Things I Say You Should Like

So there's a spring quarter concert called Mayday being presented by Backdrop Magazine, Black Student Cultural Programming Board, ImPRessions, Student Activities Commission, University Program Council, and Vision Ohio, featuring performances by Clipse and Consequence. The show is at 5:00 p.m. on May 20, 2010, at the McCracken fields and it is free of charge.

Neither of these entities have done anything memorable in the past 10 years, but all individuals are fairly formidable rappers.

Clipse is a rap duo consisting of Malice and Pusha T. I'm not very familiar with the groups work, save for the 2008 song "Wamp Wamp(What It Do)" featuring Slim Thug, but that's not to say they won't put on a good show. Pusha T has been featured heavily on a lot of peoples recent mixtapes, such as the Kids in the Hall and Bun B. One song in particular that sounds great bumping in your car is Ridin' Down the Block



Clipse' first CD came out back in 1999 and was, like their subsequent albums, produced heavily by the hip-hop producing duo The Neptunes, consisting of Pharell Williams and Chad Hugo. This helped push the groups popularity once the Neptunes and their side project N.E.R.D became popular; riding their coat tails in a sense.

Though both members of the group have expressed that they are going to be recording individual projects soon, it will be cool to see them together.

And then there is Consequence, who has been more successful with his personal feats than popularity, but they're impressive either way. After putting out a mixtape called Take 'Em To The Cleaners, he grabbed the attention of a moderately famous Kanye West, who offered him a verse on "Spaceship" from his freshmen effort The College Drop Out.

As a result of this, when West was looking for artists to sign to his label G.O.O.D. Music, he instantly thought of Consequence. Consequence released his first album Don't Quit Your Day Job, which wasn't received well but featured to solid songs Grammy Family produced by DJ Khalid and The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, both featuring West as a guest.



Long before Consequence was signed to West's label, he became famous for a different reason. Consequence is the cousin of Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest, one of the most popular hip-hop groups of the 90's. On their 4th album, Beats,Rhymes, and Life, he was featured on 6 different tracks. One of my favorites being Jam, where he takes the 2nd verse.

Though this was a great stepping stone for his career, Tribe broke up shortly after that and his fame was mostly relegated to his mixtapes.

Consequence released a pretty impressive CD a couple of months ago called Movies On Demand but failed to produce any hits thus far. It has a great backing cast, especially for someone most people haven't heard of, with artists like Kanye West, Rick Ross, Asher Roth, Common, John Legend, Kid Cudi and Talib Kweli (whom I saw perform at Ohio University my freshman year).

The CD is heavy with soul samples and samples of other old-school rap songs that serve his style of rapping well. Also, since he has West working on his album, you know its going to be rife with all types of soul and it fits the style of many of the other rappers on this CD.

You can pick up his album from the iTunes store or a record store, if they still exist but I don't know why you would do either. It is available from a free, sponsored download at datpiff.com, an excellent resource for all your mixtape needs.



I thought that I should also give an honorable mention to Wale, because he was originally supposed to be the artist performing at this Mayday event. I would venture to guess that a lot more people are familiar with Wale than Clipse and certainly more so than Consequence but I think its exciting regardless.

Wale is a rapper from Washington that is part of this new class of hipster rappers that white people just love. He has some pretty tight tracks, though he gets pretty boring over time. Two good ones to check out are Wordplay and Chillin' featuring Lady Gaga.

photo by Elizabeth Nihiser

So my birthday is coming up this next weekend and, much to my chagrin, one of my favorite Athens-born bands will be playing at Jackie O's on the 15th. The band I speak of is Joey Hebdo, which I realize is a persons name, the lead singer no less, but he doesn't always play with a band so, yeah. I first saw him my freshman year when he was in another band called Blackcoin, but they disbanded some time later. I didn't see him perform again until my sophomore year when he played a show in the basement of my frat, much to the disappointment of nearly everyone who weren't accustomed to partying and listening to what Hebdo himself describes as "adventure folk."



The way he ended up playing the frat was that he had lived with one of our members older brothers a few years back and he thought it would be a good idea to play a show in a frat to get his name back out there. Turns out not too many people enjoyed it but I loved it. I approached him after the show and said "Are you thinking of rushing this fraternity?" puzzled, he responded "no" and I told him I didn't think he would have made it anyway. Then I laughed and he gave me a copy of his CD un Ep and I loved it.

I see him nearly every time he comes to Ohio University and always encourage others to come with me because his shows are a lot of fun. This past year he came out with another CD entitled Prosciutto that I find equally enjoyable. He's always given them to me free on the condition that I give it to others and spread his music around to others, which I frequently do.



Its hard to describe his brand of adventure folk, so in the words of Rachel Stiller, "What I enjoy so much about your music is your freedom to just "rift on a known score" so to speak. Your music travels like a journey, and when you play its kinda like you invite the listener to hop in the car with you and ride shotgun. The car drives itself, you only appear to be behind the wheel. From an artist perspective, you're just as much the instrument as your guitar. The surrender is rare... No definite notes or road maps. Perhaps, just an idea of things you might like to see along the way."

If I were to compare him to other musicians, I might cite people such as Andrew Bird, the Beatles or Black Moth Super Rainbow, all groups having their own unique spin on the folk genre.

You should definitely check out his MySpace and listen to all of his songs really, but two of my favorites are Come for Me and Where Is the Love? If you were so inclined, you can also pick up his CD here. Or if you want to get one in person, you should probably just check out his show this Saturday at Jackie O's at 10pm.

I've been exploring Athens and the surrounding area as often as time permits since I was a freshman here. This summer, I rode my bike about 40 miles every day up and down the bike path and discovered some pretty neat things. I found this soul food restaurant called Jana's, a bunch of abandoned rail cars, an iron bridge that looks like its older than my grandparents, a bar called the Ice House Tavern where you may or may not be able to buy meth but they still let you smoke cigarettes inside, and Larry's dog house. I also have been lucky enough to always know they people who live at the balcony above Subway and it is definitely my favorite place to people watch. One of the main reasons I decided to attend Ohio University is because of all the outdoor activities you can partake in and a bunch of really unique businesses. I can't get enough of Athens, and I'm sad that my time here is nigh.


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