If you took last year and chose any albums that you know would stand the test of time, you would choose two: ‘Channel Orange‘ and ‘good kid, m.A.A.d city‘. The Kendrick Lamar album almost showed to us that hip-hop had hope and it wasn’t fully dead.

On the album Lamar found the perfect line between the mainstream and underground and followed the line for the whole route. By using electronic effects and live instruments (mainly bass), he created a sound that appealed to everyone and each track therefore flowed well against each other. From the chilled out and candid ‘Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe‘ to the energetic, confident and self-assured tracks ‘Backseat Freestyle‘ and ‘m.A.A.d city‘ you see that Lamar knows how to rap using different emotions and tones, which add to the autobiographical elements.

Albums You Must Own Number 13 good kid, maad city by Kendrick Lamar

What made the album powerful was the use of real life experience, making the album more truthful, raw and hard-hitting. He showed that non-fiction was just as strong as fiction in hip-hop. The music created was helped by how thrilling Kendrick’s flow was, which meant even the most simple of beats could be made into one of the best rap tracks heard in a while.

It would be hard to find choose any highlights from the album because honestly every track is just as good as each other because of the strict direction and narrative Lamar uses. ‘Swimming Pools (Drank)‘ where Kendrick Lamar showcased his rapping talent to most of the world, who hadn’t heard his debut ‘Section.80‘; had a subtle dark message underneath all of the playfulness of the track and managed to make radio music available underground.

Being born in Compton, Kendrick Lamar was born around an era where crack cocaine and crime filled the city, but gave the rapper the original West/Californian hip-hop sounding music to grow up to. This influence can be easily heard in ‘The Recipe‘ which features Dr Dre – an ending that is ultimately a love letter to California. On the track the mid-tempo hip-hop drum loop that you would hear in 80’s/90’s rap is refined and transformed for more suitable use in the 2010 decade.

No matter which track you listen to on each track, you’ll be hooked on the refined production, the contrasting energetic and relaxed tones throughout, Lamar’s ability to rap with a flow no-one else as right now and the narrative which is a story worth understanding.

Review by Bally Athwal

‘#Breakthrough‘ by David Keigh is a techno rap track that features rapper Rell Riley too. It starts off with a bass loaded intro that makes use of some electronic effects and synth to merge hip-hop with house/dance music, and pleasantly pulls it off. David Keigh has an amazing flow and accomplishes the feat of spitting out several lines in the matter of seconds. What makes it more refreshing than an average hip-hop track is that he uses audio effects on his voice to make them sound robotic, which is rare for upcoming artists to do.

Review of #Breakthrough by David Keigh ft Rell Riley

However the first two verses seem very repetitive as the same effects and compositions are used, making the sounds of ‘#Breakthrough‘ somewhat boring on more listens. Also the chorus/chorus lead lyrics aren’t the most thought through as Keigh rhymes “This beat is crazy, Like Oh My Day-Z” – this line highlights that the track feels rushed.

Despite this, guest rapper Rell Riley pulls it all back with a swaggered, bold rap that’s more memorable and slightly better than the slower singing/talking by Keigh. In conclusion, it isn’t a bad track especially with the use of effects and genre cross over sound; however the interest of the backing track can be drowned by the meaningless lyrics which is unfortunate. Nevertheless for a new, upcoming artist, the song does show some strength.

Review by Bally Athwal

Wu-Tang, Wu-Tang, Wu.  I used to love the Wu-Tang Clan when I was growing up.  The skills the whole clan displayed from The Rza, The Gza, Inspektah Deck through to the distinctive flows of the smooth Method Man and the craziness of Ol Dirty Bastard.  But there was always something special about the skills displayed by Raekwon.

Review of Soundboy Kill by Raekwon ft Melanie Fiona

Raekwon had that unique rough tone to his delivery yet being as comfortable delivering quick hard and high impact rhymes as he was with the smoother more soulful tracks.  Raekwon is probably the one with the most longevity in terms of actually rapping.

So it was a pleasure to receive the link to his new joint ‘Soundboy Kill’ which features the female vocals of Melanie Fiona, an unknown to me.  The track opens up with a heavy intro that sets the tone.  Swiftly followed up with an industrial sounding Wu inspired music backdrop.  The beat is hard as you would expect and Raekwon delivers with his usual killer rhymes.

Melanie Fiona kicks in to sing the chorus.  She mixes a great female soulful side to her voice with a nod back to some old raga or dancehall in her delivery.  The two really complement each other and the addition of the Melanie‘s vocal adds a real slick flavour to the track.

The production on ‘Soundboy Kill’ as you would expect is first class, which always aids Raekwon and provides a quality track, which some contemporary artists could learn from.  Yes the track has a commercial angle on it, but it still retains credibility as a proper Hip Hop track.

When you go on Raekwon‘s soundcloud there are other good tracks to pick up, including ‘All About You‘ ft Estelle.

Whether you’re an X Factor-ite or not, there’s no doubt that anyone can dispute that Jahmene Douglas can sing, and with such heart, soul and passion. I was won over by his vocal, more than the shy, jittery nervous guy who stacked shelves at Asda and who was good to his mum.

Review of Halo by Jahmene Douglas

Listening to ‘Halo’ from his forthcoming debut album release ‘Love Never Fails‘, it’s a rather brave move taking on this mighty Beyonce track, especially who herself socks it out with such rigor at every live performance going.  There are no great surprises in production and arrangement, but that doesn’t matter as this is who Jahmene is and do we really want him any other way?

He also covers some other pretty iconic songs including ‘I’ and a duet with the current reigning champion mentor Nicole Scherzinger on ‘The Greatest Love Of All‘ by Whitney Houston, who Jahmene credits as one of the artiste’s who influenced him the most. ‘Love Never Fails‘ is released on 22nd July 2013.

Listen to ‘Halo‘ below

By Jacqui Wright

Ooof the intro of ‘Are You Getting Enough‘ alone has won me over already!  I have been eagerly awaiting this single release from Professor Green as it features vocals from Last Shadow Puppet and solo singer-songwriter Miles Kane.  Being a fan of both, you can imagine how excited I was. Professor Green has worked with many noted artistes from the dance world in the past and with great success, but it’s a refreshing move to work with someone of Miles ilk.  ‘Are You Getting Enough’ has Green inevitably telling us how it always is. And why ever not. Miles works his magic with his distinctive vocal and offers a punch line hook that he has the knack of nailing every time.

Review of Are You Getting Enough by Professor Green

Professor Green‘s popularity is evident with his staggering social media stats, that boast a couple of million here, another couple there and not to mention a further 80 million combined views on Vevo and Youtube.

The summer & autumn months will belong to the Professor, ‘Are You Getting Enough‘ is released on 22 July, he’ll be performing on the main stage at Glasto, the airing of his documentary on Channel 4 plus the new album ‘Growing Up In Public’ which will be released on 14th October.

By Jacqui Wright

It’s been over a year since Judas Priest wrapped up their ‘Epitaph: 40 Anniversary/Final Farewell (but not really ‘cus they’re already working on a new album) World Tour’ which culminated in a single show at London’s Hammersmith Apollo back in May 2012. Rob Halford et al have been threatening to release a live DVD from that tour for some time and at the end of last month they finally came through for us! Apologies for the late news regarding this release but you can partially blame my local entertainment retailer for that, the bastards didn’t get their pre-order copies in until nearly 2 weeks after release… not a major store of course, only HMV on fucking Oxford Street!

Judas Priest Live in London DVD

Ahem…

Anyways, this is just a little announcement to say the Priest has put out the ‘Epitaph Live‘ DVD which perfectly captures their performance at the aforementioned Hammersmith show. I finally sat down to watch it last weekend, drinking ‘Trooper Ale’ no less – the new cask ale that Iron Maiden has recently released, made by the good people at Robinsons Brewery in Manchester – and it brought back some fantastic memories because funnily enough I was at the Hammersmith show… and reviewed it on this very website. If you want a breakdown of the actual stage antics and details of the night’s events then go read that review otherwise I’m just re-treading old ground, but here is a quick summary: AMAZING!

Right now I just wanna talk about the DVD itself quickly (oh yeah, it’s also out on Blu-Ray for all you elitists and PS3 owners out there). The audio is crystal clear and visuals/editing top notch, nothing compares to being at the actual show but this is a close second. All the guys brought their A-game that night, especially Richie Faulkner who came in to replace K.K. Downing (why would a founding member bail on their band’s 40th anniversary tour?). Halford’s vocals were also on peak form that evening so perhaps this little offering will make up for the controversy surrounding one of their previous “live” releases ‘Unleashed in the East’ where Rob’s vocals had to be allegedly re-recorded post-gig in the studio.

In terms of content you get the gig itself and that’s pretty much it. You are however looking at a show that is the north side of 2.5 hours in length featuring over 20 songs with at least one track taken from every Priest album (barring the Ripper Owens era of course). Rob was very chatty at the show, giving small speeches quite frequently reminiscing on not just the history of Judas Priest but heavy metal in general, it was one of the rare times where a frontman has talked so much at a show and never lost my attention. He is a very endearing character and I’m happy to say his spoken word deliveries and song introductions were all kept intact – this stuff often gets edited out of live releases (in some cases for the better, I’m looking at you Bruce Dickinson!).

So yeah, if you’re a fan of Judas Priest then you already know about this DVD and probably already have it. If you’re a fan of heavy metal but have yet to really be acquainted with the Priest then this is actually a really good place to start since it represents virtually their entire back catalogue and is simply a stunning performance. I always say if you wanna get to know what a band is all about, see ‘em play live!

Setlist:

Rapid Fire

th

Anniversary/Final Farewell

th

anniversary tour?). Halford’s vocals were also on peak form that

Metal Gods

Heading Out to the Highway

Judas Rising

Starbreaker

Victims of Changes

Never Satisfied

Diamonds and Rust

Dawn of Creation/Prophecy

Night Crawler

Turbo Lover

Beyond the Realms of Death

The Sentinel

Blood Red Skies

The Green Manalishi (With the Two Pronged Crown)

Breaking the Law

Painkiller/Drum Solo

The Hellion/Electric Eye

Hell Bent for Leather

You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’

Living After Midnight

Megadeth recently released their 14th studio album ‘Super Collider‘ and to promote the new release they embarked on a warm-up UK tour. The album came out only 2 days before the Brixton show and admittedly I had no time to listen to the new material prior to the gig but the professional reviews have ranged from mediocre to utter shit so I wasn’t hopeful. Fortunately it seems that Dave Mustaine (who will be referred to as ‘Mega Dave’ for the rest of this article) pre-empted that nobody would have got to grips with ‘Super Collider‘ beforehand and so the group pretty much ripped through a greatest hits set with just 3 tracks from the new album played the entire evening.

Review of Megadeth Brixton Gig

There was a heavy use of backing videos accompanying the music for the show. This seemed somewhat out of place for a band like Megadeth who have seldom shown a taste for theatrical stage shows. It reminded me of Within Temptation’s utilisation of film at their concert (coincidentally also at the Brixton Academy), which I reviewed for Music Eyz waaaaay back in December 2011*.

I must admit this particular approach did not work for Megadeth quite as well firstly because the footage itself was nowhere near the same standard. It was mostly awful CGI coupled with footage jacked from the band’s previous music videos and secondly because this time round it just seemed to distract my attention from the main focus of the show, which is of course the music and the band.

Choosing to ignore the imagery I quickly came to the realisation that the sound quality was excellent! Sonic clarity from start to finish that I couldn’t fault made all the more impressive considering how loud they were playing… I had really bad tinnitus for 3 days! The boys themselves did not do a huge amount to excite the crowd in terms of movement or on-stage charisma but at the same time there was little faffing about between songs, instead the band took what I like to call the Rammstein/Opeth/Prodigy approach which is to start playing and then pretty much never fucking stop! This worked in their favour since on the rare occasions that Mega Dave did pause to speak to the audience you couldn’t hear a word he said, people in the crowd were constantly demanding that they turn his mic up but the sound engineer only obliged for the final farewell speech and even then it was a struggle. This seemed puzzling since you could hear him perfectly when he was singing while the others were playing.

As I’ve already mentioned the band pretty much went with a greatest hits set. They toured only last year to celebrate the 20 major players from that album made the listing including the title track, ‘Symphony of Destruction’ and ‘Architecture For Aggression’. The infamous ballad ‘A Toute Le Monde’ was brought in around the mid-way point for a change of pace and as usual gained one of the larger cheers of the evening – gotta say though, Mega Dave’s voice really struggles with this number these days! Long serving fan favourites ‘Hanger 18’ and ‘Holy Wars… The Punishment Due’ inevitably made the cut with the latter being used to close the show with a powerful send off and generated a serious sing-a-long from the crowd. I noticed a Thin Lizzy cover towards the end that sounded a bit dodgy but apart from that there were no real complaints from the set.

The show presented something of a dichotomy; the setlist was very strong (I would’ve appreciated ‘Tornado Of Souls’ but you can’t have everything) and the sound quality was spectacular so from a purely musical standpoint the show was amazing. Since it is first and foremost a music concert this is kinda critical! Visually the backing videos were low-budget eye-sores and just plain distracting (putting the lyrics on screen didn’t help this matter either) yet the band members did little to win my attention back so the concert was very much a pleasure on the ears and boredom on the eyes.

Setlist:

Trust

Hanger 18

Kingmaker

She-Wolf

Countdown To Extinction

Architecture Of Aggression

Sweating Bullets

Ashes In Your Mouth

Dawn Patrol

Poison Was The Cure

A Toute Le Monde

Whose Life (Is It Anyways?)

Public Enemy No. 1

Super Collider

Cold Sweat – (Thin Lizzy Cover)

Symphony Of Destruction

Peace Sells

Holy Wars… The Punishment Due

*PS. I realised at time of writing that in just a week from now I’ll have been blogging for this website for 2 years! Where has the time gone!?

Review by Al Westlake

Iggy Azalea is the hottest Female artist to hit the music industry and it’s not surprising. Her style, sound and whole attitude screams Superstar. She oozes everything that someone needs to be successful and she is showing everyone the real Girl Power.

Review of Bounce by Iggy Azalea Green Lantern Remix

Her lyrics are punchy, fast and straight to the point and her latest single ‘Bounce’ is no different, so I loved hearing the news there was a remix version following its footsteps. The Remix is a Green Lantern‘s Trap Remix and it gives a whole new twist and edge to the already incredible song.
When I first heard the original I didn’t get an instant liking to it, however the more I heard it the more I began to realise why it was going to be such a good hit. And the remix of it just gives it that extra punch that makes you want to play it on repeat over and over again. I’ve also discovered it makes a great gym workout song as it gets you so amped up to give it your all.
‘Bounce‘ Its a great listen and so energetic, with the video to match Iggy Izalea is one hot piece of property in the industry right now, and so she should be. She has collaborated with some of the finest artists including T.I. and I cant wait to see who else she has lined up to feature.
The latest single ‘Bounce‘ is definitely a song that makes you want to get up and shake your booty along to. The beats through out just give it that extra little something and the remix version is a great club track.
I love what she has given to the music industry and I am waiting in anticipation for her next release. I also can’t wait to see her perform live, everything about her you want to be…

Review by Natalie Combey-Yildiz

J.Cole‘s highly anticipated new album ‘Born Sinner‘, due for release on the 18th has been leaked online, but rather than throw a hissy fit and declare war on all peer to peer pirate websites J.Cole has released his album to stream through his official site, click here http://bornsinner.com/albumstream/. So far it sounds like its going to be just as good and maybe even better than his last album ‘Cole World – The sideline story‘ http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cole-World-The-Sideline-Story/dp/B005C9WA20/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1370873012&sr=8-3&keywords=j.cole

J Cole Born Sinner Leaked

I must say, I don’t like people leaking albums… Not because I’m on my moral high horse or anything but the quality is awful, songs are cut short etc.. I think all new albums should be £10, standard, then you really can’t argue, I’d rather pay the money, and have the quality.. I love my music, and listen to it on expensive speakers at high volume.. there is no way I’m going to do that with some shitty quality illegal download.. so kids.. remember, respect your favourite artists by buying from official sources.

By Michael Wilkins

Clap your hands everybody, if you’ve got what it takes, because I’m KRS and I’m on the mic, and Premier‘s on the breaks..

Location: The Garage

Show: KRS-ONE

Temperature: Very, very warm!

KRS-ONE smashed on to the stage last night at a very warm and excited Garage in Islington, London. The Blastmaster didn’t waste any time and went straight into some of biggest tunes straight off the bat. These ‘straight classics’ as the big man called them got the crowd straight into the vibe of the evening and the first 30 minutes of the evening flew past in a crazy and rowdy blur.. including ‘Sound of tha Police‘ and ‘MC’s act like they don’t know…‘ ‘The sound of tha Police‘ included KRS-ONE telling the DJ to drop the volume so he could make sure every single word was understood.. The crowd participation was second to none, everyone knew all the words and when KRS got the crowd to recite the oversee-er/officer part of the track it went off…

The Blastermaster then slowed it down, he freestyled for a bit, breaking the beat down and doing a chronically themed freestyle that went down well with the old school hiphop crowd.  Then KRS (and a member of the crew) proceeded to throw out KRS tennis balls into the crowd, which , was a bit strange.. And I swear some poor girl got one right on the head which definitely, 100%, seriously wasn’t amusing at all.. I didn’t laugh.. honest..

Review KRS-ONE London gig

KRS then came into the crowd, freestyled and took photos with everyone, this was a nice touch from one of the fore fathers of hiphop.. Often described as one of the most humble artists in hiphop, it was good to see this level of interaction. I would say that perhaps he peaked a little early with a lot of his most known tunes coming in quick succession in the first 30 minutes..  Where KRS slowed the pace down with the freestyles he killed the momentum a bit, this I didn’t mind, gave the crowd a quick opportunity to grab a drink at the bar on what was a very warm night in north London..

Overall it was a great gig, and this was an artist I’ve wanted to tick off the list of all time greats from the genre I love for a long time.. KRS-One as an artist, is possibly the truest form of hiphop you can find.. and in a moment in time when the soul of hiphop has been ripped out and trodden on.. Coming back to this felt like coming home after being away on a long trip.. Familiar, welcoming and warm.. very, very warm..

Review by Michael Wilkins