Mello Music Group Hip Hop 179 Items

After a decade in the music business, Mello Music Group has witnessed the dealings and promises of the record industry. Running counter-clockwise to the mainstream ethic, Mello has settled on its own code of conduct and value system. Their catalogue is a Hagakare of hip-hop -- a practical and spiritual guide to the essence. While the sounds are varied, an MMG release ensures that the art comes first, the artists are religiously devoted to the upholding of standards and values. The musicians swing fast blades and fly the Mello banner with speed and strength.

This is Bushido, the latest Mello Music compilation gathering the current roster and the label’s closest brethren. As always, the core shoguns are present: Apollo Brown, Oddisee, Quelle Chris, L'Orange, Joell Ortiz, Skyzoo, and Homeboy Sandman. The rated rookies brandish sharpened swords: Solemn Brigham, Namir Blade, and The Lasso. The legacy teammates with championship trophies are all present: Open Mike Eagle, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Elaquent, Kool Keith, and Mr. Lif. So are label affiliates, Murs, The Alchemist, RJ Payne, and B-Real. The veteran general rounds out the roster, Stalley, the newest member of the Mello family. This isn’t merely an anthology, it’s a fully-formed vision of what hip-hop can be. A meticulously assembled arsenal of past, present and future.

LP comes with 16 page lyric book and 7inch. Produced by Prince Paul, MF DOOM, Mark Ronson, ?uestlove and Memory Man!!
Featuring Open Mike Eagle and Masta Ace.
"If you work with words, like I do, there are a few achievements that we secretly fantasize about. Winning a Nobel Prize in literature. Having a #1 best-seller. College professors teaching our writing in their courses. But one achievement that most of us don’t even fantasize about is having an “original citation” in the Oxford English Dictionary.
The unabridged OED is the compendium of the history of English. Every time a word in common parlance was used for the first time, or in a new way, that usage and its author are recorded in the OED’s endless pages. Shakespeare’s got a bunch. Milton, too. These days, getting an original citation is like hearing the voice of God. It doesn’t happen much. But Paul Barman has one.
This is relevant to (((echo chamber))) only because it indicates the level that MC Paul Barman writes at. His rhymes are original in the sense of “no one has ever used that word like that before… but we will now.” Bring your brains. You’re gonna need them.
Not that (((echo chamber))) is hard work. It is perfectly pleasurable to bop your head along to great tracks laid down by ?uestlove and DOOM and Prince Paul, while MCPB says, “Meat keeps an enemy as a bone-deep identity. It’s the hardened shell that starts to smell. At one time, it might have guarded you well. But maladaptive strengths turn to captive feints and you become your own warden in hell.” And then in the next breath, “Would it blasphemy to ask you to shake that assphemy?”
If your ears are open, MCPB is gonna plug your brain in at voltages to which you are unaccustomed. He’s a social critic with a searing conscience that makes (“my”) comfortable bourgeois house of lies tremble with each jagged line on the PB Richter scale. Comfortable notions of being a “good” white person, blow up in the first two tracks, (((Echo Chamber))) and “YOUNGMAN Speaks on (((Race)))”. It takes MCPB just shy of three minutes to make this semi-observant Jew feel skeptical about the Ten Commandments. In ((((((Antennas)))))) he says, “we feel conflicting agendas rise and fall / what we call our identity tries to synthesize them all.” But he offers a solution, too. You’ll have to listen to the song to hear it. And at the end of the anthemic “Age War,” you’re ready to stand up, cheer, and then go join children in battle against the calcified bankrupt status quo. After all, it’s “already dead. Mentally a baby step from a deli spread.”
But, like any great poet (and MCPB is), he gets personal, too. I am certainly “a self in sheep’s clothing, a wealth of cheap loathing…” Aren’t you?
MC Paul Barman tells us, “Rest assured I’m the crested bird of nested words,” and that is no empty boast. In poetry, to rhyme both at the end of line and internally, in the middle of a line, is showing off. Which makes MCPB a crested bird indeed. There are songs, like (((Believe That))), where your eyes just go wide and you can’t believe the number of rhymes in a row that tell the truth. That much truth all placed in a row—you don’t see that anywhere. And it rhymes, on three levels at once.
MC Paul Barman is the most ambitious type of rapper. He is rhyming art. Why bother? It seems hard, and indeed the long hiatus between his albums tells us that it is. Well, MCPB has a reason: “art is the answer, the be end all... art, art and only art give solace to all this chaos and lonely hearts.”

So take some solace. (((Echo Chamber))) by MC Paul Barman is here. It’ll make your brain spin. And make you check your guts."
--- Adam Gidwitz, New York Times Bestselling & Newbery Award Winning Author

10 tracks feat. Blacastan & Del The Funky Homosapien!

19 Tracks feat. The Barrell Brothers, Oddisee, M.O.P., Chino XL, Finale, Evidence, Rasheed Chappell, Saga, Ty Farris, Rapper Big Pooh, Dynasty, Ras Kass, Vinnie Paz, Blacastan, Your Old Droog, Masta Ace, Wordsworth, Maffew Ragazino, Freddie Gibbs, OC, Westside Gunn, Planet Asia, Eternia, Sean Price, Reks & Ugly Heroes. Whoa!

Detroit's Apollo Brown is back with the instrumental follow up to Clouds. Let the legendary beat maker take you on a trip.

Buffalo & Detroit are America’s broken dream. They are once thriving cities, now known for frigid temperatures and violent crime. The cities were birthed in a different era, forged in fire, built of cold steel. It follows that the rawest Hiphop in recent memory has bled from these two regions. No two artists exemplify this hard truth more than legendary Detroit producer Apollo Brown and Buffalo’s maverick emcee Che’ Noir. The two artists came together to create a sound as natural as calm after the storm.

The soulful, head-nodding production of Apollo Brown has been a staple called on by some of the greatest to ever do it. From Ghostface Killah to Danny Brown, and from Freddie Gibbs to Chance the Rapper, Apollo Brown’s signature style has become an iconic staple of the culture.

Meanwhile, Che’ Noir has stepped onto the scene as smoothly as any double dutch veteran. Having already worked alongside Benny The Butcher, Kool G Rap, and Fred The Godson, she has emerged as one of the most extraordinary New York talents heard in years.

The pair’s new album, “As God Intended”, drifts up and down city streets and offers a glimpse behind closed doors, telling the stories of gunshots, missing fathers, & playing the system.

The new album from Apollo Brown & Che’ Noir features Skyzoo, Blakk Soul, Planet Asia, Ty Farris, and Black Thought. Coming July 10th on Mello Music Group, it is exactly “As God Intended.”

A ten-song masterpiece brimming with positivity & deliciously soulful production

Toronto Producer Elaquent is back with an all-star lineup of underground bubblers inlcuding Ivan Ave, Chester Watson and Skyzoo. The new album is cosmopolitan jazz rap - smooth production with velvet lyricists from around the globe.

Disc 2 NM

This is Apollo Brown's very first beat collection put together in 2007 a few years before winning the Red Bull Big Tune Championship in Detroit and then signing to Mello Music Group. The collection has been such a popular record around the Mello Music Group office for the past few years that we decided to make it available to everyone for a one time pressing on vinyl. Over 30 tracks from Apollo Brown.

This is a limited edition of 150. Produced by Heatmakerz, Erick Sermon, Boogeyman, Illmind, Apollo Brown and Justice League. Joell Ortiz & Kxng Crooked met the year they both won XXL's coveted Freshmen of the Year Award. The two's careers are as legendary as any in the rap game. Joell Ortiz started by signing to Dr. Dre's Aftermath label, then moving to Shady records as part of the Super group Slaughterhouse with Joe Budden, Royce Da 5'9 and Kxng Crooked. Add to that a fresh feature on Eminem's newest album "Music To Be Murdered By." Meanwhile, Kxng Crooked was signed to Virgin Records at just 17 before joining Death Row Records. He's had a flourishing solo career including collaborations along the way with TechN9ne, 2Pac, Benny The Butcher, Raekwon, Akon, Ray J and more. The West Coast LBC representer Kxng Crooked and Brooklyn's Joell Ortiz have finally come together for the new joint project "H.A.R.D." on Mello Music Group.

Petestrumentals 2conjures memories of BBQ cookouts and 70s Blaxploitation scores, rattling summer jeep cruises and blunted Jamaican vacations. There’s a gorgeous requiem to Dilla (“Dilla Bounce (R.I.P),” where the originator pays tribute to the prodigy. You see the full range of Rock’s gifts on display: the meticulously chopped horns, unquantized drums, and air raid sirens. It contains the emotion of a thousand eulogies.

i'd like to thank the silence
it's the womb of all vibration
and very rare to find
because most of the time
everything is singing
but when it does arrive
it's a healing force too.
i'd like to thank the wind
for being so dear.
i wanna thank the blues
for helping me out
and the fonk
for setting me free
as i can possibly be
under this oligarchy.
and a special thanks
to the sweet scent
the rain leaves behind itself
cause
it makes me wanna make music
i wanna thank you
for sharing this moment with me.
uhuru na haki
g
produced mixed and recorded by g.a.m. at SomeOthaShip
mastered by Romeo "D.J. ROMES" Jimenez

Sealed copy with a stuffed corner! Limited to 300 copies.

Los Angeles artist Open Mike Eagle's "A Special Episode Of" takes on social pressures and emotional expectations in creative, entertaining, and relatable way. Described as Art Rap, this follow up to "Dark Comedy" features production from Gold Panda, Exile and more has been streamed over 20 Million times. This special Artist Series Edition of vinyl features an original oil painting rendition of the cover art by KipDaFog and is a limited one time pressing.

A sleek and versatile album, Imaginary Everything’s artistic vision walks the line between reality and imagination. Inspired by Woodstock energy, Foxy Lady, James Brown’s “The Big Payback” & modern underground, Imaginary Everything is a journey and an experience. It channels the spirit of the old with the experiences of modernity. A departure from the nostalgic, narrative driven records from L'Orange, Imaginary Everything is a collection of songs which are individually experiential.

Detroit Beatmaker Apollo Brown and Fresno Rap veteran Planet Asia are proud to announce their new album "Sardines" - the followup to the duo’s beloved 2017 collaborative album “Anchovies.” Apollo and Planet Asia improve upon the minimalist, grimy Hip-Hop theme from the first collab with pristine execution. the new album promises grime just like its predecessor. Featuring Sick Jacken, Ty Farris, Marv Won, and TriState.

Mandala is the fourth Mello Music Group compilation – previous compilations include Mental Liberation, Helpless Dreamer, and Self Sacrifice - featuring Oddisee, Apollo Brown, L'Orange, Quelle Chris, Murs, Milo, Georgia Anne Muldrow and more.

The album showcases the ever-evolving roster of top-tier producers and rappers on MMG, many of whom (e.g. Oddisee & Quelle Chris) fill both roles with equal dexterity. Additionally, it features several artists nearby MMG, a testament to their commitment to working with those who possess singular sonic and lyrical abilities.

Mandala is at once compact and comprehensive. There is not a minute wasted and not a miss in sight. It is diverse and yet somehow cohesive, tailor made to rock your car speakers and your brain stem. It is MMG's reminder that hip-hop is alive and well, and a reintroduction to a label that's tried never to forget what makes music compelling.

With a multitude of producers behind the boards, the soundscapes on Mandala cover the map and the album is all the better for it. Oddisee helms the opener and tracks throughout with a musicality like few in Hip-Hop today. L'Orange brings subtle, jazzy suites to the table, and Quelle Chris provides dusty samples looped over hard-hitting drums as well as anyone else. Each beat is far richer and more inventive, able to play on its own and provide the perfect complement to the raps at hand.

As far as the rhymes are concerned, the rappers on Mandala leave nothing to chance. The MCs on the comp are intelligent and self-aware, capable of the comic, tragic, and in-between at the sound of a snare. They have an old-school reverence for rhyme with a modern state of mind and modern problems. Come-up or comedown, shine or shadow, friend or foe – they are fearless in confronting all fears.

Above all, Mandala is a sign of the great and innovative music in the history of MMG.

A real NY classic from Skyzoo & Pete Rock featuring Pete Rock, Styles, P, Raheem DeVaughn, Westside Gunn, Conway, Benny The Butcher, Elzhi. Mixed by Jamey Staub. Mastered by Dave Kutch. A Mello Music Release.

It’s been more than forty years since Kool Herc starting throwing parties in the South Bronx, and so you could forgive the casual fan for thinking that nearly every permutation of hip-hop has already been explored. But KEITH, the new album from the iconic rapper Kool Keith and the master producer Psycho Les (due out July 12 on Mello Music Group) argues just the opposite: that what’s absurdly funny can also be sinister and strange, that the form can still be broken in new and radical ways. Keith is, of course, one of the pivotal figures in the history of hip-hop, and has been one of the genre’s most singular writers and original voices. The Bronx native was a founding member of Ultramagnetic MCs, whose debut album, 1988’s Critical Beatdown, served as a blueprint for both internationally famous acts like Public Enemy and for the entire future of underground rap. But Keith’s solo work, which began in earnest in the mid-’90s with Dr. Octagonecologyst (released under a pseudonym, naturally) is even stranger, more experimental, more brilliant. He will enjamb seemingly unrelated ideas and images against one another with a poet’s love for language and a pornographer’s knack for camp. Subsequent records like 1997’s Sex Style, ‘99’s Black Elvis/Lost In Space, and 2000’s Matthew were hailed as instant classics; Keith has spent the last several years crafting expertly written records that are rewardingly bizarre, unlike anything else on the rap landscape –– and KEITH is a crown jewel in that excellent late-period run.

Psycho Les is a founding member of the Beatnuts, who were first notable as the only Latino members of the Native Tongues, the collective of groups that pushed hip-hop to its avant edges in the early ‘90s. They were staples throughout that decade, both with their own albums and via the production they did for artists as disparate as Fat Joe and Common –– as well as for their work pioneering the remix. The Beatnuts’ music had in its foreground cramped house parties and reckless debauchery; Les developed the unique ability as a producer to merge that abandon with technically rigorous sample manipulation and unique arrangements.

If you’re worried that two artists who have been working at this for so long would be tempted to rest on their laurels or make music that’s predictable, disabuse yourself of that notion. Keith opens the album with a tangent about Foot Locker –– not about buying shoes, but about lusting after the footwear chain’s employees, with their tight, referee-striped shirts and form-fitting black pants. It only gets stranger from there. His Lamborghinis aren’t just green, they’re pistachio green; his head is perfectly round like Charlie Brown’s; his handkerchief is worth your per diem. And as a vocalist, Keith is still as slippery and innovative as ever: see the way he slides right into an unorthodox flow at the beginning of “Slave Owner,” only to thin out his writing to allow for a string of insults from the titular slave owner.

KEITH is a laser-focused, remarkably vital work from two artists entering the fourth decades of their respective careers. If nothing else, take as an example a couple of the guests who appear here: there’s Jeru the Damaja, who represents the true-school ethos of New York in the early ‘90s, but there’s also Paul Wall –– he rides shotgun on “Foot Locker” –– who broke through more than a decade after Jeru, as the woozy, laconic Houston scene of the mid-2000s briefly stole the national spotlight. Both serve as ideal foils for Keith: they’re somehow tethered to Earth as we understand it, while he’s free to orbit around them, and us, in a path that only he will ever understand.

When Diamond District dropped In the Ruff on Mello Music Group in 2009, the gritty drums and grimy raps combined as elementally as hydrogen and oxygen. The D.C. Voltron of Oddisee, yU, and X.O. dusted off and revitalized a sound once consigned to the catacombs.

Hailed as an instance classic, its impact reverberated throughout the underground and mainstream. The Washington D.C. City Paper called it the city’s best album in many years. During an era when lyricism was deemed too intellectual and samples too dated,Diamond District overturned conventional logic. They preserved the raw and made it righteous.

A half-decade later, the holy trinity has returned with March on Washington. The truths remain timeless. Wisdom over rhythm. Slang turned into testament.