Three The Hard Way

“We’re some brothers who actually will [our work] into existence. We have magical powers. We believe that.”
- Om'mas Keith of Sa-Ra Creative Partners

Are those guys really freaks? This has been a response I've gotten on more than one occasion when discussing Sa-Ra Creative Partners. Freaks seems to be a common word associated with them. To be honest I hadn't really noticed despite the fact I titled my story on them "Freaks Of The Industry".

I will venture to say though that the following track is rather freaky.

DJ Mitsu - Negative Ion (Sa-Ra Remix) - snippet

That track can be found on the Raw Fusion Bass-ment Classics release coming out of Sweden. Highly recommended.

Anyway, as Om'mas Keith also mentioned to me, Sa-Ra Creative Partners had been working on a distribution deal for the once-mighty Rawkus Records, the label they now happen to run. Today it became official.

Platinum Pied Pipers put on a really good live show recently at Harbourfront. It turned out to be a very well-paced set and you can see their live act will continue to improve as they seem to have a lot of energy and ideas. The only downside was that MC Invincible apparently had laryngitis and couldn't really be heard well. Spoke to Waajeed while Muziklee Inzane dropped classics ahead of Jean Grae. To update the article he has now bought a couch. And as this review indicates Jean Grae is one funny woman.

A recent Honey Soul radioblog rightfully bigged up the entire Galactic Soul CD which features my favourite Plant Life joint "When She Smiles (She Lights The Sky)".

Last words from Jack Splash of Plant Life.

What happened man?/ You stopped rapping/ Nah just got a brand new style for y’all to bite/ We often trip on the tiger’s black when it’s white/ Crisp as day and night/ Got some shit that just might help you see the light/ We’re the continuation of something spiritual/we’re living breathing, walking miracles/ With the baton that got passed from Melle Mel/ KRS to Slick Rick to Special Ed/ To Native Tongues/ To Digital Underground/ To The Roots/ To Outkast/ To the strange predicament we find ourselves in/ Half the best MCs alive want to put down their pens/ Rapping became raping when they took out the Extra P/ And tried to remove the Main Source/ Maybe my tastes just changed/ Or maybe hip hop’s face has changed/ I’ll tell you though/ you won’t catch me in a $150 dollar pair of shoes singin the blues/ Talking about how fresh I am and how I’m sick of all these wack crews/ Nah, you do you and I’ma do me/In my heart I’ma always be an MC/ And I’ma do my best to honour those who have come before me/ And I’ma do what hip-hop has always done and change the story/ I’ma flip the script and turn bad to good/ I’ma do what Pac would have done if he was still alive and turn thug life into love life/ Dear Mama, keep your head up, ‘cos rap is not dead/ We just got all types of shit goin on inside our head/ But from the very first kick to the very last snare/Hip-hop has always been love and we ain’t goin nowhere.