quête:school

Argentine's Ska music classic sound ! With a Rocksteady on the flip !! BIG UP for this old school remastered press !

Acid tunes from FKY vs Woody Mc Bride. Classic acidcore style... Mp3 are 45RPM Minus 8, becasue Old School never die :) !!!

Old school collabs from Gabba Core Team !
Speedcore hardcore with a early gabba feeling.

Dancefloor !!!

Printed Sleeve / 200 copies pressed

“The Dirty Love EP” marks the union of the artists' creative minds, but also a blend of Old School - New School: is not just a meeting of musical minds, but reflected in both the production and the soundscape. The release conquers with a new take on Italo House, giving it a modernised edge: a reinterpretation of Italo House, enhanced by world music influences, thanks to Mariseya's vocals.

Equal Spirits brings together a genre-defying mix of South African spiritual jazz, ambient improvised introspection, bursts of old-school hip-hop and electronica, soaring melodies, synths, samples and gospel-infused grooves, woven together with sung and spoken languages from Zulu, Sotho, Yoruba and Xhosa to Arabic and English.

Heavy Metal hat eine lange Geschichte und eine tiefe Verbindung mit Teufelei, Devianz und der dunklen Seite allgemein. Die Rückkehr der Friends Of Hell kann diese Bindung nur stärken. Durchdrungen von reinstem Old-School-Metal und dreckigem Doom ist das neue Album 'God Damned You To Hell' ein rostiger Dorn in den Augen von Ungläubigen. Der lang erwartete Nachfolger des dämonisch spannenden Debüts, hinterlässt verbrannte Erde auf allem, was heilig ist. Noch trotziger altmodisch und düsterer als sein Vorgänger zollt sein primitives Sperrfeuer entsetzlicher Härte den Heavy Metal und Doom-Größen gruseligen Respekt, während es gleichzeitig neue, Dämonen beschwört. Zusammen mit Hellbutcher (Nifelheim) am Mikro und Bassist Beelzeebubth (Mystifier) sind Friends Of Hell nun bereit ein musikalisches Höllenfeuer auf die Metal-Gemeinde loszulassen. Sie tun dies auf Lee Dorrian's (Cathedral) Kult-Label Rise Above mit den drei Formaten CD, LP und Limited Red LP!

Returning after three years with their second studio album, Double Dog Dare, WHITE DOG have been revelling in a state of creative flux and are poised to share their revelations with the world. Formed in 2015 in Austin, Texas, White Dog began with a shared vision of blazing, fuzzed-out rock that drew gleefully from their home city's rich cultural melting pot. Emboldened by an us-against-the-world gang mentality and inspired by everything from dusty roots rock to explosive old school prog, the band's self-titled album emerged in 2021, courtesy of natural home Rise Above Records, and immediately stood out as a sophisticated, earthy and characterful new strain of retro rambunctiousness.
Recorded over a period of eight days at Stuart Sikes Audio (with engineer Andrew McCalla) in Austin, Double Dog Dare takes all of the debut album's deftly assembled ingredients and allows them to fly free, liberated from expectation. At times mellower than its predecessor, at others strident and ferocious, these new songs showcase White Dog's organic development, with elements of everything from wistful southern rock to crusty-eyed jazz rock finding a place. Somehow even more fluid and fiery than before, this band are growing and expanding before our ears.
Now free to peddle their incendiary wares, they return to the stage with their strongest material to date, and a newfound enthusiasm for giving The Riff the respect and imagination it deserves.

Returning after three years with their second studio album, Double Dog Dare, WHITE DOG have been revelling in a state of creative flux and are poised to share their revelations with the world. Formed in 2015 in Austin, Texas, White Dog began with a shared vision of blazing, fuzzed-out rock that drew gleefully from their home city's rich cultural melting pot. Emboldened by an us-against-the-world gang mentality and inspired by everything from dusty roots rock to explosive old school prog, the band's self-titled album emerged in 2021, courtesy of natural home Rise Above Records, and immediately stood out as a sophisticated, earthy and characterful new strain of retro rambunctiousness.
Recorded over a period of eight days at Stuart Sikes Audio (with engineer Andrew McCalla) in Austin, Double Dog Dare takes all of the debut album's deftly assembled ingredients and allows them to fly free, liberated from expectation. At times mellower than its predecessor, at others strident and ferocious, these new songs showcase White Dog's organic development, with elements of everything from wistful southern rock to crusty-eyed jazz rock finding a place. Somehow even more fluid and fiery than before, this band are growing and expanding before our ears.
Now free to peddle their incendiary wares, they return to the stage with their strongest material to date, and a newfound enthusiasm for giving The Riff the respect and imagination it deserves.

On his sophomore EP 'Nightlife Stories', (produced by Chris Robinson), Billy Tibbals offers a beacon of hope for a new generation of rock fans-- an audience he believes is enjoying a resurgence

Tibbals' music brings glam rock to 2024 within a once-again-burgeoning LA rock scene. He explains, "I wanted to make something a little more aggressive. It's called 'Nightlife Stories,' and so it's about seedy creatures of the night." The result is six tracks that are bold, stone cold, and ready to mold the minds of the American youth. With his mop of curls and brazen, spangled outfits, Tibbals is a return to old- school glamor with eccentric hooks and dramatic swings that demand to be heard

Limitierte LP-Neuauflage: rot-goldfarbenes Vinyl, inklusive eines neu gestalteten Posters zum Ausklappen. Unser Album zum 1.Mai. Zum Tag der Arbeit und für den Kater danach. Die Arbeit verändert sich. Roboter ersetzen uns. Der Kapitalismus zerbröselt. Wir brauchen einen neuen Soundtrack - aber wie klingen work songs in einer Zukunft, in der die Natur der Arbeit selbst so unsicher ist? Mit ihrem zweiten Duo-Album Never Work suchen Ariel Sharratt und Mathias Kom (von der kanadischen Garagen-Folk-Band The Burning Hell) nach Antworten. Einige Songs sind Lieder über Arbeiter, andere sind Lieder für Arbeiter, aber die meisten sind beides zugleich. Musikalisch nutzt Never Work die akustischen Elemente eines Old-School-Folk-Revivals (...Guthrie, Seeger, Dylan..) die, tongue-in-cheek, mit Billig Electronica der 80er versponnen werden. Textlich greifen sie Anregungen von Gewerkschaftsaktivisten und situationistischen Witzbolden auf. Alles in allem die richtigen Instrumente, um die sogenannte Gig-Economy, technologischen Feudalismus, Klassenkämpfe, rebellische self-service Geräte und vollautomatisierten Luxuskommunismus zu erkunden. Sharratt und Kom sind vor allem als Teil der kanadischen Garagen-Folk-Band The Burning Hell bekannt. Seit fast einem Jahrzehnt haben sie sich mit ihren smarten, von dunklem Humor geprägten Songs und ihren dynamischen Live-Shows eine solide Fangemeinde erspielt, teilweise mit Freunden im Geiste, wie Jeffrey Lewis oder The Wave Pictures 2016 legten Sharratt und Kom eine erste Pause vom Bandformat ein, um ihre erste Duo-Platte "Don't Believe The Hyperreal" aufzunehmen. Das Album belebte die Atmosphäre klassischer Pop-Folk-Duette der 60er neu und bot eine intimere Seite ihres Songwritings, darunter den Underground-Hit "Fuck The Government, I Love You". Never Work nun gibt ihrem zweifellos charmanten Duett einen neuen Dreh: weg von der Romantik hin zu selbstreflexiven, zuweilen bissigen Betrachtungen von Arbeit in unserer Gesellschaft. Das beinhaltet ihre eigene Position als Musiker, unser Selbstverständnis in einem bröckelnden System von Arbeit, sowie die Rolle des Kapitals, das uns alle weiterhin prägt, auch wenn wir selbst keins besitzen. Never Work ist eine Protest-Playlist für unsere kollektive Reise ins Vergessen oder an den Strand, ernsthaft und ironisch zugleich.

Japanese emo rockers nim have released their latest EP "Mushy" via Austin, TX label Shifting Sounds Records (Magnet School, Startographers, Gentlemen Rogues, Swallow The Rat). The style of nim is based in emo-rock, but the songs are unconventional and full of melodies. The band mixes male and female vocals to perform a gentle but overwhelming live performance with their sound. nim has grown in harmony with the independent scene both domestically and internationally. So far, they have released 3 full-length albums and many other singles, and have also conducted large-scale overseas tours in Australia, China, and South Korea. Their new EP "Mushy" is being released by Shifting Sounds on 10" Classic Black Vinyl. On their new EP "Mushy" the band further their emotionally charged alternative rock with a melodic and dreamy landscape. The songs are driven by chiming layered guitars and clean vocal harmonies under an indie pop song structure with lots of quiet to loud dynamics, often ending in climatic guitar explosions while sounding beautiful all at once. The band clearly draws inspiration from 90s sounding emo, shoegaze, dream pop, and jangly indie/emo rock are are not afraid to showcase these influences in their songwriting on the new EP. Japan has a number of up and coming bands paying homage to 90s emo, shoegaze and dream pop and nim should definitely be in the discussion.

Sleap-e is reclaiming herself. The Italian singer-songwriter’s second album, 8106, captures the spirit of play; the child-like instinct to pursue what you love without compromise - and here it is, that particular magic that rarely survives adulthood, remarkably intact. Each of its eleven songs are vibrant shards which build a mosaic of Asia Martina Morabito’s world: the growing pains of your early twenties, remaining faithful to your dreams despite the hostility of adulthood, places of escape both real and imagined - and the pulse of Bologna, her home and north star. As a student of old-school iconoclasts like The Fall and inspired by the outsider streak of Jimmy Whispers and Daniel Johnston, it was not any particular musical quality of theirs which Asia wanted to channel in Sleap-e, but their confidence to “explode in a raw, free and authentic way.” Though her sound has shifted from the tender bedroom pop of her 2020 EP Mellow and her 2022 debut album Pouty Lips which was bedecked with jubilant brass and Mediterranean rhythms, it’s her self-belief which endures. 8106 is Sleap-e’s most raucous, unpolished and playful offering to date, steeped in the influence of “egg-punk”, an internet-grown genre which seeks to satirise the tropes of punk with its danceable irreverence. There is joy to be found, Asia feels, in refusing to conform, and it has brought her closer to herself than ever before. But to gain her sense of self, first, she had to lose sight of it. Summer of 2023, when the outlines of the record were made, was a difficult time for her. 8106 was the number of the hotel room she felt confined to, alone and adrift from comfort when she was working away from home. Writing this album was her getaway car. “It represents an important choice I made,” she explains. “I chose happiness. I chose myself.” The title represents a kind of mental post-it note reminding herself to stay focused on what she loves; it’s a talisman to protect her from hard times. She returned home, and there she began recording the album in residency at the Bronson Club, a hive of like-minded creatives and mentors who helped it take its final form. At home, her own music was played freely and instinctively. The artwork for 8106 is by Noemi Vola, a prolific Bolognian illustrator and author who specialises in designs for children, which reflects the “funky, fairytale mood” of the record itself.

This is somehting Kano's and die-hard italo-disco fans will definitely
appreciate. Kano's "Anothern Life" is finally remastered and repressed on limited-edition white vinyl for the first time since 1983 and out on FullTime Production.

This LP consecrated the fascination of italo-disco, which merged disco, funk and synth pop.

This is demonstrated by a song like "I Need Love", where we immediately recognize the classic elements of synth pop (thus merged with the rhythm and the funk voice of the charismatic voice of Glen White. So "Mad In Love" and "Dance School", where you can already recognize all the grooves that will one day be other followers who have taken, to recall the name, a direct lesson from this "school". Kano surely influenced a whole genre of new European dance acts.

"Another Life", a single now immortal for lovers of the genre, certainly
felt the influence of another genre, known as space disco, a short Eurodisco vein. So "Ikeya Seki", which is not a tribute to the East
like the later China Star (typical of the aesthetics of many bands of
this early 80's), but a very suggestive instrumental piece whose name
derives from a comet discovered by two astronomers Japanese in 1965, Seky and Ikeya in fact. This, is the sound that is also found in the 8-bit soundtracks of arcade videogames, in those contained in Commodore floppies, and it is the music that everyone would have liked to sweat every day.

Out on October 7th!

Zehn energiegeladene, klassische Metal-Songs mit 70er-Rock-Attitüde aus den Straßen von New York City! Auf ihrem ersten Studioalbum seit fünf Jahren hauen New York Citys Tower mit Vintage-Metal-Appeal und klassischer Rockattitüde die Jams raus, die die Old-School in die Gegenwart bringen!
Der freie Charakter des Schreib- und Aufnahmeprozesses hat zu mehreren Neuerungen für Tower geführt: Während ihr typischer Vintage-Metal-trifft-70er-Rock Sound immer noch dominant ist, sind dieses mal Elemente wie Thrash und Doom in die Gleichung eingetreten.
Textlich befasst sich "Shock to the System" mit politischen Themen, persönlichen Verlusten und der Volatilität von Beziehungen und dem Leben im Allgemeinen. Das Cover-Artwork stammt von Morgan Jesse Lappin. Die Gefühle der Isolation, die die Pandemie hervorgerufen hat; die vergeblichen Versuche, einer klaustrophobischen und unangenehmen Umgebung zu entkommen, nur um festzustellen, dass sich die reale Welt drastisch verändert hat - werden hierbei perfekt abgebildet.
Hier gibt es nur noch eines zu tun - Shock to the System einschalten und auf 11 aufdrehen!
Endlich erscheint die LP im Gatefold und auf schwarzem Vinyl!

TIPP!

Moisk aka Pletnev & Fourmi Rouz delve into the depths of psychedelia soundscapes with their latest release “Tetris Life’’ on Terra Magica Rec. The duo skillfully balances modular sounds and shimmers through acid synthesizers with a wide range of psychedelic soundscapes from uptempo half-beat to raw, energetic techno trance, inviting you into a mesmerizing sci-fi universe.

The EP features tracks like “Tetris Life” and “A Glass of Coke with Ice”, that explore underground ambient deserts and immersive jungle improvisations. This is followed by dark and slow breakbeat cuts that transition into faster-paced, floating atmospheric IDM tunes. The 12’’ contains many choppy old-school loops and uptempo trance breakdowns, as in “Orange Button’’ and “Wrong Stability”. Featuring two weird dub/IDM/breaks remixes by Anatolian Weapons and HSDJs X Listensport to round off the wax. Don’t sleep on it!

Larry June & prolific producer Cardo have joined forces once again to bring you their latest masterpiece: "The Night Shift," a nocturnal adventure that takes you on a ride through the vivid and pulsating streets of Larry's life, as brought to life by Cardo's distinctive production. Larry June, the San Francisco native known for his smooth, laid-back flow and his unwavering commitment to living a healthy and prosperous lifestyle, seamlessly blends his distinctive style with Cardo's signature production, creating a sound that's as crisp and refreshing as a glass of cold-pressed orange juice. "The Night Shift" is the soundtrack to those late-night drives, providing the perfect backdrop for contemplation and cruising. "The Night Shift" is more than just an album; it's a testament to the chemistry between Larry June and Cardo, two artists at the top of their game. This project is a reminder that, in the still of the night, when the city's lights are aglow, and the world is asleep, Larry June and Cardo are hard at work, crafting music that transcends time and place.

Warehouse Find!

Time to welcome Soul 223 to the label with his debut Delusions EP entitled Fear Of Stopping. Something of a complete legend in our eyes and ears, Steve Pickton has been releasing top drawer tuneage for over two decades both as Stasis on influential labels such as B12 and Peacefrog and more recently as Soul 223 on equally well regarded imprints like Delsin, Soul Jazz and Neroli. Always one to shy away from any limelight or self promotion it's true to say that this underrated British producer remains something of an anomaly, staying true to his underground roots where faceless, shadowy and obscure reigns supreme over the latest over-exposed cover star. This ethos naturally carries through into his music where you will always find both expansive beauty and unrefined rawness in equal measures ensuring his tracks always sound fresh rather than over produced or contrived.

Fear Of Stopping opens the EP with a low-slung disco groove providing the backbone for intermittent pad washes and reversing stabs. The focus here is firmly on the drums and simple conga riff with thankfully very little else to deter you from this sublime slice of abstract dance music.

Next up we have a remix from another ridiculously talented producer who chooses quality over quantity, having only ever had one release under his own name, albeit for one of the most respected labels in the world; Rush Hour. Maxi Mill came to our attention having released one of the tracks of 2011 namely To The Next. On this, his first ever solo remix he brings a brilliant bump to the EP with a raw, warehousey and bass-heavy workout. Just the right amount of strings and pads keep the deep vibe intact but the filtering bass and jacking drums definitely take this one to the floor.

Flipping over we have Walberswick in it's Hoist Covert Mix incarnation. Almost thirteen minutes of spaced out, deep Detroit house music awaits you, ready to lure you in and cocoon you with it's warm and hypnotizing machine funk. Lovely to hear the old Stasis influence working it's way into this one sounding both decidedly old-school and completely futuristic and otherworldly as only the best tracks ever do.

Closing the EP we have Birdbrook Rain dropping the BPM's for a beautifully sparse track that brings with it an almost desolate and disconnected feeling, echoing synths providing a naive melody while a dusty pad shifts simply beneath. A little slice of magic concluding a fresh and interesting EP, we hope you agree.

The Morning Papers Have Given Us the Vapours was made with the black watch bandmates and producers/engineers Rob Campanella (Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Tyde, The Warlocks) and Andy Creighton (The World Record, Parson Red Heads). Ben Eshbach, formerly of The Sugarplastic, arranged the strings. Kesha Rose guests on lead vocals on the second single, Oh Do Shut Up. And the great Lindsay Murray once again lends her beautiful backing vox to a number of tracks.

the black watch songwriter/frontman John Andrew Fredrick wrote the ten songs on this, his Los Angeles-based band's latest album, entirely unselfconsciously, with no set goal in mind other than to revel in the joy of songwriting, and, eventually, the luxury of recording his music with his more-than-accomplished band. The Morning Papers Have Given Us the Vapours, produced separately and together by Rob Campanella and Andy Creighton evinces the black watch's often stunning ability to, as Andy Gill once observed in The Independent, "find chaos in the calm, melody in the miasma."

Fredrick, who has also published four comedic novels and a book on the early films of Wes Anderson, jovially describes himself as "a recovering Anglophile--one who'll never, one hopes, fully recover." From his home studio in the Angeleno Heights district of L.A., he waxes eloquent about how being branded, as it were, as a too-ardent lover of British music, film, and literature has left him as bemused as has the tag "prolific" that is often affixed to reviews of his work.

"I just don't think it's all that interesting to note that we've made so many records. Looked at one way, it's a sort of deflection from talking about the timbre if not the quality of the individual songs. Though I know it can be intimidating for fans who've just discovered us--a sort of 'My goodness, where do I start with this band that has put out LPs since 1988?' I get it. I do. I picture someone standing at our slot at a bin at a record store becoming overwhelmed at the prospect of picking the 'wrong' title. And then walking away and not picking up anything from us!" Fredrick laughs. "What can you do indeed?"

He started his career as a songwriter as a result of an American Football injury that left him bedridden in the home he grew up in in Santa Barbara, California. The year The Beatles immortal double-album came out at Christmastime he broke his leg so badly that he had to be home-schooled for an entire year. His parents, ex-teachers themselves, refused to let him watch telly for more than an hour a day. He propped a Silvertone acoustic on top of the massive cast that screamed all the way up to his thigh from his toes, and began to write little melodies and lyrics that, doubtless, did not in the least mask his love for the Fabs, The White Album in especial.

And he read and read and read--histories of the American Revolution and Civil War, mostly, and as many Dickens novels as his mum and dad could bring him. "That year," Fredrick observes, "surely made me who I am today. Proof that intensely unfortunate-seeming events can prove most fortunate. As a sport-mad kid, it made me absolutely mental that I was exiled from the activities I loved most and the school teams I played on. What a blessing undisguised that injury was! Not that I'd like to experience anything like it ever again, mind you."

Fredrick can even recall a few of the melodies he wrote as boy ("Utterly trite, of course, completely jejune"); and in a way, The Morning Papers Have Given Us the Vapours showcases a kind of get-back-to-where-you-once-belonged sensibility. "I didn't intend, this time, to make an album per se. I write both songs and fiction in order to find out what happens, to find out what I might want to say," he notes. "Rob often asks me what a particular song is about; and I often reply that I either don't know, or would prefer that others say. Same thing goes for when people ask me where they should start with our discography. I never know what to say. Our LP from 2011, Led Zeppelin Five (remastered in 2021 for its tenth anniversary), has been our best seller, I think--but that may be because some stoned Zepheads thought their gods had perhaps put out a record they'd missed!"

Despite being deadly serious about music-making, TBW's been known to either whimsically or perversely title their albums. Examples: Jiggery-Pokery (an allusion to John Lennon assessing George Martin's productions), After the Gold Room (a pun on the Neil Young classic plus a local eastside L.A. watering hole), Sugarplum Fairy, Sugarplum Fairy (echoing Lennon's famous count-off to A Day in the Life), Fromthing Somethat (a garbled spoonerism/lyric while doing a vocal), Brilliant Failures (the 2020 release that, along with Fromthing Somethat, was named Album of the Year by venerable indie rock magazine The Big Takeover), and the aforementioned LZ5.

For the new LP, the band recruited longtime friends and allies Ben Eshbach (the Emmy-Award-winning frontman of The Sugarplastic) and Lindsay Murray (Gretchens Wheel) to compose and arrange strings and sing heaps of lovely backing vocals, respectively.

And the result? A collection of songs that Fredrick, in his quite-but-not-quite self-deprecatory way, might call another set of brilliant failures. "Every song, every LP we do, is a failure of sorts--no matter how powerful or beautiful or pleasing-to-us it turns out," John concludes. "I have often said that my aim is to write songs as good as anything on The Beatles... and I will never achieve my goal. And thus I'll have to keep at it, keep trying. And chin-chin to that!"

And now your attention's been brought to a band (or you've heard of them or heard a track or two down the years) that has been pegged by The L.A. Weekly as "a national treasure" as well as "the most criminally-neglected indie pop group imaginable."

So here's to the prospect of that ostensible neglect becoming as much of a thing of the past as John Andrew Fredrick's year-long stint in bed.

Les400Coups, AKA Akouphen Teknomad & Damage Circuits are back in town !
After several oldschool Teknomad sound system music with Balistik, Full Bass or Haute Tension they deliver 3 collabs of total dancefloor and fun, party time !!!
Akouphen finish the job with an old school dark Hardtek track...

A banger !!!

Thanks to ExpExp for the 400 Coups movie poster remix ^^ and to Vstee FDB for the Visual !

Thanks to Simon The Exchange for the cut !!! BIG ONE !!!

Seafood Sam is a futuristic artifact. If that description might sound confusing at first, it matches the eclectic dualities found in true originals. With his effortless cool and timeless style, the North Long Beach native defies convention and exact comparison. He's a virtuosic rapper, a stop-you-in-your tracks singer, and a symphonic producer. Welcome to the lavish life of a laid-back transcontinental man of mystery, rolling in old school Cadillacs, eating caviar with a blade in his pocket, and making plays in vintage Pelle Pelle gear. A blaxploitation icon for the Instagram age, blessed with the bars of a `90s legend and 23rd century swagger. Seafood Sam is a true hero of modernity. On his full-length album debut for up-and-coming label drink sum wtr (Kari Faux, Deem Spencer, Aja Monet) debut, Standing on Giant Shoulders, Sam splits the difference between Snoop Dogg and D' Angelo, Curren$y and David Ruffin. The songs reveal a forward-thinking sensibility rooted in ancestral soul. He creates spiritual hymns for the streets that tap into universal ideals and irrepressible groove. In an era plagued by short-term thinking, his ambitions reveal a crate-digging depth of music history and a meticulous ear for detail. The giant shoulders in the album's title refer to James Brown, Bobby Brown, and Miles Davis - the holy trinity who inspired Sam's process. From the Godfather of Soul, Sam took a perfectionist's rigor and focus. The example of Bobby Brown lent an unshakeable confidence and self-belief. While the constant artistic left turns of the trumpeter that birthed Ccool offered an aspirational archetype. The story starts in the glory days of Long Beach hip-hop. As a young child, the G-Funk era soundtracked rides in Sam's father's car. Some of his earliest memories are trying to memorize Snoop's verse on "Nuthin' But a "G" Thang." Beyond gangsta rap, the LBC has historically doubled as a capital of lowrider soul and carwash oldies. At any intersection, you could hear Dogg Food or Brenton Wood, Warren G or Barbara Lynn. This too was absorbed via osmosis. It also just so happened that the art of performance was always in Sam's blood. So at family functions, he and his sister supplied entertainment by singing karaoke renditions of The Isley Brothers. While his Harlem Shake remains a thing of local lore. Long Beach is a culturally diverse mecca of skate parks and gang life, street fashion and tricky dance moves. This is the place that raised Sam on a diet of Wu-Tang and Nelly Furtado, Lil Bow Wow and Allen Iverson. He was the middle ground between his two older brothers: one who gangbanged, the other who graduated with a master's degree from UC-Santa Barbara. But it wasn't until the end of high school that Sam started to take rap seriously. Alongside long-time collaborators like Huey Briss and Reaper Mook, Sam's name began to make waves on the northside of the city, but he was partially distracted by a modeling career that paid the bills and took him all to way to walk in Paris' fashion week. The first turning point arrived with 2018's "Ramsey," a self-produced, slick-talk anthem with over 10,000,000 streams across all platforms. With each subsequent release, Sam showcased his peerless consistency, building buzz both online and in the city streets. Spin hailed his "smooth and unhurried cadences and understated lyricism_ that sounds like nothing else in Long Beach." Clash raved about Sam's "evolution as an artist, cruising through nostalgic production with slick, witty rhymes." The culmination arrives with Standing on Giant Shoulders. It's the evidence of a master, a young sensei in the model of Quincy Jones. All rhymes, singing, production, and arrangements were handled by Sam - with an assist from his close Long Beach kinsman Tom Kendall from the group Soular System. It's hard-edged and lyrical enough for disciples of Larry June and Roc Marciano, but orchestral and melodic enough for fans of Anderson .Paak and H.E.R.