Canadian hip-hop once was a hot bed for up and coming underground rappers with swollen members leading the forefront but everyone else since them thats blown up in the canadian underground scene sound exactly like swollen members, and in the mainstream scene everyone from canada is sounding like the face of canadian music drake, thats why asun eastwoods debut e.p nimbus is a breathe of fresh air for a canadian rapper. Is his flow style delivery and contact original no, it sounds like the current go to sound of the nyc underground scene the low monotone flow visually mesmerizing gritty almost cinematic lyrics about the ganglife and drug trade made popular by acts like roc marciano and kA. That doesn't matter though since what he spits about he lives and with a different production style besides the minimalistic soft no drum instrumentals that allow listeners to curly focus on the lyrics he has a more crisp yet still gritty production style that makes this album sound refreshing. Tracks like "asuns story" a autobiographical masterpiece describing his struggles his pain the sorrow and emptiness that the loss of his brother at a young age caused him to unsettling truths about getting stabbed shot and left for dead delivered with pure emotion that you can feel though your headphones make ASUN one of the best storytellers and visionary emcees in the game today. Even when he's sharing mics with some of the best rappers into like sky zoo and conway this up and coming rapper proves he deserves to be rapping with the best. This is defiantly one of the best debut's I've heard from a new artist in a few years and I'm highly looking forward to new music by him in the upcoming future
Unless you live completely off social media and tv, just a hermit so disclosed from society that you don't here any current events at all which doesn't imply to anyone reading this since this is a blog on the internet, you have watched or at least heard everyone and there mother talking about eminems cypher verse from this years b.e.t awards. The verse that shook up the nation 100% being directly aimed at the sad excuse of a president we currently have in office. When trump first took office everyone in my circle said the only plus side of him being in office is the revival of punk music and hip-hop with a politically charged message. So far though there hasn't been much in the terms of a revival, sure rage against the machine minus zach de la rocha teamed up with chuck d and b-real to form prophets of rage whose debut e.p was nothing but anti-political fueled lyrics but reception wise didn't make much of a impact. Run the jewels specifically killer mike has been the voice of social anarchy and had a huge impact not only during the 2016 election but still is making a impact off his bold statements today but besides two tracks off run the jewels three and not even full tracks a couple of lines off the few tracks even direct the views he was campaigning either on can on the election campaign himself with bernie sanders or on social media, which was little disappointing. Still nothing mainstream that would have a direct impact on society music wise was released making anti-political statements that most of america was thinking would happen once trump came back in office, intill now. Eminem is considered one of the top 5 greatest lyricist of all time by many and is one of the highest selling rappers as all time and after closing in on a 20 year career is still one of the most popular names in hip-hop today, so if he goes on a five minute freestyle directing towards trump the whole world is paying attention, the impact in the music scene we have been waiting on. Only issue its eminem who is a amazing lyricist don't get me wrong but goes from goofy to serious in the blink of a eye and while making some valid points it isn't a verse thats gunna lead to a political revolution in music like the sex pistols in the 70's public enemy in the 80's rage against the machine in the 90's and green day in the early 00's. A artist that has such a big format to make his change i found it lack luster that his first bar started "thats a awfully hot coffee pot/ should i drop it on donald trump? probably not? the same juvenile diss humor that eminem is known for doesn't scream political revolution to me. He did spit some very politically driven factual bars touching on disturbing but true current events and actions by OUR PRESIDENT some that hit heavy to me as a listener such as
"but we better give obama props
cause what we got in office now is a kamikaze
that';; probably cause a nuclear holocaust
and while the drama pops
and he waits for shit to quit down hell gas his plane up
and fly around till the bombing stops
intensities heightened tensions rising
trump when it comes to giving a shit your stingy as i am"
"plus this is his form of distraction
plus he gets a enormous reaction
when he attacks the nil so we focus on that in
stead of talking puerto rico or gun reform in evade
all the horrible tragedies and he's bored and would rather
cause a twitter storm with the packers
then says he wants to lower are taxes"
lyrics with a real message yet for eminem who's earlier work is known for sharply executed multi's the flow was a little off going at times for extended bars where the flow don;t exactly match to his normal machine gun-multi style flow. a lot of it lyrically wasn't bad but for eminems caliber fell short still the message and the impact this message will have due to his high profile name should lead to similar song for verses by more mainstream names and I'm hoping just hoping eminem's verse in this cypher leads to that anti-political music revolution we have been slowly waiting on ever since trump got into office
Anime is one of the fastest growing international trends to Sweep though America with titles such as dragon ball z, narutu, bleach, one piece, death note and more recently sword art online,fairy tale,attack on titan.my hero academia, becoming such big properties that non anime fans even know what they are. Most any though is based off of manga the Japanese equivalent of comic books which in America doesn't have as big of a following as the animated version of the same product. In this article I'm gunna discuss three of my current favorite ongoing manga series that are still releasing new content weekly THAT DONT HAVE A ANIME ADAPTATION AT THE MOMENT.
THE PROMISED NEVERLAND WRITTEN BY Kaiu Shirai for weekly shonen jump; At first look at the cover art for this series this manga looks like a typical shonen adventure series about positivity filled with coming of ages slice of life content and comedy. Read the first chapter of this series and you will notice how wrong you actually are. The promised Neverland is the darkest thing to come out of weekly shonen jump since the chimera ant arc in hunterxhunter. What is the promised Neverland you ask well the promised Neverland is a magna about children under the age of 16 in a orphanage with a loving caring mother figure and how they find out everything they thought they knew about there life was a complete lie. In reality there basically farm animals groomed to be Mensa levels of intelligence and when they come as age there sold as meat for demons who enjoy the taste of brains from the absolute smartest children, and that loving mother figure is a sadistic survivor doing whatever she has to do to survive grooming these kids with a false sense of hope to personally hand them over to there deaths. Yes this isn't your typical shonen magna, but theres another twist. You might asked what can be more shocking then the premise of this whole manga well by this premise you might think this is a horror manga and you would be wrong. The first part of the promised never land is on the same lines of another series that by the initial premises before reading you might think is a horror manga then after reading it you find it to be a phycological thriller focused on the mind games of genius's trying the outwit each other i.e death note. The children find out the truth about there seemingly perfect lies by actually seeing a demon scoop up a child who they tried to give her stuffed rabbit back to after they believe she's being adopted, then plan there escape. They have to keep all there plans secret from the "mother" who is on to them and it becomes a phycological cat and mouse game between the kids trying to escape and the "mother" trying to make sure the next shipment of children doesn't get interrupted. the second half of the manga as of now is on the lines of a adventure novel after they escape focusing on how they survive and adapt to the new world witch there the only humans in and try to follow clues left by a mysterious man to a human safe haven in a different dimension. This is one of the very few manga I have ever read that has delivered week after week and week after week each chapter end sin a cliff hanger that leaves you screaming and feinding for more. JAGAAAAAAAAN WRITTEN BY KANESHIRO Muneyuki for big comic spirits
This might be one of the most disturbing most graphic most wtf magna I have read in a long time especially the first 20+ chapters before the tone of this magna goes from a complete horror seinen series to some weird gross out super sentii style series about grossly disfigured half humans that have been taken over by parasitic demon like frogs that team up to take on humans completely taken over by these parasitic demon frogs one who which is a mentally unstable stalker series rapist who as soon as he sticks his tongue into a female they immediately wanna have sex with him. This series starts out with the main character Shintaro Jagasaki who is a cop with the mind of a school shooter, he pictures in his head mass murdering everyone he arrest and pictures murdering his own finance, in a normal magna you would view someone like this as the ultimate villain in this series he is actually the hero. One day his arm gets taken over by some parasitic demon frog but is able to somehow stop it before completely turning him over turning his hand into a weapon and those criminals and civilians he wants to murder so bad well they end up getting completely taken over by these parasitic demon frogs and its up to jagasaki to kill them to safe the day turning his eager desire to kill everyone in sight into something positive in the blink of a eye. This magna is a mindfuck with some of the most disturbing scenes I've seen in magna since berserk and Gants. Also this magna is extremely intriguing and has me waiting each week to see where this magna goes
PLATINUM END WRITTEN BY TSUGUMI OHBA FOR JUMP SQ
If you were a author how would you follow up one of the most commercially successful while critically acclaimed and beloved series of the past decade that also had a completely original plotline that hasn't been seen in anywhere else before?? for death note author tsunami ohba he took a few concepts from some popular magna series (future diary and his own death note) and put them into one concept. Platinum end starts off with suicidal high school student Mirai Kakehashi who tries to commit suicide by jumping off the roof of his school only to be rescued by a angel, yes a actual angel since in this reality angels safe suicide victims and put them in a last man standing battle Royale with 13 other suicidal people all equipped with magic arrows to decide who will become GOD AFTER GOD RETIRES IN 999 DAYS. Only in Japan would of concept like this even exist and yet it works so well. The only thing I don't like about this manga is that its a monthly release so the pacing is extremely slow since you get only one chapter a month and its just a prolonged chapter in the same situation instead of progressing more than one story lines in a chapter but overall this is a amazing series that I highly recommend
One of my most popular segments when the blog was at its peak was my monthly next2blow articles that showcased a underground artist who was gaining major buzz, aligned themselves with major co-signs and were making moves to elevate there passion for music into a actual career. The first artist I'm covering in this relaunched segment has made more progress in this past year career wise then most of you will in your lifetime and I'm talking about clark, nj native ren Thomas. Rapping since the age of ten ren has always had a sharp skillset but it wasn't intill 2012 that ren started to gain huge momentum as a emcee specifically on the battle rap circuits. That year ludacris was hosting a battle rap competition at MAGNUM CONDOMS LIVE LARGE PROJECT 2 which ren made it until the semi finals. A year later placed third at the prestige end of the week us championships placing second just two years later, then in 2016 he WON TEAMBACKPACKS MISSIONUNDERGROUND MUNY cypher championships. After that he released his first single off his long anticipated debut album I been nice that was produced by none other than hip-hop legend Pete rock and the album itself was hosted by lord sear. With this much acclaim as a battle rapper one might ask how is he next2blow he already seems to have a highly admirable resume as a battle rapper and his name is already known throughout the underground rap scene? Yes that is indeed true but ren Thomas has recently done something that intill westidegunn and Conway signed with shady last year was basically unheard of for a underground artist, getting mainstream shine. In July vh1 aired a reality show entitled signed where big time moguls a@r,s artist, and executives brought in inspiring rappers and singers to see who had what it took to be signed to a major label. In a mix of Nicki Minaj wannabes, soul singers, and carbon copy's of mainstream rappers like migo's there was one emcee than stood out amongst the pack that was ren, a master lyricist who rick ross actually used as a weapon to test the rapping abilities of other contestants. A true lyricist with actual talent in a pool of gimmicky rappers he stood above the rest so much so vh1 though clever editing actually had to falsify his performance in the final rounds to make it look like he slipped up since he was portrayed as the clear cut winner. Infact he as actually offered a deal if he switched his sound up since the moguls didn't know how to market and make money off a old school pure lyricist and no gimmick, and to this I say they were wrong. Yes real lyricism is all about dead in modern day hip-hop but go back and re-watch his performance of no chaser during signed and seee how the crowd reacted even receiving a call and response during the chorus. A track like that which had so much energy could easily be a mainstream single and yes the rest of his material is more gritty underground than no the high energy of no chaser, but the format of a mainstream friendly single for a album of pure hiphop has worked and has seen platinum album sales for artist like big pun, Eminem and recently j.cole and kendrick lamar. He could of easily been marketed in the same light and been a success. Even though he didn't get signed on the reality show ren Thomas has shown no signs of slowing down and after already 6 years of success in the music scene hasn't seen his peak yet.
I have and always have been a huge anime fan especially of the dragon ball franchise, and covering anime is something Ive been wanting to do for a few years now. On Saturday dragon ball super aired a one hour special featuring the heavily hyped and promoted fight between goku vs jiren and it was beyond amazing especially episode 110. While everyone is theorizing and talking about goku,s ultra instinct technique (yes it's a technique not a transformation but I am not gunna be arguing that now) I wanna discuss a huge possible plot point that got overshadowed and hasn't even been mentioned in the dragon ball community and that is pertaining to freIza. As goku was emerging from the brink of death in the ultra instinct state the show cuts to the reactions of other participants in the tournament of power to goku,s massive change in power. During this a sequence you see every last god of destruction, kai, angel visibly shaken at the pure magnitude of power goku was emmiting. Then it cuts to freiza's reaction he looks intrigued and gives a very menacing smile after its stated and visibly clear the gods are even horrified by this new state goku is in. Now let's cut to the ending cliffhanger of freiza standing over goku with a energy attack ready to fire making the viewer believe freiza will kill goku. Freiza mentions he never forgot about nanek which doesn't pertain to goku almost killing freeza but the fact that goku healed freiza. Now you're the thinking why would freeza heal goku and it's not just for the fact goku healed freiza. freeza NEVER does anything for anyone that doesn't benefit himself. Since freiza resurrected in the universal survival arc he has made his motives clear to pull one over the gods and rule over all. Freiza just saw the gods frightened of goku's new increase of power which intrigues freiza. I theorise one way or another freiza will or at least try to trick, or even blackmail Goku into helping him surpass the gods and I actually could see this happen. One possibility of this outcome comes with freiza winning the wish in the super dragon balls for having the most eliminations if universe 7 wins. Goku will want to revive everyone who has died and been eliminated in the tournament of power something you know freiza wouldn't do. Remember though freiza is a very cunning very calculative manipulator he could suggest to goku he will use the wish to revive everyone back if he helps freeza overtake the gods. Now before you say goku won't do that one hie whole mindset since the original dragon ball is to fight strong opponents and with how much jiren and hit evolve and adapt and get stronger with every fight goku might actually contemplate and agree to freiza's offer. The second scenario of this happening is darker more sinister and something freiza would do in a heartbeat out goku's family in mortal danger INTILL he agrees to help him take out the gods. You might say but goku is more powerful then freeza and even if he wasn't with the help of Vegeta and gohan they could end freeza for good. Yes that's true but your forgetting freiza's most powerful and useful technique his mastery in the art of manipulation. Remember from the beginning of this arc to the gods goku is the ultimate evil the mortal who put all the universes at risk of destruction what if freiza manipulated the gods of destruction or the angels into thinking he's good or at least the lesser of two evils to help him take out goku for once and for all by targeting the ones he loves. The angels actually fit better in this scenario since if universe 7 wins no other go of destructions will be alive but the angels will and could be salty and upset that there god of destructions have been erased from the face of existence. they could target gokus family forcing goku to align with freiza into helping him achieve total multiversal domination. now remember this is just a theory that I came up with bu a theory none the less I think has a huge possibility of becoming reality towards the climiax of this arc. leave your thoughts on this theory below and lets have a civil discussion about why or why not this can possible be a possible upcoming story plot
I haven't posted on here in well over five years and still to this day I get asked on the streets will the blog ever be back up and my answer is always no. When I first started East coast underground central it was ment to be a blog covering the indie music scene on the east coast as well as having think pieces about the music industry, current affairs, and my views on a variety of subjects that could mold the content of music such as politics, gun control, the drug trade, just current worldly subjects that real musicians touch upon in there music. After a few months the blog grew a huge local following in the Lehigh valley and slowly molded into a local hip-hop blog covering the Lehigh valley hip-hop scene. I was fine with that supporting local music something no one else was doing but me at the time but eventually it just because too much. I'm a very blunt critic and alot of local musicians couldn't take the harsh criticism eventually leading to violence directed at me in person, gross memes portraying me in a false and disgusting light, and was even sued in court for libel on a article i did on a local rapper. (A case I won because i had all my sources in order to prove my story true) so I quit blogging but never quit my passion as a writer gaining a fairly successful life as a freelance journalist for Various some of them well known publication's. I've decided to bring the blog back but before the excitement this blog is going back to my original vision for this blog and will no longer be a Lehigh valley hip-hop blog but a indie culture blog covering a variety of topics as well as covering artist of every genre in the East coast music scene who have a strong buzz or I personally like. Will also be posting anime theories and reviews and magna reviews, maybe some profiles on some upcoming skateboarders, cigar reviews. I'm just going to be covering a wide variety of my interest. I was just going to create a new blog INTILL i realized despite being absent of new content for five years this blog still averages 500 views monthly and has a lot of following still so decided to relaunch this instead do to the still high traffic volume. So do not message me for reviews write ups ect. Because that's not what this blog is anymore and if you enjoyed my older content outside of my harsh criticism of local rappers then I hope you enjoy my new content and for everyone else good day
Throughout the various mediums of the music industry I've dwelled in though the years (blogger, promoter, producer, manager and even as a low intern) I've noticed many double standards when it comes to why or why not they won't work or sign a artist, a lot of flawed logic when it comes to the perception of success and the sad decline of physical sales and support by fans. So I just wanna talk about and discuss the current state of the music industry though the eyes of a very perceptive blogger that has taken alot of mental notes throughout the years. I will be doing this in a six part series of articles. The first matter I wanna discuss is the double standards of signing a artist. When I was first coming up as a writer and started to get a following as a blogger I built a business relationship and friendship with a budding rapper who was gaining a big following on the battle rap circuit including being one of the biggest names on the now defunct mtv2 show fight Klub. He was being pursued by alot of labels and had sit downs with the likes of def jam, shady records, Atlantic, and was even signed to the hip-hop indie label phycological records that is very acclaimed in the underground hip-hop scene. This artist however had a major drug problem as well as a long criminal history of burglaries and stick-ups. This was the same reason he was let go by phycological records, one night at the age of 20 itching for a fix broke into label headquarters and stole recording equipment to sell for a bundle of heroin. He was blackballed for life from the music industry eventually cleaning his act up getting cleaned and five years later his career is bigger then ever recently being featured on ghost face killa's critically acclaimed 36 seasons but still to this day because of his pass is still blackballed and will never secure a recording contract even with a independent label. You might be wondering how this story pertains to double standards in the signing process of labels but if you look at the headlines on website's like xxl, ambrosia for heads, hip-hop early, mass appeal, ect. then the answer should be pretty obvious. For those who can't piece it together yourself however I'm give you a few examples starting with one currently in the headlines now and is the reason I'm even writing this article, a artist who has a top 50 on billboard hit who label's are pursuing rigorously despite looking at the death penalty do to 4 capital murder charges. I'm talking about tay-k, a 17 year old rapper who went viral for a video shot while on the run on the murder charges. Labels are hungry and desperate to cash in on this kid Even though he will never see the light of day again and will never be able to record another track or hit for the label, another young underaged artist who label's are trying to cash in on for there bad behavior exploiting misguided kids (examples are xxxtenation, Bobby smurda, and DANIELLE bregolli now know as bhad bhabie) to line there pocket's with easy money, but the exploitation of misguided children spiraling down the wrong path by older music executives that a discussion for another article. Back to my point is that a label will pursue a artist looking at the death penalty for FOUR counts of Capitol murder with ONE SONG and will never be able to record another one in his life but won't give a second chance to a artist who cleaned his act up and reviving his career do to mistakes now close to a decade old that,s what I call a double standard. Yes MONEY is the reason for the double standard happening but it's still sickening and is one of the many reasons for why the music industry is in steady decline.
