Rapper Bambu’s eighth studio album Prey For The Devil cuts through like a box cutter to the face. It’s a tightly executed thematic album and it’s one of my favorite albums of last year. OJ the Producer and DJ Phatrick’s production works like a stage for a rapper who uses his words for a molotov cocktail. Bam is woke as fuck. Sad that he ain’t saying nothing new. Sadder that what he’s saying feels new. Click bate makes history feel irrelevant and …
Author: Tracy Jones
To commemorate the 25th anniversary of 2Pac’s debut album 2Pacalypse Now, I wrote something for L.A. Weekly about how that record influenced me as a kid. Pac’s career only lasted for a five-year blink-of-an-eye span. He was twenty-five when he passed. This year he was nominated for the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame. He wasn’t a saint or an infallible icon. He was a man that made a lot of mistakes like most people, except his faults were publicized and broadcasted for the whole …
I just wrote an article for LA Weekly. It’s about L.A. mobile DJ crew, Uncle Jamm’s Army (UJA), founded by Rodger Clayton aka Ace of Dreams aka Mr. Prinze. From the late 70’s to the mid 80’s, The Army was king. Nobody was doing it like them, nobody. After working on this piece, I started to speculate that West Coast DJ’s were way ahead of East Coast DJ’s, from how they set up their turntables, scratching, blending, to how they approached the use …
For TMG readers that don’t know, this artist is my boy. I’ve written about him here. After years of fits and false starts, DJ, producer and emcee DJ Zesto has at last released his debut album The New Laughing Gas. In January of last year he dropped the single, “The Pleasure Principle” and then he dipped back into obscurity. With the occasional tweet or Instagram post, homie is an elusive figure. He’s an 80’s baby who’s old enough to have experienced the before and …
Born With It is a short film about an African-Japanese boy who identifies as Japanese, but the world sees him differently. Written and directed by Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour, Jr., the story explores isolation, alienation, and racism. Aside from the heartbreaking, yet revealing documentary Hafu, Born might be the first of it’s kind: it’s a scripted film, Japan is a vital character, and it exclusively centers a half black half Japanese kid struggling to make sense of who he is. It’s a tiny film that needs to be seen. Emmanuel and …
Socials