Mello Music Group Hip Hop 94 Items

Limited to 300 copies. - HHV exclusive

From The Trenches to the Penthouse, A Mid-West Rap Opus from Ohio's Stalley & Legendary Detroit producer Apollo Brown

Plug in your ethernet and dial up to travel through Kool Keith’s multi-verse. Featuring Ice-T and Marc Live. Black Elvis 2 is here.

Limited to 300 copies.

From The Trenches to the Penthouse, A Mid-West Rap Opus from Ohio's Stalley & Legendary Detroit producer Apollo Brown

Plug in your ethernet and dial up to travel through Kool Keith’s multi-verse. Featuring Ice-T and Marc Live. Black Elvis 2 is here.

Limited to 300 copies.
When an artist consistently creates at the forward edge, there are no guardrails. Quelle Chris has been comfortable at the boundaries, leading Hip-Hop since he started.

Quelle’s vision extends beyond genre or format. He continued broadening his creative ambitions even beyond his own legendary four album run (BYIG, Everything's Fine, Guns, Innocent Country 2) and worked with Chris Keys to compose part of the score for the Oscar-winning film “Judas and The Black Messiah” with director Shaka King.

The new album, “DEATHFAME,” is a sonic treatment produced by Quelle himself, along with Chris Keys and Knxwledge. The record carries on like an incredible lost tape found at a flea market. It explores, unflinchingly, every moment of the trials the early 2020s has brought to all of us. Guests Navy Blue and Pink Siifu lend brilliance to the dynamic and unexpected new album coming May 13th on Mello Music Group.

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

When an artist consistently creates at the forward edge, there are no guardrails. Quelle Chris has been comfortable at the boundaries, leading Hip-Hop since he started.

Quelle’s vision extends beyond genre or format. He continued broadening his creative ambitions even beyond his own legendary four album run (BYIG, Everything's Fine, Guns, Innocent Country 2) and worked with Chris Keys to compose part of the score for the Oscar-winning film “Judas and The Black Messiah” with director Shaka King.

The new album, “DEATHFAME,” is a sonic treatment produced by Quelle himself, along with Chris Keys and Knxwledge. The record carries on like an incredible lost tape found at a flea market. It explores, unflinchingly, every moment of the trials the early 2020s has brought to all of us. Guests Navy Blue and Pink Siifu lend brilliance to the dynamic and unexpected new album coming May 13th on Mello Music Group.

Oddisee's finest instrumental album to date. A Hiphop, Electro-Soul classic.

North Carolina-based hip-hop producer L'Orange and rapper Solemn Brigham are Marlowe. Quick-fire vocals and dusty breakbeats. With dazzling cinematic mise en scene, L’Orange crafts a world that sounds like an old-time medicine show dropped into 90s Brooklyn.

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

Limited to 275 copies, only at HHV.

The idea for this project came from me noticing the landscape of how fathers are represented in hip hop. Outside of Will Smith’s classic “Just the Two Of Us” and a handful of others, the majority of the records in hip hop that speak on fatherhood have a negative connotation. I wanted to change that narrative, as it’s not the only one that exists. Myself being a father, there are a ton of others like me who are engulfed in hip hop and are also 24 hour a day dads, whose kids mean the world to them. I wanted to showcase that. I started this project in august of 2019 as one song, and it grew into an entire project within a week, and I’ve been sitting on this idea since the summer/fall, waiting for Father’s Day weekend to come around.

This is a conceptual EP, where each song is a story that holds hands with the ones before and after it, all about my life as a kid, growing up with my father always in my life, and how that’s now shaped me as a father myself. It’s named “Milestones”, after my son Miles, and also signifying the milestones that us dads reach in life as we grow into fatherhood. This project is solely about growing Up with a dad, being a dad, and the importance of it all. To all the fathers out here who are lovingly and actively doing the work, this one is for us. -Skyzoo

Limited to 300 copies. "Trap White" Edition. Only at HHV.

One of LA’s smartest young voices says the LA Times…which the artist suspects, may just be a covert way of saying LA is dumb. “Open” Mike Eagle wouldnt terribly mind, being born and raised in Chicago where the painful winters and his uppity grandparents kept him inside as a youth. He spent his formative years watching alternative music happen on MTV and hoping to one day be able to audition for the Native Tongues. As a young adult after graduating with a degree in Psychology, he did the next best thing and moved to Los Angeles, joining the Project Blowed collective where he made music and toured with Busdriver, Aceyalone, Abstract, Nocando, and more. He’s also gained notoriety in the world of comedy by being invited by professional funny people (Paul F. Tompkins, Hannibal Buress, Matt Besser/UCB) to rap at their shows. He’d like to be rap’s Kurt Vonnegut but recognizes that he’d first have to create something as iconic as the four-stroke illustration of an anus. He practices by releasing rap albums that delight, entertain, and confuse

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.

Imagine Sun Ra time-traveling to the techno-dystopia in Blade Runner, Marty McFly piloting the DeLorean through the cyberpunk cityscape in Akira. Now you’re in the headspace to digest Metropolis, the latest album of time-traveling dispatches from Nashville multi-instrumentalist, producer, and rapper Namir Blade. Inspired by and named after the 2001 anime Metropolis and its 1927 predecessor, these 16 tracks are chapters of a speculative memoir unstuck in time, a quest for joy as late-stage capitalism crumbles looking wearily to a near-future dominated by tech oligarchs. In his most vulnerable writing yet, Namir shirks wallowing in loneliness and algorithm-induced self-doubt by going to therapy, making art on his terms, and learning to cherish his hooptie. Namir’s first entirely self-produced album and third on Mello Music Group, Metropolis was recorded in his living room and mixed at home. His digital and live instrumentation hybrids are as unbound as his subject matter. The ominous yet beautiful synths Vangelis used to score Harrison Ford chasing homicidal Tyrell Co. replicants (“Hypercar”), the cavernous drums and auto-tuned croons of 808s & Heartbreak-era Kanye (“BoA”), anime samples, rays of warm gospel and soul (“Memphisto”), and ethereal trap (“Monday Michuru”) coexist and ram into one another. Namir often switches the beat mid-track, the purposeful disorientation becoming more rewarding with each listen. With features from several Nashville artists who inspire him, he brings the future to us. The ride isn’t linear or always pleasant, but as Namir challenges himself and the listener, both get closer to finding their place in the unsettling now and uncertain tomorrow.

Limited to 300 copies.

Vinyl LP pressing. 2020 release. Marlowe is a collaborative alt-rap project from North Carolina-based hip-hop producer L'Orange and rapper Solemn Brigham. Their unique blend of quick-fire vocals and dusty breakbeats is most well-known on tracks such as "Lost Arts" and "Tales From The East." The project came together in 2018 with the intent of marrying Brigham's lyrics concerning social commentary, police brutality, and poverty with L'Orange's thudding beats and crackling vinyl samples to achieve a new, refreshing take on hip-hop in modern times. Marlowe 2 seeks to continue that legacy.

An Ugly Hero is considered a myth. Growing up, the heroes we saw in cartoons and movies were perfectly chiseled, intelligent, and had senses none of us possess. An UGLY HERO is the everyday blue collar individual that makes the world go 'round. These are the heroes that work hard all day, everyday to help ensure that the lives around them are taken care of, and do it all without recognition. They wear themselves into the ground and sacrifice vanity for family.Apollo Brown, Verbal Kent, and Red Pill are UGLY HEROES

HHV Records Exclusive colored edition limited to 300 copies.

Soul is more than a sound. It is a timeless idea and an immortal condition. It can’t be borrowed or traded, bequeathed or imitated (no matter how much they try). Soul isn’t the blues, but the best blues has soul. Hip-Hop isn’t soul, but it’s the most fundamental component of its DNA. R&B is the genre, but soul is the yearning, the lust, the regret. Without soul, love is merely sex. With it, you get something like Lovesick. Lovesick is a collaboration between the 3x Grammy-nominated singer Raheem DeVaughn and the legendary hip-hop producer, Apollo Brown, best known for making hip-hop so grimy that it permanently lodges in your lungs and underneath your fingernails. It is a work of startling beauty, a blend of modern R&B, classic soul, and guttural funk that recalls Smokey Robinson, Al Green, and Marvin Gaye. Yet it doesn’t sound out of step alongside DeVaughn’s peers The-Dream, Anderson.Paak, and Miguel. It is an album that bears the echoes of Jodeci and James Brown, but it is ultimately the clarion vision of two masters of their respective forms.
Released on Mello Music, Lovesick is a stylistic departure from Apollo Brown’s coldblooded 21st century boom-bap, but it shouldn’t come as a shock considering his historical skill at soulful sample chopping. Still, it’s testament to the Michigan native’s versatility and emotional depth; he has turned a sonic left turn into an eternal groove -- an expansion that feels reminiscent of DJ Premier producing for D’Angelo, Salaam Remi collaborating with Amy Winehouse, J Dilla’s bible material with Erykah Badu, or more recently, Knxlwdge’s NxWorries project with .Paak.
Credit DeVaughn for making the extraordinary feel effortless. In Lovesick, the Love King has built a vessel to transport you to a different, better time. It is a tribute to the artists who came before him: all those aforementioned names, plus Parliament and Prince. Listening to the lead single, “When a Man,” you intuit the sweat and soulful anguish of the hardest working man in show business, but also float from Apollo’s head nod to A Tribe Called Quest’s “Luck of Lucien.” The post-modern commentary seductively fused into a warm-hearted nostalgia. “If I Made Love to You” finds DeVaughn telling his lover that he’ll play all the slow jams and quiet storm ballads for them, before unleashing a falsetto that can stop space and time. If you play this at the proper volume on the right system, the aromatic candles and incense will light themselves, and the sheets will turn to 10,000 thread count silk. A form of bedroom gospel. On “Just Fall in Love,” DeVaughn grapples with the carnal double standards that apply to men and women. For the third act, Compton’s Westside Boogie, unleashes a hyper-melodic rap lamentation, in search of loyalty, healing, and love. Elsewhere, on the album, Skyzoo and 3D Na’Tee contribute impressive lyrical 16s that are seamlessly interwoven into its satin tapestry.

For the legendary DeVaughn, it further cements his stature as one of the finest crooners of his generation. The DMV raised singer has sold hundreds of thousands of records, won BET Awards and been nominated for three Grammys, but this stands among his finest work. He has conjured the perfect record for the Sunday backyard BBQ and for riding in the car with the object of your affections, the ideal nocturnal soundtrack for when it’s time to lower the lights. For Brown, this is a panoramic expansion that shows the full range of his gifts. It is the home cooked meal, the perfectly rolled joint, soft lighting, a pledge to love and fidelity, and all the struggles with temptation. It is soul, as smooth and supernatural as it gets.

This is a limited edition of 150 copies on colored vinyl exclusively available at HHV. The idea for this project came from me noticing the landscape of how fathers are represented in hip hop. Outside of Will Smith’s classic “Just the Two Of Us” and a handful of others, the majority of the records in hip hop that speak on fatherhood have a negative connotation. I wanted to change that narrative, as it’s not the only one that exists. Myself being a father, there are a ton of others like me who are engulfed in hip hop and are also 24 hour a day dads, whose kids mean the world to them. I wanted to showcase that. I started this project in august of 2019 as one song, and it grew into an entire project within a week, and I’ve been sitting on this idea since the summer/fall, waiting for Father’s Day weekend to come around.

This is a conceptual EP, where each song is a story that holds hands with the ones before and after it, all about my life as a kid, growing up with my father always in my life, and how that’s now shaped me as a father myself. It’s named “Milestones”, after my son Miles, and also signifying the milestones that us dads reach in life as we grow into fatherhood. This project is solely about growing Up with a dad, being a dad, and the importance of it all. To all the fathers out here who are lovingly and actively doing the work, this one is for us. -Skyzoo

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.

When you hear the phrase, “everything’s fine,” we immediately understand it as emotional shorthand. In daily life, we depend on those perfunctory clichés (hope all is well, good to hear from you, etc.) to spare ourselves from the psychological unpacking that the truth requires. For that, there’s art. For that, there’s Everything’s Fine from Jean Grae and Quelle Chris, a jagged, acerbic odyssey that brilliantly riffs on this dystopian zeitgeist.
The thing is, anyone without a lobotomy and a toxic red hat understands that things are definitely not fine. The crush of modern anxiety, the late capitalist scramble to survive, and the brain warp rot of social media has left most of us half crazy.
“We have a dickhead for a president, and before our eyes, racial, religious, and sexual identity rights are moving backwards,” says New York’s (by way of Detroit) Quelle Chris. “Money is still a thing (I’m waiting for Star Trek life to start). There’s war, your kids may be sick, but if someone randomly asks ""how's it going?"" most people will say ""fine.""
Released on Mello Music Group, this album replaces that reflexive cliché with honest and eloquent tangents. It’s specific and subtle in its execution, achieving equilibrium between lackadaisical detours to smell the flowers and the frantic acknowledgement that there’s an inferno raging outside.
If the great political albums are often grim polemics, Everything’s Fine achieves its goals partially through withering satire. See the opening skit, a Prince Paul-style game show in which three contestants (including a futuristic robot) numbly croak that everyone’s fine despite flying high on every imaginable drug, crying themselves to sleep at night and being unemployed for a decade and a half despite having a Master’s in Fine Arts. I promise it’s much funnier than it reads off a screen.
“We’re both perfectionists in different ways,” Jean Grae describes their working relationship. “We both see huge pictures and concepts. So while listening, pay attention to the subtleties, the nuances, the dissonance and the harmony. The conversations and pieces of ourselves in the words, the flows, the beats. All of the open spaces. .Be uncomfortable and be okay with that. Be layered and be okay with that. Be angry and be okay.”
It’s rare to find a record where two rappers are so seamlessly intertwined. Yes, that’s partially a by-product of the teamwork that goes into being in any normal relationship where you wake, sleep, and dream together. But the album also bears the hallmarks of two singular creative geniuses trading bars, collaborating on beats, and combining fun with internal therapy and external observations. It features indelible cameos from Denmark Vessey, Grammy Award winner Anna Wise, Your Old Droog and Big Tone, as well as comics Ashok “Dap” Kondabolu, Michael Che, Nick Offerman, and Hannibal Burress.
In the streaming era, we tend to naturally overlook albums that require multiple listens. This is a record that will grab you on first listen, but it’s greatness only reveals itself through its careful construction, slick wordplay, and esoteric allusions.
On “Zero,” Jean artfully references Rachmaninoff and The Donner Party in the first two bars. With “Scoop A Dirt,” she name-drops the Babadook alongside the truth bomb that Friends was little more than a whitewashed rip off off Living Single. Meanwhile, Quelle balances boasts about bags of cash the size of Chris Christie with poignant existential laments. Somewhere in between, Jean will stealthily slip in jewels like, “it took me until my 30s just to put my finger on it, once you accept the knowledge/solace doesn’t follow/honest.”
It’s a record with only a couple antecedents: De La Soul is Dead, Organized Konfusion’s Stress: The Extinction Agenda, Blackstar, and maybe Cannibal Ox’s Cold Vein. Yet it doesn't sound remotely like any of them. It’s spontaneous and free, yet refined and meticulous. Even if everything is abject, it’s a reminder that music can transcend.
“This album is full of our minds. Our hearts. Our love for production, and words. flow and a lot of musicality,” Jeans says. “We don’t approach topics, issues, writing, or making beats in the same way. I’m harsh, blunt, quick, technical, I arrange classically and play more than I sample. I make joints with 80 tracks. I’m layers upon layers upon layers. Quelle is patient, he’s kinder. More loose and minimalistic. He makes sounds work together that shouldn’t fucking work. How? I have no idea. These are dreams within dreams.”

10 tracks feat. Blacastan & Del The Funky Homosapien!

Produced by Castle, L'Orange, Red Pill & others!

Jazzy piano loops, afrobeat percussion, breakbeat exoticism, and bounce make up Drew Dave "SynthBASED," an instrumental ride. Residing in the crux of vintage and modern techniques is Drew Dave, who's faithful to the soul that lives in his hardware, but maintains forward vision for live instrumentation and midi-synths on his latest project. Drew Dave has doodled over the orginal syllabi of Hiphop instrumentalism, creating ornate embellishments of prerequisite texts. Drew Dave's aspirations for musicality over straight beats, his the ability to deliver bangers that loop gravelly roars, and his smooth crisp production lead listeners on a rhapsodic journey.

Apollo Brown’s Thirty Eight is a contemporary throwback, inhabiting the realm of reverent reinvention and innovation. It deftly bridges the gap between ‘70s Blaxploitation soundtracks (e.g. Curtis Mayfield’s Superfly or Marvin Gaye’s Trouble Man) and the hip-hop records that sampled from them. Includes bonus 5" feat. Roc Marciano!

Cloudy Melting Blue Vinyl, Alternate Cover Art

North Carolina-based hip-hop producer L'Orange and rapper Solemn Brigham are Marlowe. Quick-fire vocals and dusty breakbeats. With dazzling cinematic mise en scene, L’Orange crafts a world that sounds like an old-time medicine show dropped into 90s Brooklyn.

Electric Blue Vinyl, Alternate Cover Art

Solemn Brigham is 1/2 of the group Marlowe. His music has been featured on Gatorade's G is for Greatness ad campaign, 7-Eleven's Harmony Korine (Kids, Gummo, Spring Breakers) directed low rider bike campaign, and NBA2K22. South Sinner Street is his debut solo album coming Sept 24th.

About the Album:
It is no secret that things are getting worse. By virtually any metric––economic or medical, or ones more abstract and spiritual––American society is in decay. The feeling permeates daily life in innumerable ways, giving the present a gnawing, ambient dread.

Solemn Brigham is not content to leave this at a low hum. On his dazzling new album, South Sinner Street, Solemn examines this decay through the prism of his hometown: Albemarle, North Carolina, where the blocks he grew up on are crumbling like everything else. “What was once a vibrant area now survives as a reminder that the only thing eternal is change,” Solemn says when describing the project’s genesis. “Trash and debris flood the streets, relics of the many lives lived––each piece with a story to tell.” South Sinner Street not only traces the degradation of the world around us, but documents the way communities can come together to stave off that slow death, lifting its members up in the process.

Solemn is uniquely equipped to animate the relics of a once-thriving neighborhood with the specificity they deserve. The rapper, whose work with his fellow North Carolinian, L’Orange, as the duo Marlowe has been critically acclaimed, is one of the most vocally acrobatic working today, able to contort himself into a dizzying array of different flows and inflections, accomplishing alone the sort of musical variety that sprawling collectives try and fail to achieve. Take “Couple Towns,” where Solemn moves from a seesaw pocket into a flow that cascades over the ends of bars; contrast this with the bonus track “Relax,” where each bar sounds as if it’s the final thought spilling out of his mind at the end of an impassioned phrase. The end of “Vice North” even recalls the technically stunning runs of One Be Lo, the Michigan rapper who in the 2000s became one of the genre’s chief chroniclers of a similar country-wide disintegration.

But this is not merely a showcase for verbal acrobatics. South Sinner Street is deeply personal, juxtaposing personal growth with the decay that surrounds it. “This is no rags to riches story,” Solemn warns. Of course––it’s more complicated than that. When, on “Vantablack,” of a toddler cradled in his mother’s arms while that mother nurses a cigarette, he is not asking the listener to imagine a tragic end or a harrowing origin story. The point is that we are all, perpetually, the child and the mother: doing our best to cope, even against our better judgment; persevering despite the circumstances that surround us.

And yet South Sinner Street is buoyed by a sense of playfulness that lights up even the pitch-black corners of Albemarle. “Nothing Left” succeeds in turning end-of-your-rope sorry into something like an in joke. When, on “Vice North,” Solemn raps about putting his hands together in prayer only to find “the line still busy,” his voice bakes something amusing in the complaint––maybe the sense that a young man in a small city is irked at God the way he might be at a flaky friend from the gym. And then, speaking of gyms, comes the laugh-out-loud moment on “Dirty Whip,” when Solemn concedes that he didn’t make the basketball team “‘cause I’m me-first.’”

Across its 14 songs, South Sinner Street argues for Solemn Brigham as one of the most exciting artists in underground hip-hop, a technical virtuoso who also happens to be one of the genre’s most surprising, most deeply personal songwriters. The album evokes the feeling of climbing onto a house’s roof to survey the nearly-burning city around you, with all the peril that entails––but also all the possibility.

Solemn Brigham is 1/2 of the group Marlowe. His music has been featured on Gatorade's G is for Greatness ad campaign, 7-Eleven's Harmony Korine (Kids, Gummo, Spring Breakers) directed low rider bike campaign, and NBA2K22. South Sinner Street is his debut solo album coming Sept 24th.

About the Album:
It is no secret that things are getting worse. By virtually any metric––economic or medical, or ones more abstract and spiritual––American society is in decay. The feeling permeates daily life in innumerable ways, giving the present a gnawing, ambient dread.

Solemn Brigham is not content to leave this at a low hum. On his dazzling new album, South Sinner Street, Solemn examines this decay through the prism of his hometown: Albemarle, North Carolina, where the blocks he grew up on are crumbling like everything else. “What was once a vibrant area now survives as a reminder that the only thing eternal is change,” Solemn says when describing the project’s genesis. “Trash and debris flood the streets, relics of the many lives lived––each piece with a story to tell.” South Sinner Street not only traces the degradation of the world around us, but documents the way communities can come together to stave off that slow death, lifting its members up in the process.

Solemn is uniquely equipped to animate the relics of a once-thriving neighborhood with the specificity they deserve. The rapper, whose work with his fellow North Carolinian, L’Orange, as the duo Marlowe has been critically acclaimed, is one of the most vocally acrobatic working today, able to contort himself into a dizzying array of different flows and inflections, accomplishing alone the sort of musical variety that sprawling collectives try and fail to achieve. Take “Couple Towns,” where Solemn moves from a seesaw pocket into a flow that cascades over the ends of bars; contrast this with the bonus track “Relax,” where each bar sounds as if it’s the final thought spilling out of his mind at the end of an impassioned phrase. The end of “Vice North” even recalls the technically stunning runs of One Be Lo, the Michigan rapper who in the 2000s became one of the genre’s chief chroniclers of a similar country-wide disintegration.

But this is not merely a showcase for verbal acrobatics. South Sinner Street is deeply personal, juxtaposing personal growth with the decay that surrounds it. “This is no rags to riches story,” Solemn warns. Of course––it’s more complicated than that. When, on “Vantablack,” of a toddler cradled in his mother’s arms while that mother nurses a cigarette, he is not asking the listener to imagine a tragic end or a harrowing origin story. The point is that we are all, perpetually, the child and the mother: doing our best to cope, even against our better judgment; persevering despite the circumstances that surround us.

And yet South Sinner Street is buoyed by a sense of playfulness that lights up even the pitch-black corners of Albemarle. “Nothing Left” succeeds in turning end-of-your-rope sorry into something like an in joke. When, on “Vice North,” Solemn raps about putting his hands together in prayer only to find “the line still busy,” his voice bakes something amusing in the complaint––maybe the sense that a young man in a small city is irked at God the way he might be at a flaky friend from the gym. And then, speaking of gyms, comes the laugh-out-loud moment on “Dirty Whip,” when Solemn concedes that he didn’t make the basketball team “‘cause I’m me-first.’”

Across its 14 songs, South Sinner Street argues for Solemn Brigham as one of the most exciting artists in underground hip-hop, a technical virtuoso who also happens to be one of the genre’s most surprising, most deeply personal songwriters. The album evokes the feeling of climbing onto a house’s roof to survey the nearly-burning city around you, with all the peril that entails––but also all the possibility.

One of LA’s smartest young voices says the LA Times…which the artist suspects, may just be a covert way of saying LA is dumb. “Open” Mike Eagle wouldnt terribly mind, being born and raised in Chicago where the painful winters and his uppity grandparents kept him inside as a youth. He spent his formative years watching alternative music happen on MTV and hoping to one day be able to audition for the Native Tongues. As a young adult after graduating with a degree in Psychology, he did the next best thing and moved to Los Angeles, joining the Project Blowed collective where he made music and toured with Busdriver, Aceyalone, Abstract, Nocando, and more. He’s also gained notoriety in the world of comedy by being invited by professional funny people (Paul F. Tompkins, Hannibal Buress, Matt Besser/UCB) to rap at their shows. He’d like to be rap’s Kurt Vonnegut but recognizes that he’d first have to create something as iconic as the four-stroke illustration of an anus. He practices by releasing rap albums that delight, entertain, and confuse

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.

Limited to 157 copies on white vinyl. Only at HHV.

Homeboy Sandman drops a new album that is entirely produced by Quelle Chris.

Homeboy Sandman’s new album Don’t Feed The Monster, is a collaboration with producer/MC Quelle Chris. It’s also his most vulnerable & poignant work to date. Having grown up in Queens, New York, hip-hop was part of everything in life. This deep-rooted connection to the culture is evident when listening to his style of rhyming- bold, classic & deeply respectful. On Don’t Feed The Monster, he pulls back any pretense to show his most honest truth - a process that he needed both artistically and spiritually. “I was having a hard time and this record saved me thank Quelle and thank God and shout to Gabor Maté,” he said about the new album.

Album producer (and guest vocalist) Quelle Chris has been one of the most talked about and celebrated hip-hop artists on the planet these last few years. Both producing & rapping, Quelle has released critically acclaimed albums like Guns, Innocent Country 2, and Everything’s Fine with his collaborator & wife Jean Grae. “There's a certain mystic/magical power in words, sounds, rhythms, etc. It's rare to come across a brother/artist like Sandman,” he says when asked about his new album with Homeboy Sandman.

The new album Don’t Feed The Monster is a marvel of how an artist can dig deeper still, even years into his craft. The chemistry between the producer & MC has unlocked something within Sandman, surfacing memories, textures & details in a more vivid way than ever before. “(We) wanted to project growth and not regression. Being careful not to feed the monster,” Quelle says about the mission of the album. One would be right to assume that bringing two elite talents together would yield an incredible album. But, when imagining what this album brings in its entirety, Quelle says it best: “raw, pure, organic magic."

Homeboy Sandman drops a new album that is entirely produced by Quelle Chris.

Homeboy Sandman’s new album Don’t Feed The Monster, is a collaboration with producer/MC Quelle Chris. It’s also his most vulnerable & poignant work to date. Having grown up in Queens, New York, hip-hop was part of everything in life. This deep-rooted connection to the culture is evident when listening to his style of rhyming- bold, classic & deeply respectful. On Don’t Feed The Monster, he pulls back any pretense to show his most honest truth - a process that he needed both artistically and spiritually. “I was having a hard time and this record saved me thank Quelle and thank God and shout to Gabor Maté,” he said about the new album.

Album producer (and guest vocalist) Quelle Chris has been one of the most talked about and celebrated hip-hop artists on the planet these last few years. Both producing & rapping, Quelle has released critically acclaimed albums like Guns, Innocent Country 2, and Everything’s Fine with his collaborator & wife Jean Grae. “There's a certain mystic/magical power in words, sounds, rhythms, etc. It's rare to come across a brother/artist like Sandman,” he says when asked about his new album with Homeboy Sandman.

The new album Don’t Feed The Monster is a marvel of how an artist can dig deeper still, even years into his craft. The chemistry between the producer & MC has unlocked something within Sandman, surfacing memories, textures & details in a more vivid way than ever before. “(We) wanted to project growth and not regression. Being careful not to feed the monster,” Quelle says about the mission of the album. One would be right to assume that bringing two elite talents together would yield an incredible album. But, when imagining what this album brings in its entirety, Quelle says it best: “raw, pure, organic magic."

This is a limited edition of 150 copies on colored vinyl exclusively available at HHV. 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.

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.

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.”

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." out May 29th on Mello Music Group.

In the last few years, Quelle Chris has established himself as one of the most prolific and creative voices in any genre of music. Quelle Chris has earned accolades from publications like NPR, Pitchfork, The Needle Drop, The Wire and The AV Club for both his 2019 Solo album “Guns” as well as his collaborative album with New York rapper Jean Grae “Everything’s Fine”.

His newest album, “Innocent Country 2”, is the followup to the beloved collaborative cult classic “Innocent Country” with multi-instrumentalist Chris Keys. Featuring talents ranging from comedian Josh Gondelman to rapper Earl Sweatshirt, “Innocent Country 2” is both his most ambitious and complete work to date.

“G.I.T.U., an acronym for Greatest In The Universe. The title encompasses the feeling this body of work for me. It’s my life experiences, my loves and losses, my stories about overcoming obstacles both external and internal, while learning to love myself and becoming the best version of me. Both as a person and as an artist I tried to push my boundaries and expand my limitations. Everyone’s world is their own, everyone has their own universe that they are in control of, this is mine. I’m the G.I.T.U.” – Chris Rivers

Since he first entered the rap game, every mention of Chris Rivers inevitably acknowledges the influence of his father, Big Pun, one of the art form’s all-time greats. It’s a gift that offered the Bronx MC the opportunity to be heard, but simultaneously a curse that elicits unfair comparisons. But with his Mello Music debut, G.I.T.U., Rivers achieves what would’ve been impossible for a lesser talent: he stakes his claim as a singular artist, one speaking for his generation, his culture, his familial heritage, and most crucially, himself.

If Rivers is unquestionably the son of the first solo Latin rapper with a platinum plaque, he has clearly evolved into his own man. G.I.T.U is the opportunity to tell his story--one that starts full of mourning and self-doubt but matures into a gripping tale of self-discovery. In bold declarative terms, he sketches a portrait of a life lived on the margins, weathering the storms of abuse, poverty, and the lingering shadow of high expectations.

There are struggles with addiction and suicidal thoughts, but Rivers transcends those demons to deliver audio dope that does his legacy proud. He raps with the jaw-dropping lyrical agility and syllable precision that you’d expect from his patrimony, but with the vulnerability and introspection that can only come from an artist who possesses a rare knowledge of self. You can hear the inheritance of his late great father, but also a synthesis and expansion upon the path trodden by Black Thought, Mos Def, and Lupe Fiasco.

The title itself doubles as a mantra: Greatest In The Universe. This is the self-affirmation that Rivers told himself in his most turbulent moments. It’s an inspirational credo that allowed him to keep going, but also operates as fuel to listeners -- particularly those seeking a refracted light from someone deeply familiar with the darkness.

The 16 tracks encompass nearly every mood. There’s the confessional “Perfect,” where Rivers declares “well, I never loved myself, but right now I’m in love with two bitches, I mean women, I mean prisons, I mean prisms.” In the course of a single sentence, he’s able to convey labyrinthine complications. There is “Trick,” where Rivers rumbles like a champion prizefighter, boasting about how his sisters taught him how to brawl, reminiscing on his early days as a “little Puerto Rican fat boy with a brain like an asteroid.” Over rope-a-dope drums, he creates an anthem built for stage-diving and chaos, delivering a pummeling series of references that run from MC Hammer to Cassius Clay to anime. It’s a modern iteration of a tunnel banger: riotous, rowdy, New York brass knuckle rap.

“Damaged Goods” finds the 25-year old lyricist questioning the differences between lust and love, dropped his guard to exhibit a relatable sensitivity. “Wolf Mode” pairs a poignant sax lick with a plea to be able protect oneself from the storms of life. It’s not about being bulletproof, but rather, to possess the strength to endure the chaos that we must face. Yet Rivers is willing to accept the challenges head-on, claiming that he’d “rather have the hard truth than a sweet lie.” While “N.A.S.A.” takes dead-aim at the traps of millennial life: too many useless contacts in your phone, the dim lies of clout, and the indelible need to find the real ones who will hold you down. There is also a flawless “Pakinamac” homage.

The emotional centerpiece of the album arrives on the heart-wrenching “Sincerely Me.” It’s a tribute to Big Pun, but one that refuses to bow down to over-sentimentality. You feel Rivers’ pain and sadness, the struggles of his family, and his frustration at being unable to have a father to turn towards for advice. It’s a votive to a dearly departed spirit, gone much too soon. But when the song fades out, Rivers is stronger than before. A prayer has been answered. It’s the fully fleshed out picture of a son who doesn’t want to eclipse the father but rather, who wants to be able to stand beside him, shoulder to shoulder, two of the greatest of their times.

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

Info coming soon.

Plush Seats. Recline for a minute, spark a spliff, and savor the cozy luxury. Enjoy the foggy velvet majesty summoned by the new beat tape from the LA-by-way of Oregon singer, rapper, and producer known as Calvin Valentine.

Making his Mello Music debut, Plush Seats heralds Valentine’s arrival as one of the most formidable and versatile producers of his generation. Of course, this isn’t his first rodeo. By his mid-20s, the precocious producer had already racked up a resume that could pass any certification exam, featuring collaborations with De La Soul, Nas, Bun B, Boogie, Juicy J, Illa J, Planet Asia, Fat Tony, and Devin The Dude.

XXL raved about its trippy psychedelia. Uproxx called it the “smooth groove that your summer needs.” Okayplayer said that with Calvin Valentine, “the future of music is in good hands.” With Plush Seats, the future is now. It’s a work of supreme virtuosity, a stoned immaculate saga ideal for blunt cruises, impromptu cyphers, and meditative late night head nods.

Plush Seats is nothing but strong ideas and a smooth ride. Grimy but opulent. Smoked out but clear-headed. A vibe like no other.

Debuting on Adult Swim, two of the most conceptual and unusual alternative artists in underground hip-hop have joined forces to tell an absurdist story of culture, art and oppression, set in a light-hearted dystopian future. As adventurous as the concept sounds, the album is musically grounded in hip-hop fundamentals and off the wall lyricism. Joining the duo are artists like DJ QBert, Gonjasufi and Akrobatik. Wyatt Cenac (Daily Show, Bojack Horseman) lends his voice as the narrator of our story.

All new project by Open Mike Eagle on the mic and Paul White on the boards. Features appearances by Aesop Rock and Future Islands' Hemlock Ernst.

Red Pill of Ugly Heroes fame is about to release another dope EP for 2015!

Feat. Freddie Gibbs, Skyzoo, Torae & Ugly Heroes, produced by Apollo Brown, Marco Polo, Oh No & others!

In 2013, Chicago emcee Verbal Kent linked up with Detroit's Apollo Brown and Red Pill to form the blue collar group Ugly Heroes . Something about the album ushered in a new era for Kent who turned a page in his career. That fall the trio toured Europe and polished their sound. In the spring of 2014, Verbal linked up with Soul Council producer Khrysis for a full length solo album Sound Of The Weapon . The project continued the march of Verbal Kent's lyricism towards a more refelctive (without losing the tongue twisting wordplay) and personal chamber of thought. By the fall of 2014, Ugly Heroes had put together a new EP and was on the way to even more notoriety.

2015 sees the return of Verbal Kent as a solo artist with his most personal album to date. The new record Anesthesia grapples with the ways in which we self-medicate in order to deal with the daily lives put before us. Verbal still has the aggressive wordplay, still has the over the top braggadocio, but he's added heavier thoughts to the overall canvas - the grain of his real life shining through. The new album features Freddie Gibbs, Skyzoo, Torae, and Red Pill, along with production from Apollo Brown, Varan, Kaz-1, J.O.D., Marco Polo, and Oh No.

Feat. Freddie Gibbs, Skyzoo, Torae & Ugly Heroes, produced by Apollo Brown, Marco Polo, Oh No & others!

In 2013, Chicago emcee Verbal Kent linked up with Detroit's Apollo Brown and Red Pill to form the blue collar group Ugly Heroes . Something about the album ushered in a new era for Kent who turned a page in his career. That fall the trio toured Europe and polished their sound. In the spring of 2014, Verbal linked up with Soul Council producer Khrysis for a full length solo album Sound Of The Weapon . The project continued the march of Verbal Kent's lyricism towards a more refelctive (without losing the tongue twisting wordplay) and personal chamber of thought. By the fall of 2014, Ugly Heroes had put together a new EP and was on the way to even more notoriety.

2015 sees the return of Verbal Kent as a solo artist with his most personal album to date. The new record Anesthesia grapples with the ways in which we self-medicate in order to deal with the daily lives put before us. Verbal still has the aggressive wordplay, still has the over the top braggadocio, but he's added heavier thoughts to the overall canvas - the grain of his real life shining through. The new album features Freddie Gibbs, Skyzoo, Torae, and Red Pill, along with production from Apollo Brown, Varan, Kaz-1, J.O.D., Marco Polo, and Oh No.

Album produced & mixed by Oddisee!

Album produced & mixed by Oddisee!

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.

Two of the underground's scene most respected artists team up for a collab album through Mello Music Group: L'Orange & Jeremiah Jae!

Trusted with a culture kept under the concrete, the warning has been spread for years. Many assumed their operations were limited to underground societies or secret networks. But, The Black Opera have been among us all along. The time to hide is behind them. There will be no riot; the revolution has already taken place. The Great Year has come.

The newest movement from The Black Opera is truth. After the telling of the three part epic, The Black Op: Era I, TBO has returned without allegory or allusion. The Great Year is a modern story of emergence and art- a resistance to assimilation. It is a story of triumph and camaraderie and a renaissance of new thinking.

The new album’s influences musically are as diverse as they are aesthetically. From tribal rhythms to overdriven synths and from pulsing drums to intimate vocals, The Great Year’s sound is distinctly its own. Taking on a modern day palette, TBO has envisioned a new world, musically. With orchestration from creative minds like Tall Black Guy, Waajeed, yU and Arjun Singh, The Black Opera have assembled a team to help them communicate their message to the world.