Anticipation Mode: Fine Arts Week footage

This week was Fine Arts Week at Middleton High School and we are waiting for video footage of both our Hip-Hop Production Demonstration and Patrick Swift's performance of "Whenever I Ride" and "Unforgettable."

Follow @Patrick_Swift @producedbydhoot and @KIDMELOCO on twitter for more info! Watch out for #FAW tweets.

-KMC

"Mothafucka Up" by Xyz (Prod. by Cheko Productions)

Madison-Based Sicilian Rapper Xyz goes in on this Cheko beat originally used for Young Money's Tyga and Nicki Minaj, dropping references as far as "Bitches in Italia" and as local as State Street, talking being underground and offensive, taking risks, and being "the only defiant dude" in rap. He leans towards dark punchlines about midgets, wheelchairs, and bible-burning and proves that he doesn't need to like pop music to kill a Top 40 artist's beat.

"Rigamortis Freestyle" by Ted Park

Ted Park goes off on Kendrick Lamar's "Rigor Mortis" and shows us why he called his group the Epic Flow Movement before they emerged as Arkanoid Music Group. Let's get this 1,000 views! Don't forget to follow @ARKNDmusic on twitter.

-KMC

"Could You Imagine" by G-Breez of YSM

G-Breez of Young Swagg Militia follows up with an emotional, lyrical track about family and friends over an orchestral instrumental. The imagery is reminiscent of a drawn-out daydream. Breez remembers everybody who loved and hated him and the mental pressure he gets from chasing fame.

"I been goin' crazy, I might have ADHD... shit I've never owned an HDTV. You say you love me, but you have never seen me." Expresses the disconnect between true friends and people who are just followers.

Stay tuned as KMC anticipates the Young Swagg Militia Mixtape: "Hungry For The Fame"

Also follow @KIDMELOCO on twitter and watch for #H4TF tweets!

-KMC

Music. Matters. Most.

http://www.hotnewhiphop.com/arcani-music-matters-most-mixtape.51261.html

Link to Arcani's "Music. Matters. Most." Mixtape!

Arcani's "Night After Night"

East High's Langston Elvord AKA Arcani's track "Night After Night" off of his upcoming mixtape "Music. Matters. Most."

Talking about loss and musical aspirations, the fear of losing his passion for music, being dependent on promises from supporters, and relationship problems.

Arcani's flow purposefully lags when he wants his words to sink into the listener and when his flow quickens you can feel the urgency in balancing his love for music and his love for people. He feeds off of the emotional instrumentation in the background and pauses at the right time to let the strings and the pitch-shifted samples dance over the hi-hats.

Too real.

-KMC

First Event Notice: Banger!

2005 Leland Drive is where it's at tonight folks! 11:00. In celebration of Alex Teuschler's Birthday. Peep his music and music videos at YouTube.com/alt1music. Playlist suggestions by yours truly. Also, tweet me your suggestions @KIDMELOCO!

-KMC

Happy 4/20! Sorry for the delay.

We've got new shit from Young Swagg Militia on deck plus plenty more Patrick Swift material and an upcoming interview with Commited! Your plate will be as full tomorrow as your bowl was today. Also, don't forget about my music production demonstration Monday morning! In the meantime, Happy Holidaze.

-KMC

"Bad Bitches & Good Weed" by JayMal and Chris Jack

http://www.hotnewhiphop.com/jaymal-and-chris-jack-bad-bitch-s-and-good-weed-song.755490.html

JayMal and Chris Jack hit #8 on HotNewHipHop's Top 100 with this straight banger off of their upcoming mixtape "94's Finest" hosted by Dj Double D. Mal talks copping 3 pairs at footlocker and getting trippy while double-cupping it, then being so hot he messes up the "lames" plans in life. Oh and the hook is fire. Produced by Demario.

-KMC

"Too Real" JayMal ft. Chris Jack prod by Dj Tank and Jayk

http://www.hotnewhiphop.com/jaymal-and-chris-jack-too-real-prod-by-dj-tank-and-jayk-song.782961.html

"Why you mad cuz you ain't got stacks in yo' habitat?" Mal and Chris Jack are straight animals on this Dj Tank beat. If you don't mean mug while listening to this you're softer than a pillow. I'd say more but I've got to download it and see if I can knock the rear view mirror off of my Honda.

-KMC

"One Night" by Commited

Ebraheem Haneef AKA Committed uses this instrumental from "The Game" to vent about the death of his friend. Hip-hop is his outlet for his worldview and philosophy. Interview with Committed comes tomorrow.

DmanDJA talks life, lyrics, clothes, family, tattoos, class, disability... ok everything! With KMC

KMC: "Ok, before we start I've got a couple lyrical questions. Verse one of 'Hold Up, Stop, Wait' has you talking about snapbacks and tattoos. Made me pause because whenever I've seen you I've never seen tats. Do you have tattoos and I just don't know about it?"

DJA: "On July 13th I'm bout to. But yeah I'm getting my bro's initials tatted on my left shoulder 'cause he has my initials tatted on his right shoulder. 

KMC: "Alright, another lyrical question. On 'Trap House,' you say 'disabled don't mean impossible, just not as able as possible.' What do you mean by that?" 

DJA: "It's about how everybody has a disability whether that be mental, physical, social, psychological, financial, etc. and that doesn't mean that life is impossible it's just a setback that's bigger than an obstacle but depending on willpower and hard work is at least partially able to overcome." 

KMC: "Do you have any personal disability?" 

DJA: "I have ADD, and some other stuff, but yeah mostly due to my social class and circumstance growing up in the "hood" people always labeled me a loser and lame and shit." 

KMC: "What programs do you use to record and where have you performed?"

DJA: "I use mainly mixcraft and FL Studio. I've performed all around the Madison and Middleton areas but my favorite performance and probably biggest so far was when I opened for Grammy award-winning legends Bone Thugs N Harmony at The Rave in Milwaukee, WI on June 20, 2011. 

KMC: "What are your influences outside of Madison? i.e. Rappers, singers, clothes and if you had to choose a favorite line of yours what would it be?"

DJA: "I don't really have any influences that are famous, my influence is my brother because he definitely played a huge role in how I developed socially growing up as a kid. I wear A LOT of Ralph Lauren Polo, Osiris, Nike, and LRG but I don't strictly stay to that it's just what you'll usually find on me. And I don't think I could choose one favorite line because I'm really a lyrical almost punch-line rapper and I'm also versatile so I have lines I like because they are real and I like other ones because they are tricky and clever and mean so many things at one time then I like different likes because they sound cool and unique." 

KMC: "Lastly, if you could collaborate with one other Madison artist, who would it be?"

DJA: "If I could collab with ANY Madison artist it would hands-down be F. Stokes, who I have actually talked to about doing such a thing with, if I had to choose a favorite rapper it would probably be him, he's the only real rapper who has had a lasting personal impression on me, I respect the man highly, and I think his talent puts almost all, if not all, other artists to dust in my opinion because of what he brings to the table. But I love collaborating and there are a ton of artists around here who I give respect to." 

KMC: "One more question-- why did you choose the name DManDJA?" 

DJA: "DMan is my nickname and initials are DJA, put them together and you get DmanDJA." 

Shoutout to  DManDJA for participating in the second Kid Melo Company interview. Look out for updates on his releases and performances! 

"Wait, Hold Up, Stop" and "Trap House" by DmanDJA

http://www.hotnewhiphop.com/song.774946.html

I don't always listen to DmanDJA, but when I do, I listen to "Wait, Hold Up, Stop," his new banger that starts off with D's profession of love to all his listeners followed by a well-put-together verse about tattoos, snapbacks, and girls.

http://www.hotnewhiphop.com/song.779885.html

He also released "Trap House" onto HotNewHipHop.com, stating it was a 'Super Hot Banger about life in the lower social class.'

After listening to both KMC had a lot of questions for DmanDJA about life and lyrics to be addressed in the next entry

-KMC

Interview with West High School's BlackReedz

KMC: "So how are you involved with the Madison rap scene?"

BR: *Laughs* "I'm always on the scene... I like a lot of local rappers and I'm one myself."

KMC: "What style of rap do you do?"

BR: "Hot bars that relate to my everyday life. I'm dropping my first mixtape soon, NORTHSTAR."

KMC: "What programs do you use to record and where are you performing next?"

BR: "My program is ProTools. I first perform in a few weeks at West."

KMC: "What are your influences outside of Madison? i.e. Rappers, singers, clothes..."

BR: "My influences include Fabolous, Wiz, and Chris Brown. As for clothes *Laughs* Polo and Northface."

KMC: "Lastly, if you could collaborate with one other Madison artist, who would it be?"

BR: "Rapper Xyz he hot."

Shoutout to BlackReedz for the first Kid Melo Company interview. Look out for updates on NORTHSTAR and BlackReedz' West House performance!

01 RObo TUSsin BlackReedz ft Fable by Black Reedz

01 RObo TUSsin BlackReedz ft Fable by Black Reedz

West House rappers BlackReedz and Fable go nuts on this psychedelic Flying Lotus beat. This track is a lyrical weapon: "She say she want another go, so I greet her in my Samurai bathrobe puffin' on some hash grown in Hawaiian ash..." Flies out of Reedz mic after Fable duets on the hook with a low-pitch voice extolling the virtues of "Robo Tussin." Funny the Robo is separate, later in verse 2 they drop an Optimus Prime reference. Fab and Reedz keep it laid-back but still remain clever and edgy wordsmiths. All 5 minutes of it is worth your time.

"Flamboyant (Freeverse)" by Xyz

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DdCpaxhl6R1g&v=dCpaxhl6R1g&gl=US

Take it from Ian Evans AKA Xyz, a Madison-based Sicilian rapper: he has a story to tell. As you can probably tell from the name, he's all about linguinstics-- the rhyme schemes in this Freeverse "Flamboyant" don't disappoint.

Review of B. Ortiz's "The Pre-Tape"

This afternoon, recovering from a fever, I decided to finally tune in to Brendan Ortiz's latest internet release, "The Pre-Tape." Here's a guy who asks for 200 Facebook likes before a release and gets more. And there is truth in popular belief: dude has bars.

The tape starts with "Motivation," a low-key intro rapped in Ortiz's low sing-song vocals over a slower version of a standard industry beat. By starting with "It was all a dream, but I made it a reality,"Ortiz sets the tone for one of the more thoughtful tracks in his latest 7-song arsenal. It's not that he doesn't revert to his ongoing banter about money, sex, basketball and getting faded. It's just that the images he conjures up about posters of his idols in his high school locker, telling his friends he's about to "make it,"and handing out mixtapes at the gas station make us feel like we're listening to a person rather than a persona.

The entire down-to-earth attitude is washed away in "Rip the Beat Up," which is not entirely a bad thing. B doesn't want us to get bored. He kicks it off by calling his "haters" pussies and snakes and then launches into a hook where he brings back the acronym "TSM" for "Team Stillmatic," a group that has evolved from a jerk squad with a Myspace page to a rap crew that has come to represent the Madison Memorial scene. The TSM movement came into question when Ortiz and his friend Mikey Smith had a short-lived beef, which caused Ortiz to drop the diss track aptly titled "Mikey Smith." The bottom line is, the TSM roster is fairly fluid, which explains the ushering-in of Kane-O and Vell, who inhabit the second and third verses. Kane-O is more nasal than Ortiz but manages to flow better than Vell, who would rather lay back and slur his way from verse three to the reprise of "up, up, up, up"(rip it, what's, throw it, what's, in order). The three make a cohesive anthem, and this track foreshadows the expansion of the Team Stillmatic tradition.

On "She Gon' Go" Ortiz brings out the autotune, voicing played-out sexual innuendos over a slow, rhythmic beat dripping with guitars. The harmonies on the hook give it a less sparse feel than the verses, and the deep-voice at the end declaring "Sip it up, po' it out, TSM, you know what I'm about," might justify the dragging tempo for Chopped-and-Screwed lovers, but this song is a little distracting from the rest of the tape.

Then, without warning, we are transported back to the sounds of 2009. "Get it in" is almost straight jerk music, which is what Ortiz thrives in. It begins with an orgasmic female hum looped to the sound of 808 bass hits and a hollow snare. Rico, who turns out to be another Stillmatic member, raps a boastful verse until Ortiz comes in with a "I get it in" chant that serves as a hook (this is where the girl-hum drops and we're left with nothing but bass, snare, and Ortiz. You can almost feel your jeans tighten). Then a megaphone-wielding voice comes out of nowhere and announces "at the crib we get it crackiiiiin, bitches only come 'cause we attractiiiiive." After another round of gettin' it in, the girl-hum re-enters and Ortiz drops the megaphone to rap about how jealous you are of how well his clothes fit.  He drops a Blake Griffin reference and proceeds to rhyme "clap" with "bad" and "we don't care" with "over here," finally landing at another hook and descending into a low-pitched coda where he poses the question "real n****s what's good?" before letting the beat ride out untouched for the last 30 seconds ending in the girl saying "I can't feel no better."

Imagine what she would say about the fifth selection off of the "Pre-Tape," "Something," where Ortiz channels his inner Usher Raymond over a down-tempo synthfest of a beat. Using a combination of pitch-correction and peaking vocals, Ortiz lays down a short, sweet love song that falls back on too many cliches. It's hard to see him try to form a smooth R&B personality when his rap alias is so raw and scrappy. Until he can sing as well as he spits, "Something" is hard to swallow.

"Two Shots" is by far my favorite. For lack of a better term, Vell goes in. Far from versatile, he sticks to a big, slow flow about Berettas and women on their knees. The lyrics are cutthroat: "She said she had no daddy so I named the bitch bastard" falls into a bed of bass-- while rapping along to it feel free to practice your mean mug. Then silence. "Its B... Yeah, uh. I remember when I used to rock skinnies in this bitch, err body tried to do it so you know I had to quit!" The rest of his verse isn't as good except the reference to controversy surrounding his age, a hot topic around State Tournament time in Madison as kids from other schools desperately searched for ways to degrade him over Twitter. At the end Kane-O steps in, ending the song a lot less hype than it started but still with a significantly tight flow.

The last song on the tape is "Miles Davis," named after the trumpet sample it exploits to create the most interesting instrumental on the tape. The first rapper fails to identify himself, but also fails to annunciate well enough to keep up with his flow. Then B takes the mic and talks about putting wack rappers in their place and attracting girls with his nerd swag. He even throws in a line about independent clauses before pronouncing the beat dead. The final words on the tape are "amen" followed by a staccato "swag."

Bottom Line: Rip the Beat Up, Get it In, and Two Shots are what keep this tape moving. B. Ortiz's attempted thoughtfulness at the beginning of the tape was quickly overshadowed by the aggressive persona we've come to know as "B." On the "Pre-Tape," Ortiz is still feeling around, flexing his mixtape muscles as much as he can before he has to decide what kind of artist he really is.

-KMC

"The Pre-Tape"

http://www.hotnewhiphop.com/b-ortiz-the-pre-tape-mixtape.50705.html

HotNewHipHop link to B. Ortiz's "Pre-Tape."

Bout to go listen all the way through again and I'll hit you up with my official review.

-KMC

B. Ortiz and the Catch-Up Game

As the blog was just launched, we're catching up on a lot of material that has surfaced over the past couple years! Here's "Mistakes," one of B. Ortiz's first professional videos shot by Chris Herr Media. People like to hate on his complexion at the time and the quality of the singing but few make the mistake to sleep on Ortiz. He would later release his "Pay Me in Gold" Mixtape and is now absorbing the positive reaction to his 4-2-12 drop, "The Pre-Tape," featuring tracks like "Miles Davis" where he works out a flow unprecedented in his earlier work.

-KMC

DEMONSTRATION MONDAY

This semester I started an independent study focusing especially on music production. On 4/23 I'm demonstrating the basics of LogicStudio at Middleton High School in the Performing Arts Center in Middleton, WI. The demo will include:

-Making an instrumental from scratch
-Using Logic Plug-ins to customize MIDI sounds
-Recording vocals from scratch on the LogicStudio interface
-Mixing: panning, volume levels, vocal equalizer and effects
-Bouncing .mp4's and sharing your music online
-A performance version of the music created

It's The Kid (Single) #2H4TV

http://soundcloud.com/derekhoot/its-the-kid

"It's the Kid" by Kid Melo. Produced on LogicStudio. First single off the the album Too Hot For TV dropping summer 2012. Follow the hashtag #2H4TV on twitter for updates on it's progress!

-KMC

Pat Swift's "Unforgettable" remix from the "Mixed Up Feelings" mixtape

Shoutout to the homie Patrick Swift for this remix, truly hot. Lyricism is key so listen up. You can find Pat at his youtube channel MrPatSwift or his twitter page @patrick_swift.

Fun fact: Swift can party, and is known to throwdown on Fridays. He's also started making homemade videos and posting them on his YouTube channel featuring the rest of his crew, including Robo "Merch" Williams and Antoine "Bon" Buchanan.

Welcome Hip-Hop Heads

Kid Melo Company is your number one stop for Madison-Area rap, hip-hop and R&B. Most of our posts will be links and info about rappers, singers, beatmakers, designers, videographers and other young entrepreneurs contributing to Madison-Area scene. DM us on twitter @KIDMELOCO submit work you would like posted on the blog.

Sincerely,

-The Kid