by no means a new artist on the scene with upwards of 10 albums. If you have only heard his newer tracks I urge you to check out his older ones. Resurrection is my favorite album of all time and once you hear it I'm sure you will have a newfound respect for this great artist.

IB TOP 5 RAPPERS #1

1. Slug - For me, Atmosphere is the pinnacle of the enlightened hip-hop head. It is impossible to find another MC that can paint a picture like Sean Daley. He has become a consummate story teller in his most recent releases and the style just keeps getting better. If you have never heard any of his stuff I suggest to start with the earlier material. When I was first getting into hip-hop (and I mean real hip-hop) your boy Tekst had a mix CD he made "Chris's Funky Stuff V. 2" The tracks were fire and like nothing I had ever heard before. My favorite track, I discovered later, was called "scapegoat" by Atmosphere. This song usually blows minds... Check it out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvCOAQwVA2E

In doing more research into the underground scene I happened upon another unbelievable atmosphere track called "The Woman With The Tattoo Hands". This track also tend to blow people away. I am still trying to figure out the entire meaning of this song 8 years later....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f9Wudn_eZA

As I got older and more seasoned to the underground I found that I was hearing more and more about Atmosphere and every single thing I heard from them I fell in love with. Slug puts his heart-break on the track and I always felt like he was speaking to me. Any time I had woman issues I'd just pop in an Atmosphere CD. To this day I would have to say that the song "Fuck you Lucy" is the most emotionally charged song I have ever heard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qlr1H_iV6qs

I watched Atmosphere go from virtual unknown to selling out venues and being featured as an MTV Artist of the week. They have become relatively well known with out compromising their music. Their newest album,When Life Gives You Lemons You Paint That Shit Gold, is a testament to that. Their series of Sad Clown Ep's have also been spectacular recently. My favorite of their newer, story driven songs has to be The Rooster.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VSfDcwNQpA

So get to know this MC. He is my favorite of favorites and has had much influence on my style. I hope you enjoy what you hear.

Spotlight: The Contraband

Well now we've really gone and done it. THC has formed a duo, THE LIKES OF WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN, and finally gotten a live band behind us for performances. The road was long... the road was fuckin tough... but we pulled through and got it done with a solid crew of musicians from all walks of life. The Contraband consists mainly of four musicians on Drums, Bass, Keyboard, and Guitar and us, THC. Together we are THC and The Contraband... Get it??? No.... rewind that shit and take it from the top. Now you get it. Haha we're funny dudes. Anyways, we been practicing almost once a week for almost two months now and we have done two shows for the public. A Wicked Willy's spectacular and this past thursday night (my birthday) in New Brunswick. We have been tearing these shows down and really been impressing the crowds that we have played for. With the "hip-hop" group stigma came ridicule and scorn from promoters, with a live "hip-hop/funk/rock" band comes honor, prestige, and GIGS!!! It's pretty funny that way.

Anyways, we don't have any footage posted of our shows yet but we are working on it and will have it posted for your viewing pleasure soon. Until then check out our free music downloads @ http://www.thehigherconcept.com/downloads.html to hear the next best song that we are going to cover with the band. Hollllllller. - IB

Coral Castle!

http://www.coralcastle.com/
http://www.rense.com/general39/coral.htm

After speaking with a friend of mine at work about alien technology, ancient knowledge, and conspiracy in general, he let me know about Coral Castle. This is some truly amazing shit. The summary: One man in Florida during the 30s somehow figured out how to levitate items, and built a castle (read: rock garden) made entirely out of coral. The average piece is 15 tons, and some go up as high as 30 tons. He did all of this work BY HIMSELF with his technology. The government and the private sector begged him to share his knowledge, but all he said was, “if I can figure it out, then someone else can.” The man died and did NOT leave his technology behind. He only left a few scattered pieces and probably destroyed the rest. Engineers have been trying to re-figure out what he had done, but they still have yet to tap into this technology. Which, by the way, is possibly how the pyramids were built. That, however, leads to an entire night of conversation, and probably more, so I shan’t elaborate further at this juncture.

The first link is the official page, and the second link is a write up that does a great job at “dumbing down” some of the more technical parts of the story.

Oh, and if you figure the technology out, remember I showed you this and holler at me, because I have a couch that I need moved out of my house. Good looks. Peace.

-Matty J

THC Road Trip - Halloween

Whats gooooood? So we are still working on the footage from the NAS show we played on the 6th but we wanted to give you some more footage to check out while we work. THC made our 5th road trip to Buffalo back in August for a halloween show. Fully equipped with our halloween costume, The Higher Concept definitely put it down. We got some video footage below so check it out.

Review: Nas - Untitled

In honor of The Higher Concepts opportunity to open up for Nas February 6th up in Lansing, Michigan I have decided to review Nas's newest album. On top of us opening up for this hip hop legend, I have honestly been listening to this album on repeat in my car since the day it was dropped. Now personally I have always appreciated Nas's albums. Illmatic, of course, is one of my favorite hip hop albums of all time and throughout the years I have been impressed by many of his songs such as, I gave you power, where Nas raps from the perspective of a Gun and Rewind, where Nas tells a story in reverse, but I have never really fallen in love with another Nas album since Illmatic. So I was skeptical going into this newest album. For me, the newest effort from Nas was so relevant to what I have been learning about in my life that I instantly fell in love. Nas's head seems to be in the exact same place as all of the members of The Higher Concept. We are both on a quest for the truth about who really runs this world. What some may call conspiracy theories and others would call hidden truths, are explored throughout this entire album. Most songs deal with the issues of race and responsibility and others deal with this hidden ruling class that we are trying to search out. My favorite song is Louis Farrakhan in which Nas brings his choice to try to expose these hidden truths to light and discusses how probable it is that he might be killed for voicing these opinions. "No revolutionary gets old or so I'm told / you get left full of bullet holes when you tell the people go free / its just a matter of time until they try to take me" I fully recommend this album for anyone who like hip hop with a strong message and want to learn more about the uphill battle we face to get to the bottom of what is really going on in this world.


flow - 5

lyrical content - 5

production - 5

album-ness 5

Overall - 5


A PERFECT SCORE!!!



all of the ratings will be out of a 5 point system. obviously we won't be rating horrible albums, so all of the albums SHOULD be in the upper range, but who knows, one of us could be having a bad day when we do the review. BUT DON'T TAKE OUR WORD FOR IT!

flow - is how the emcees ride the beat and what their cadence is. this may also include evaluation on the emcees' voice and tone.
lyrical content - is what the rappers are ACTUALLY SAYING. we know that nobody listens to anything but the beat nowadays, but bear with us.
production - is the quality of the beats and other musical content on the album. thank god for 9th!
album-ness - how all the songs are cohesively arranged on the album and the overall feel of the album.
overall - self-explanatory.

THC PERFORMS WITH NAS IN MICHIGAN!

Soooooo… we're back. Sitting in the basement studio with Glaze (home from Vegas for the week) and Tekst. Blunts, beats, and recording versing… almost like nothing happened. The fact of the matter is though, less than 72 hours ago, The Higher Concept opened up a show for a hip-hop legend. We might not have had as many people in the audience for us, or been written about in any newspapers, but we opened for NAS (who did more than half of Illmatic and blew my face off). Not only that, but we had a dance team of lovely ladies behind us as we opened up the show, we got a great response from everyone we talked to, and I got to see Bizarre of D12 with his hair braided up into bull-horns and bright green shiny glasses with Weed leaves on the rims backstage!! Aside from an unfortunate, freak, icicle AVALANCHE from outer space (the video will be posted soon) the weekend went off without a hitch. We do have a ton of footage that we captured along the way that we are working diligently on to have posted for you all as soon as possible. Be on the lookout... Talk to you soon. - IB

http://www.ratemydrawings.com

Now your boy can't draw. For the life of me, I try, but all I can do is laugh at whatever comes out. Never the less I am a very big fan of artwork of all kinds. So when i found this web site I was excited to find a new spot to check out art from up and coming artists. Ratemydrawings.com is a very cool place to check out art work from random artists all over the globe. Has a similar vibe too ourstage but with drawings and not music as its focus. Go submit your drawings or vote on others. If you enjoy art of all kinds. This site is definitely for you.

http://www.ratemydrawings.com

Jasiri X Episode 18

Book Review: Siddhartha by Herman Hesse

For those that didn't read much required literature in high school probably missed out on this little jewel. Siddhartha, written by Herman Hesse, is a narrative testament to the life of the Buddha. Its a novel that attempts to accurately describe the life of Siddhartha Gautama, the first Buddha. For those that are unfamiliar, it is a tale about balance; finding "the middle way" in a life excess and scarcity. Many of Hesse's novels follow opposing paths in an attempt to help the reader understand more about two extremes. Siddhartha is a beautifully written story that goes inside the soul of man; searching for bliss through different paths of life. If you did miss this one high school, it is highly recomended for people that are into any genre of literature.

Bugmenot.com

A couple months ago there was an article in the Washington Post about my Redskins that I really wanted to read. I tried to find it on a couple of random web sites but the page was blocked by the washington post. I started searching for a way around having to register and go through all that bullshit. This was the sight I found. Bugmenot.com is a site to find username and login passwords for different popular website without having to go through the monotony of registering and confirming emails and what not. If you are struggling trying to get onto a site without paying and can't crack it. Just go here. They are really good.