The new Oddisee video for his single “I Grew Up” off his latest album, Iceberg, is a simple animated illustration of the beautiful idea and complicated reality of America. A place of slaves and immigrants, telling the world to: Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Oddisee’s character sketches are intentionally skeletal. They’re archetypes that, through the usage of time, cultivate into juxtaposing views. A system built on white supremacy can’t do anything else, …
Author: Tracy Jones
The Young Giantz, Courtesy of Priority Records 
Mega and Late 
Artist Keen hooked me up with this keychain that he made. Dude fucks wit 3D printers. He’s got these crazy business cards made of plastic, leather and other materials. 
At the podcast, mic checking. 
“There’s a thousand emcees lined up against the wall….” What single is that from? He was a Wu-filiate. 
Spidey the lighty
Deuce Mac and Bigg Joe West are The Young Giantz, two brothers from South Central, Los Angeles. I interviewed and wrote about them for LA Weekly. Read it here. Last Saturday I was on The Mega Late Show. That was my first ever podcast. We recorded it in Mega’s man cave, appreciate him having me over. Thanks for having me on the show. I’ll post it when it drops, some time later this month, I think. Peace to artist Keen …
The importance of Ikeda Manabu’s work can’t be overstated or more timely. This is anti-automation. It’s what you get when you take away the screen, look at the world and just draw it. He worked 10 hours a day for three and a half years to produce his latest piece, “Rebirth.” It’s a 13 x 10 foot painting within a painting that’s within a painting. The narratives that weave throughout it are like strings of tangled sentences. “Rebirth” is Manabu’s …
It took having a child to realize that I had a temper. Thought I was cool. The most difficult thing that I’ve ever done was become a father. And I did it in one of the strangest places in the world. The pressure to model Japanese societal standards has the force of a car crusher. It’s a homogenous country that refused to talk to the world for 200 years. Spending a lot of time alone makes you weird, ask anybody …
Haruki and Kantra’s perception of me, govern my values. I’d be fooling myself to pretend like foreign judgments aren’t crowding my peripheral. My wife is working crazy hours. I feel helpless watching her go through this bulshit. We have to switch roles. It’s like I’m walking around with my balls in my back pocket. I’m in awe of her. Shorty’s a hustler, “We do what we can do,” she tells me. Like a drafted soldier doing more than she can, …
