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TIMBUKTU
Timbuktu believes in DeSofo and will be giving an interview right back at us...
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TANYA MORGAN
THE MAIN INGREDIENT tanya morgan's freewheeling, populist poetics
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GRANDMASTER CAZ
Grandmaster Caz, DJ/MC of the infamous Cold Crush Brothers, the crew that most...
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SHA-ROCK
Sharon Jackson, also known as Sha-Rock, was the first female rapper, and joined...
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WHIPPER WHIP
You can see Prince Whipper Whip, of the Fantastic 5, him battling the Cold Crush in Wild Style--and he still sounds good on the mic today.
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FROSTY FREEZE
Wayne Frost--Frosty Freeze--was a member of the second generation of the Rock Steady Crew--b-boys that helped revitalize an almost-forgotten art in the '80s.
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WANDA DEE + ERIC FLOYD
Wanda Dee was arguably the first female DJ ever, and the first female inductee into Afrika Bambaataa's Zulu Nation. She went on to be the diva voice of techno superstars The KLF...
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tanya morgan's freewheeling, populist poetics
WILL DUKES
By now you're privy to the contrary nature of Kanye West's realist rap steez, which has infiltrated the mainstream on behalf of Everyman USA, and if you're really gully you're already onto gentle Talib's beautiful hustle, or Common's poor righteous proletariat bit. But mostly those MCs are poster children for a faux average-Joe-cum-corporate brand of consciousness, wherein hotties and hardrocks can now coffee-house snap and feel smart like the unshaven mavens before them; meanwhile, true blue-collar rap is a much messier monster, favoring filthy soul samples, left-field flows, and unpolished but poignant lyrics from nine-to-five-slaving motherfuckers who won't ever try to battle you with sandals and capris on. That's no dis to the major label dudes or anything; just an alternate way of saying that there exists a whole nother nexus of up-and-coming cats who combine artistic freedom and the struggle into one: Hezekiah, Che Grand, Sin, Median.
And Tanya Morgan. Like their working-class contemporaries, Tanya Morgan epitomize the playful, post-Native Tongue progeny. Yet dissimilar to those other acts, the charismatic trio exude a more irreverent and insightful earthiness that can be summed up by one song--the delightful "Ode to Tanya," wherein MCs Donwill, Ilyas Nashid, and Von Pea vie for one woman's attention while hating on each other in the process. Lyrically, it doesn't exactly probe space, or cure cancer, but something about the song's rollicking, free-spirited feel--accentuated by the group's effortless interplay--makes it some sort of indie-rap anomaly, a communally cool corner of a genre known for its only-child aloofness.
"I see our music as us just fucking around and having fun with each other," says Donwill, who earlier explains that Tanya Morgan is essentially "a nod to when the music mattered more than the name of the group or what the artist looked like." Several years ago he and Ilyas linked up in North Carolina-- where they both attended college--to form the group Ilwill.
But as fate would have it, both Mcs, upon returning to their native Ohio, would make the acquaintance of Brooklyn's Von Pea and form Tanya Morgan in attempts to collectively carve their own colorful niche into a genre already rife with self-serious rhyming, though Ilyas states, in no uncertain terms, that his crew's populist poetics are . . . well . . . more John Blaze than that: "I don't think there is any group that can match us pound for pound in [terms of] lyrics, versatility, and just plain . . . good music. That's what I hear when I listen objectively."
If their forthcoming debut Moonlighting, which further exemplifies the group's freewheeling chemistry over vibrant beats (supplied by Von Pea and producer Brick beats) is any evidence, others are likely to speak of a similar listening experience once the record is released later this summer. In the meantime, Tanya Morgan continue to hone their particular brand of homespun hotness, and are confident that they are working with the right musical ingredients. "I knew that putting three good MCs together that know how to have fun while making music would result in something good," says Von Pea. "The blessing is that we got the combination right."
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