Artist Of The Week – Guante

The Midwest is one of the country’s true hotbeds for hip-hop right now and Minnesota is the state that’s leading the way. After former Artist Of The Week Sketch Tha Cataclysm moved out there he immediately told me about Guante, a Minnesota-based emcee and poet who is originally from Wisconsin. I checked out some of Guante’s work and was really impressed. His most recent album is El Guante’s Haunted Studio Apartment, and he just finished up recording a collaboration with Big Cats! titled An Unwelcome Guest. He’s also working on a one-man spoken word theater show he hopes to debut in the spring, tentatively titled The Fist that Lives in Your Neck. Guante’s work qualifies as both unique and intense. A good example of this would be the way he describes An Unwelcome Guest, saying “it’s a concept album, a zombies-superhero-love-story-parable that deals with issues of displacement and violence as a tool for social change.” This week I caught up with Guante to find out more about his work, his causes, and why there’s a good chance he’s on a first name basis with his pizza delivery guy. Read more...

10/27/09 A Monthly Bondfire's 1st Anniversary! With Poison Pen & Eagle Nebula

FreeHiphopNow.com Presents...

Tues Oct. 27th 2009

"A Monthly Bondfire's 1st Anniversary"

It's The Bronx Über Villain's Bornday Celebration! Nuff Said.

Bondfire Welcomes Poison Pen And Eagle Nebula to the Concert Series Stage!

Special guests that will celebrate with bonus performances:

Spills & Felecia Cruz
StarPower (Of the Dugout)
MC ~Kswift
Amo1
Coole High
Super King Armor
SleepWalkas
+ Special Surprises Throughout the evening...

Such a big show makes for an even larger Bondfire Mic Open with 15 Slots available broken up in sections of 5 spread out through the show!

Same deal. Be on time you to get your slot. No call ins, text ins, emails or tweets. That's just not fair...

If you miss this one. Well, just don't miss this...

As always A Month Bondfire is hosted by The Bronx Über Villain & co Host TastyKeish [WBAI 99.5FM] Rise Up Radio
Resident Live Artist - Marthalicia
And Our New DJ - DJ Boosh Wheelz! [Tah Phrum Duh Bush]

The Bowery is an All Ages Club.

$5 B4 10:30PM $10 After

308 Bowery btw Houston & Bleeker

Artist Of The Week - YC The Cynic

YC The Cynic is an emcee I’ve been aware of for a number of years. I’d not only heard his name from some artists I trust and respect, but I’ve even had a handful of conversations with him. What I hadn’t seen until a few weeks ago, however, was YC The Cynic perform. Thankfully he was able to jump on the mic at the last Bondfire show and it didn’t take long for me to figure out what all the talk was about, YC The Cynic is seriously dope. He’s also young, which makes him part of the next generation of emcees in NYC. This week I caught up with him to find out more about what that next generation has to offer, if he’s really as cynical as his name might suggest, and why there are certain hip-hop shows were you definitely don’t want to just hit on anyone in a dress. Read more...

Artist Of The Week – Nyle

Anti-machismo, lonely stoner, and a post-Tribe/Pharcyde type of vibe are just three of the ways Nyle feels his work can be described. Most people who hear him rhyme, however, have found a shorter, one word, description for his style – dope. Nyle’s fan base has been growing steadily since his arrival in NYC from Philly a handful of years ago and he points to his content as one of the reasons for this, saying “the stuff I write about is easy to relate to.” Nyle also has a great range when it comes to his music as he point out his body of work includes everything from “straight rap jawns like ‘Gangrel,’” to “a T-Pain parody song called ‘Fuck A Nice Guy.’” No matter what he may be spittin about, Nyle has developed a reputation for always gettin busy on the mic and this week I caught up with him to ask him about making it in NYC’s crowded hip-hop scene, which kind of naysayers he loves, and why so many people know him by so many different names. Read more...

Artist Of The Week - J.Monopoly

Hollis, Queens has been home to a number of hip-hop’s legends. From Run-DMC to LL Cool J, the small section of NYC has always seemed to produce great emcees. J.Monopoly has spent his entire life in Hollis. Want to take a guess at what he’s great at? Yeah, he can rock the mic. For J.Monopoly the obsession started early and he pushed all other potential hobbies and distractions to the side to focus on music. “When I did well in school,” he remembers, “my pops would reward me with a trip to Tower Records and I got to pick out anything I wanted and for Christmas I always got CDs and cassettes.” Now, at the ripe old age of 21, J.Monopoly is poised to be one of the leaders of the next generation of NYC hip-hop artists and this week I caught up with him to find out more about his music, his history, and if there’s anyone in the game that the “Right In The Kissah” emcee would like to give a “boom, pow” to.

Read more...

Artist Of The Week – Sleepwalkas

Anyone who has been to an underground Hip-Hop show in New York City in the past handful of years has, at some point in time, met the Sleepwalkas duo of Ciph Diggy and K.Gaines (pictured L to R). As two of Brooklyn’s finest, Ciph and Gaines have made a name for themselves both with their music and their tireless work ethic. Ciph explains the group’s ideology, saying “we embody that free thinking, no gimmic, Hip-Hop that you can relate to.” This week I caught up with both him and Gaines to find out more about their music, their nonstop networking, the all important “Five C’s” that make up their next album, and how dentures are a part of one of their ultimate goals. Click here...

A Monthly Bondfire Photos - 4-28-09

Artist Of The Week - The Day Laborers

For a commercial artist, a guest appearance on an album can simply be a representation of said artist buying someone’s time that they feel will help them chart a hit, or break them into a new market. For underground artists, however, a solid guest appearance represents a lot more. It represents the networking they’ve done, who they’re cool with, and most importantly, who respects their work enough to want to jump on a track with them. When The Day Laborers passed me their album, The Learning Process, and I saw two former Artists Of The Week, Homeboy Sandman and Louis Logic, were featured on it, I knew it was high time I found out more about the group. After giving the album a spin I caught up with The Day Laborers duo of Aspect and I.N.F. (pictured L to R) to do just that. Click Here...

Adam B's Vid Pick - E. Reece & Core Elements

At the beginning of '09 E. Reece released a fantastic album with his band, Core Elements, titled L.I.S.n 2 This Live.In.Studio. "What U Need" is the latest single off of that album and the video for it is this week's Vid Pick. It's smooth, soulful, and just straight up dope. Enjoy! - Adam Bernard

Original Post @ Adam's World Blog

The Last Bondfire!

Artist Of The Week – Azeem

I’ve been a fan of Azeem since I first heard Craft Classic in 2001. Each one of his albums since then has either met or exceeded my expectations. Lyrically gifted, Azeem’s music is both politically poignant and fantastically funky and over the years I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing him for a number of publications and websites. Just last month, in a huge accomplishment for a socially conscious artist, his video for “Open Em Up” was voted a favorite by BET.com users. This week I caught up with Azeem to talk about his life and his work and he opened up about dropping out of school at a very young age, the creativity behind another one of his videos, “Latin Revenge,” and what he sees in America’s immediate future. Azeem is known as a bit of a Nostradamus as many of his predictions from his previous albums have come true, so don’t take his words lightly, we might very well end up living them! Click Here...

Artist Of The Week - Via Tania

With breathy vocals, poetic lyrics and a slowed down, and oftentimes smoothed out, pace, the unique mix of downtempo and pop that is the music of Via Tania was an unexpected surprise for me. I honestly had no idea what I was in store for when I put on her latest album, Moon Sweet Moon, but by the time it was over I was in a totally different head space; chilled out, relaxed and at ease. Intrigued, I wanted to know more about Via Tania and her work. This week I caught up with her to make that happen and we discussed her background, what it was like touring with the likes of The Breeders and Bikini Kill in her teenage years, and where music ranks among her numerous artistic passions. Click Here...

The Final Experience; For Now That Is...

From left to right, Tah, Demonstina, Adam B & Conscious.

Well on August 29th, 2008 the final Adam B Experience show aired, with in-studio guest, 'Tah Phrum Duh Bush, Demonstina & Conscious', three artists who have benefited much from the hard work and dedication of Adam B in the pursuit of getting press and exposure for independent artists. We don't look at the end of the show that ran five years strong as an end really, just a beginning for bigger and better things. Free Hiphop Now congratulates Adam Bernard for his many accomplishments in the field of journalism/media and will continue to support his efforts.

Look out for a monthly podcast from Adam B soon available at rapreviews.com. Until then, to stay in tuned check out Adam's blog http://adambernard.blogspot.com/

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