Ernie Fresh x Mophono x Egyptian Lover California Colors EP

“The California Colors EP” is a pilgrimage to a sacred place. The trio Ernie Fresh, Mophono, and legendary electro producer Egyptian Lover bow at the altar of the artform, offering only the realest expression of the elements. It’s is the four elements, graffiti, breaking, emceeing and deejaying, in harmonious, head-nod bliss.

From Ernie Fresh’s dedicated toast, “this one is going out to all the straight up, motherfucking b-boys,” the “California Colors EP” calibrates to a symposium dedicated to the breakers on linoleum, and the renegade artists that paint in rustoleum. The title track is a head trip down the krylon aisle as Fresh dreams of Oxnard Oranges and Gardenia Greens he’ll ignite to the shell of a clean train. Fresh is most notable as the ring leader with the Rakim cadence on DJ Shadow’s “The Sideshow” from 2016’s The Mountain Will Fall, but he’s cut his teeth in Northern California as a member of the group Who Cares. Behind the boards is San Francisco producer Mophono and the legendary Egyptian Lover. The two producers encapsulate a sound that feels like the result of getting lost in video clips of Detroit’s legendary The New Dance Show footage. “The California Colors EP” is a living time capsule of electro futurist production, particularly Egyptian Lover’s mastery of the 808. It’s the result of Mophono obsessing over Kraftwerk’s “It’s More Fun To Compute” and Just Ice’s “Little Bad Johnny,” only to arrive at legendary Rusk Studio in the presence of creator of “Egypt Egypt.”

“The California Colors EP” is dedicated to the ones that grew up on Rapmasters tapes in their Walkmans, clipped to their shorts as they pedaled through the neighborhood on BMX bikes. It’s for the ones that snuck out through the bedroom window at midnight with a Jansport full of krylon cans. If you had a black book with no blank pages or a mountain of D batteries in the waste bin, this EP will have you seeing colors as bright as the fresh paint on a burner.