Videos

I decided the best way to write about this video was with a silly 16 bars:  Cuddliest curmudgeon coming correct with the Warm Hands /  Mr. Sammy slamming mics down your throat like you’re force fed /  And Ogar Burl hurling verbs to the curb like he’s Xaul Zan /  It’s ok, I forgive you because we keeping it all fam /  All up on your team up / just like Justice League, tough /  Song names I can’t pronounce but still it’s some clean stuff /  Mr. Sammy, the only b-boy whose hair does a cool stance /  Collaborating with Ogar Burl, you know that dude with the huge hands /  I see that you put together some smooth plans /  And I got to high-five you like a white guy when you moved pass /  It was a pleasure to see you and a joy to watch y’all do your thing /  I’m glad the people finally get a...

I don't know if you know this, but I know Apoc personally. I knew back when I first knew him that knowing him would be something I knew I would appreciate when I got older. Knowing Apoc (or Pat Dandy if you're nasty) has been one of the more enjoyable friendships in my life. Not just because he's funny as fuck and constantly finding new ways to make fun of himself, but it's because unlike most of the people submitting music to SYFFAL, he's reinventing himself and his sound at every fucking turn.  Apoc is like the spider (mira, tres puntos like spider) that sheds off his old sound for a new sound every album, and when you finally see his face in one of his videos, he's fucking progressed from American living in Colorado to Peruvian palm oil salesman living in Gibraltar. It's fucking...

I know a lot of my friends don't understand Grimes. But I also know that the friends of mine that love the fuck out of her love her because she isn't making excuses for the shit she comes up with. I, for one, love the fact that she's a fucking video game character that's consistently animated, like the movie Cool World back when I was just learning how to drive my sexuality.  Grimes makes me feel things that only an animated Kim Basinger makes me feel. My loins ache out of curiousity, but my head bangs because the fucking songs are forcing me to bounce off the three available flat surfaces I can reach (ceiling excluded bro). She's like one of the Gorillaz cartoons come to life, but with vampire teeth, and an insatiable hunger for subterranean locales and fluorescent clothing.  In the...

I now consider my Soul Inscribed as it takes a certain admiral girth to unzip, whip, and slap your song out on the table like this shit is self-titled like the record which is also the title of my band. But other than gasp at the apparent circumference of their Sir Cumference, I don’t know shit about them except that judging from the scenery in the video I just watched they’re from New York. That said the video was cold! That’s cold as in holy shit it looks fucking really cold back there (as in the the kind of bone-chill that I would like nothing to fucking do with), and cold as in cold-fucking blooded! That soulful jazz swing over a classic break had me rifling through linen closets for a blanket to protect me from the dangerously low temperatures! Then like a frozen winter wind, dude...

Every now and then a song and a video comes along that makes you see your whole shit in a different light. Joyner Lucas's "Ross Capicchioni" is that video and song.  I’ve always been one to run with hard knocks. Call me dumb. Call me adventurous. Call me whatever the fuck you want. I don't care. I grew up without a silver spoon. I was by no means poor. We were, at times, broke at best, but I saw my single mom stress, saw her cry, experienced violence and abuse in the home, saw alcohol ruin lives, knew what it was like to go without in a land of plenty. But I’ve never been a REAL hard knock myself. I mean I can handle my own when it comes to a squab, but I’ve never owned or pulled a gun on anyone. I’ve had them pulled on me. Seen young men lose their lives. Part of the shit that just...

I don't know what it is about this woman's voice that kills me... What the fuck am I talking about? Of course I know what the fuck it is about this woman's voice that kills me. She flings and thwaps that fucking lilt around like a nine inch stiletto heel, it's both empowering (regardless of gender) and sexy as all hell.  When you're confronted with open ended and seemingly unfocused beats like Audego's, it's easy to assume they aren't necessarily going anywhere. But those little metallic thwerbs that start off "Side Effects" give you no other choice but to let the song take you where it was already planning on going. I'm fully convinced Audego are the puppetmaster of this slightly chubby, 36 year old, bald American male when this shit drops because my elbows are moving in...

Rass Kass, as part of Semi Hendrix with Jack Splash, from Mello Music, channels his best Immortal Technique in "Jesus Pressed Mute". I love this jazzy but angry shit. There's so much resentment out here. I feel like this is that kind of anger that is directed at the correct opponents. Fuck sugar-coating shit! Call it how it is! We need more rappers, rockers, folk artists, professional athletes, and business leaders to acknowledge the improprieties of the current system geared to ensure the wealthy get wealthier and that consolidation of power and money work directly against the average citizen. And that that system is enforced by a corrupt and violently racist and classist law enforcement and justice system. The sooner we all coalesce around the fucking truth of the matter, instead of...

Nocando had a weird year. I don’t pretend to know details but his falling out with Milo over Toothpaste Suburb to his no longer hosting Low End Theory, seemed to have the veteran LA rapper reevaluating some shit. And I respect that. We all gotta do it from time to time. Life is a deck of cards. Sometimes you need to reshuffle that shit. Cut the deck. And start again.  2016 sees Nocando, his his latest video “Last Man Standing,” letting us all know that he won’t be going anywhere anytime soon, and that he’s even planning on giving the cockroaches a run for their money. Outside of making me want to call in every single one of my vices, the video feels triumphant. But also like a warning. An, I-won’t-be-defeated-that-easy missive to the masses that would believe Nocando can’t. I hope for the...

No idea who Chase City are. No fucking clue. Alls I knows is that once the drums kicked in I was swaying both of my arms over my head and dancing around multiple piles of half-ass folded laundry like a fucking asscrumb.  Whenever you take a lick like Chase City licks on that synth, I'm into it. But I fucking love the near duplicitousness of the guitar lick on top of it, that shit's catchy. Like, I listened to the song and loved it while I was listening to it, then I made the WER WER WEE WEE WUUR lick with my fucking mouth hole for the rest of the afternoon. THAT SAYS SOMESING! "Don't Wait" feels like a post punk pop thrust into a half full bowl of tapioca pudding, as it's both sweet and lumpy. And I fucking love me some lovely lumps bros.  LET'S POP THRUST POST PUNKILY BROS!

  James Supercave’s falsetto funk is so fucking delicious and weird. Makes me want to tell you the truth about everything. Even more than I already do.  They have a sound that sounds like James Supercave, like sails blown by strange winds through clear blue eyes. But, in addition to being in possession of their very own glorious skin, they manage to make infectious fucking songs. Songs that creep under the folds on your ears and set up hobo camps. Songs that refuse to leave. Songs that you eventually invite into your home.  I’ve watched this psychedelically animated video like 15 times today. “Better Strange” is like an anthem of the kind of love that I crave. We can’t all be perfect. I like it when our flaws show; when the strangeness is allowed to seep through the facade. When the you...