DOWNLOADS OF THE WEEK: The Jealous Guys, The Weeknd, Cocaine 80s

The Jealous Guys - ‘Audiobook’ EP Review & Interview

With their introspective and extrospective view of hip hop combined with perfectly placed rhythmic delivery along with Jeremy ‘The Zodiac’ Rose on the beats you are about to be clobbered upside the head with some spine tingling, in the zone rap music. Jeremy Rose is the guy behind the production on tracks 'What You Need', 'Loft Music' and 'The Party' by The Weeknd.

Now you are starting to get a glimpse of the history behind these ethereal beats. As the guys say, “Jeremy rose’s thorns are slicing into your wrists” – and this type of aural suicide never felt so good.

Just four tracks may seem a little light, but its like this – imagine if I said I was only giving you two pieces of bread, not that much right? But fill it with enough meat and green stuff and its all good.

Welcome to a Jealous Boys sandwich. Might not seem like a big slice, but its packed full of nutrient-rich, vitamin-fuelled hip hop!

I think my buzzword this year has been ‘sparse’. I am just loving mellowed out beats with strong vocals over the top. Bizycasa and Ayinde bring exactly that. A perfect match of tones between the two of them that sit on the beat so sweet.

 The EP is full of lyrics about making the most out of life.

But don’t expect happy-clappy upbeat bullshit. There is some serious doom and gloom in here, ‘This is the dark side with no windows in the room’. These guys have plenty of depth to their lyrics. A bottomless well of emotion and stories to fuel a million tracks to come. Religion, personal identity, war, love, trust – all the biggies are touched on here. Lyrics with thought. Unfortunately that can be hard to come by these days.



I caught up with the self-professed 'life insomniacs' to find out what this philosophy was all about, as well as getting some insight on sex, tacos, and how to pimp out the moon.



How did you hook up with Jeremy Rose for this EP?  
Casa: A great photographer, Sean Berrigan. Ayinde always talked to him like our brother. He told us he knew Jeremy and wanted us to reach out or have him reach out. We talked to him and it was all chemistry. We have major love for Canada so it was a big boom from there.

Even though the EP is a digital release the artwork is pretty awesome. What is the story behind that?
Ayinde: People seem to say we have a pretty biblical referenced verse manner at times, and those are the ones we get quoted from the most. It’s like making the streets and religion and metaphorically mastering them. We have a brother out of Brooklyn named Vanguard - he's an artist. He loves our work and he knows the music very well. He explained Bosch to us and the mid-century revolution and all that stuff, we wanted to do something off the wall. He made Adam and Eve black and decapitated Jesus' head and you can see Jesus banging the ‘L’, which stands for ‘life insomniac’.

You guys live by a motto, ‘life insomniac’. Who first came up with it and what does it mean to you?
Casa: ‘Insomniac’ means never sleep and we both always up like fuck, and ‘life’ is one life and we take them both and know we not going to sleep on life and what we want to accomplish. At first we wanted it to be a record label and magazine, then it turned into a following which when we walk down Valencia and where we are in the city people yell it out the window. Fans have came up to us asking if its ok to get it tatted, and we tell them don’t ask, just do it. It has the meaning to be spread around but not just because we want to make it a brand.

Ayinde: LIFE INSOMNIAC, DIPSET BYRD GANG, DAVID BANNER! That’s what we do. HAHAHA.

3/4 helped to give Odd Future a push into the limelight. Do you have any direct connection with Odd Future? How did your connection with 3/4 come about? How do they help you?
Ayinde: Yeah man, we just all have art and run our own business. We all in the same 3/4 family. 3/4 came about when we was at home bored as fuck, eating food and I just got done having some good-ass sex and basically after I seen the best email I've come across. So people step your email game up. Boom.

I listened to an interview where you said that you are inspired by artists like Kendrick Lamar and Lupe who continue to express themselves freely through their music. How important is creative integrity to you? Do you feel like a label would hold you back?
Ayinde: Lupe used to be the shit. Kendrick is raw. It’s just the creative process and all that we respect the hell out of and not following the dumb-ass industry rules. We respect that, because it results in the music, which is how we play into all of this with our artistic integrity. We don’t care for selling shit out unless it’s a show. At the same time we are not staying in one lane, so don’t categorize us with anything but good music. We are open. Look at Outkast, The Clipse and all the other great duos that kept their own lane and now you smell it coming from us, which you soon will eat up with joy! 



Casa: I would just be a fraud to have no integrity in what I do.  If I have principals that I believe in they are going to adhere to my lifestyle, and that’s making music and to LOVE.

You guys have known each other a long time. How has this life long connection helped to hone your style? You ever fall out? Ever think of going solo?
Ayinde: We been together since age 3, preschool. Casa was always different. Casa was like Pharrell, when Pharrell was still cultured during all the gangster shit. That's Casa. My mom passed when I was 15. He took the safe route, I went the dumb ass route, trying to fit in due to being lost as fuck and making horrible decisions. We clicked back up one day when I dropped this girl off he went to school with. He came to my house, told me he wrote. I listened, I said lets make a group and he changed my life sense and helped me find myself over past years. That’s my brother. Blood aint shit when it come to us. FUCK GOING SOLO! I live with this dude, we can't do that even if we wanted to. 



Casa: It's nothing to give thought to. He's my brother, we live with each other, so we live life and we just happened to be blessed to make music together. And now we sharing it with the world.

Your lyrics differ from many rappers as they obviously have thought put into them. How long does it usually take you to write a track? Do you tend to write things down or just mostly freestyle?
Ayinde: FUCK FREESTYLING! And this is due to the comedy I got out of BET's wack-ass Cypher. We live this hip hop life by our own means, we don't cliché it. All these cats nowadays try and pull the new shit where they ‘write stuff in their head’. We take time, and live and whatever the day brings we will bust it on paper. If that’s from a drunk experience, off some lean, or hollering at a beautiful  girl on a good day or my aunties good-ass tacos. It comes easy. 



Casa: Sometimes I get high and write and sometimes I'm not. If things come together, we write them down. Song writing is natural, and if u gotta force it, DONT WRITE. 

It seems clear to me that you guys are going to go far. What do you think is the biggest success you have achieved so far?
Casa: The biggest success to me is living. I’m 21 years old and I’m headed to a great future. We got our minds set. I’m in progression mode to make music since we got a chance to just breathe it. 


Ayinde: My biggest success is walking down the street and people tell us we the future. Gaining the respect of my city and being backed up by good people. The women, the art I’m being opened up to everyday. It's not too much success but the higher peak of experience I've grabbed thus far.  We wanna go farther though, reach the moon, pimp the shit out the moon and come back with a damn moon rock and say we went that fucking far. I want meet new artists, and have sex all around the world ‘til I can't no more. That’s success. Going far and back and when you come back you make a better purpose for where you came from.

You have been described as ‘original’. How do you think you are different to the other billion rappers out there? Do you consciously try to be different or is it simply who you naturally are?
Casa: Unless you're genuinely a wack-ass person, being yourself is original. But even if you’re a fake or wack-as-fuck you're original at being wack! We just don’t live that life. We live it by the ‘real’. Being original shouldn’t be highlighted or congratulated, just be yourself. That new iPhone 4s is original as fuck to me - shit you want original. RIP STEVE JOBS.

Ayinde: I love women. I run mouthpiece in girl’s ears to get them to go crazy over me. I cook, I fall in love with probably each girl I talk to due to great personality but at the same time I don’t trust a lot of people. I listen to Feist everyday and Kavinsky and The Dream and Cee-Lo and shit everyday to get by because that's just me.  Fuck being a rapper, be yourself, find your own identity and use it for your talent.  I'm going to keep eating hella tacos and grabbing my lady by the hair while thinking about how I can show the world first class heritage of where I'm from. I'm a crazy-ass person in the head, that's simply who I am though. The life you live is the song you sing brah. By the way - whoever is reading this meet me at Delores Park or Valencia, we'll be getting ice cream at Bi- Rites and then we'll rape the Taqueria afterwards.

What are you most jealous of right now?
Ayinde: Of these wack-ass so called musicians out there who are getting by with bullshit. I never knock any man, especially of my colour for success, at the same time when shit is wack I wont hold shit back about it, because I know where we need to be or how much farther to show the emotion that people can relate to. We from a demographic that no one gives a fuck about but soon you will. With love and prosperity. When you think of San Francisco let it kiss you on the forehead so it soaks in and you know THE JEALOUS GUYS. You can't be jealous of a jealous person. Hahaha.

Casa: I completely co-sign. I love to see anyone succeed because I want the same success for myself and it inspires, but substance-wise, I’m genuine enough to know it will happen. Bullshit is bullshit. You see it. And PURE is PURE and you will see that as well, we just starting and we won’t stop.

What is the plan for the near future? How would you define success?
Ayinde: Album, make history, travel, tour, make sure our families are straight, and me personally…be the man I know my mother always wanted me to be. And keep this Flocka and Marvin Gaye in my playlist until then. And sooner rather than later the world will see we are the musical version of Quentin Tarantino, black and better version of Hall And Oates of our city. TIMELESS!



Casa: We want everybody...no no no no. We want people around us to be overwhelmed with how our lives are changing for the better. The magnitude.
 
Any last words you want to get out?
SHOUTS TO RIP IT UP, shouts to everybody supporting us, LIFE INSOMNIAC!! Have SEX AND BE FREE!! Be cultured and go out and represent the youth they call ‘wasted’. And only love her if she can cook good tacos and clean and has something going for herself, and a good switch in that walk!

Great advice for a brighter, better world! It's easy for you to become a life insomniac too. Free membership can be found by clicking the link below.

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The Weeknd - Initiation

I’m a freak who hits up The Weeknd tumblr every single day. I keep waiting and here is a free single. We are a step closer to receiving the final chapter in the trilogy of free music from this R&B pioneer. This track is getting a bit closer to the more ‘House of Balloons’ kind of stuff. There is a mental constant wave of frequency shifts in his vocals. Goes slowly from chipmunk to a Barry White to demon then back to Pee Wee Herman. That maybe makes it sound real bad, but trust me, its wicked.

This guy does well because he really can pick a beat. This is another face slapper. Simple yet creative. Unique yet easy to follow. He passionately sings ‘I got a test for you’. If this is perhaps a tester to see how we respond and giving a mini showcase on what to expect from the new LP release ‘Echoes in Silence’ then my goose pimples are justified. That’s right, his voice gives me sweet soothing chills – and I don’t care who knows it.

Jump the queue on The Weeknd buzz.

DOWNLOAD HERE


Cocaine 80s (feat. Common) - Six Feet Over

Super quick review. This weeks article is getting looooong. Scroll scroll scrolllllll.

Cocaine 80s is a collective. Features super producer No I.D. as well as Common and a few others. Common is on fire at the moment. He didn’t really need to re-invent himself, I kind of feel like he has managed to do shit movies and yet still keep his cred in the hip hop world. Tracks like this help with that feeling. His usual slip and slide flow and No I.D. hip hop shuffling beat. It’s all good.

You can actually get the whole Cocaine 80s EP for free HERE but it will cost you a tweet. If you are web-retarded and don’t have twitter or can’t be bothered then you can snort up a line of smooth hip hop with no strings attached from the link below.

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If you are greedy and want a bigger slice of the free download music pie and frequent news on what’s new and good then get on twitter and follow @electricpuppet.

By Oli Holmes