A man once said “Live your truth, ‘cos your truth can be used against you” so I might as well own up to the fact that I was a huge Ma$e fan back in the Bad Boy era and regardless of what we may think of him now, he definitely had a huge impact on the game- end of story. On that note, I was a bit intrigued when I came across this song ‘Ghost Of Betha‘ by fellow Harlemite Rugz D Bewler. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, was he going the tribute route or just for the sake of being from the same home town? To be frank, Rugz did a little of both on this cut.

On ‘Ghost of Betha’, Rugz takes a lyrical stance as the new guy on the block and while the title is obviously showing respect to his predecessor, he does it without going overboard and the only mention of Ma$e is the following line.

 ”…I’m overcharging hip-hop just for what they did to Betha“

I recommend you check out Rugz previous work here  and remember he was also on Ski Beatz 24 hour Karate School.

Get with the program.

” Now that Summer is here, Rugz D. Bewler begins the season with new music by channeling the spirit of one of Harlem’s most beloved, charismatic, and successful rappers⎯Mason “Ma$e” Betha⎯with the release of his new single, “Ghost of Betha” (produced by Sal Dali), off his upcoming as yet untitled project. “

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‘This One’ by Avant-Garde MC is a short layered ride through the foggy twisted mind frame of said artist. Ever since he dropped the excellent ‘God’s Chalice‘, he kinda went under the radar to work on his upcoming tape entitled 2v Sides of the Same: Spittin’ Images. Maybe its me but this feels too short for a single although the vibe is definitely on point.

Anyways, tune in and get with the program.

” So with the help of a close friend and fellow artist I was finally able to pick a leading single from the upcoming tape. I asked myself which piece would leave a lasting impression and make cats kinda wonder what was to come…. this is what I came up with and shouts to my dude who made the definitive pick. Through recent growth since the last project it’s like i’m an entirely new artist and this is a perfect representation of it. Bump this in the whip outta your system for the summer months and beyond!  - Avant-Garde MC”

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We’ve been huge fans of Cambridge producer, Imperial for quite some time now. During that time he’s been on his A game with production, remixing everything from Jurassic 5 to Mr. J Medeiros.

Imperial’s latest release Zone Out is definitely groovin’ and features emcee Kinetik. Zone Out’s chill piano and horns, mixed with some catchy Kinetik flow make a straight banger. The track has been released on Illect Recordings and is available as a FREE download via Imperial’s bandcamp, including instrumental and acapella versions.

Currently residing in Cambridge, UK, Imperials love of multiple genres along with his own personal flavor shines through brightly in his past work.  With a full instrumental project currently in the works and the passion and motivation to be a true innovator in the genre, there’s certainly a bright future ahead for the young producer.  “I just want to produce fresh new music that makes people feel – music that people can connect with”.  “I’ve got a real thing for hip hop’s golden era, which I like to combine with modern production.  I hope this comes through in my music.”

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Mello Music Group always comes in with the heat, and Ugly Heroes is no exception. Formed by MCs Verbal Kent, from Chicago, and Detroit’s Red Pill backed with production from fellow Detroit native Apollo Brown, their self-titled album received a solid review here on Word Is Bond, the success of which has lead them to announce a vinyl release! ‘Ugly Heroes‘ is a bonus track put out to celebrate the announcement – really and truly, a vinyl release is mega dope – and it features exactly what you’d want from the trio. Apollo Brown’s beat is mad soulful and is laced in equal measure by the delivery of the MCs, with the welcome edition of DJ Eclipse with the razor sharp scratches. Nice track.

Detroit’s most consistent producer, Apollo Brown, comes through with his trademark sound – brassy horn chops, vinyl crackle, and layered drums that knock just right. Definitely turn this one up and let Apollo’s production bump at it’s head-nodding, face scrunching best. 

Red Pill jumps out first with a quick shout to Mello for making the deal on this record: “It ain’t a major deal yet, but it ain’t minor shit / got the industry by the throat with an iron grip.” By :53 seconds in Pill puts a sock in all those armchair comment box reviewers mouths with a display of lyrical wordplay that I’ll leave you to unravel on the repeated rewind. After the verse, DJ Eclipse lays a gorgeous scratch hook, reminding people Ugly Heroes is Ugly as ever. 

The second verse finds Chicago veteran Verbal Kent choking listeners out with their livestrong bracelets. Verbal proves he’s a bad dude like Erykah… knocking your wheaties bowl offa the table, liftin you up and literally throwin’ you offa the label. Then at 2:16 Mr. Kent decides to jump it up a notch and match Pills tongue twisting throw down with another display that leaves your pause button worn. 

Before it’s over Apollo masterfully brings it back to a sit down soul stirring conversational tone.

Download ‘Ugly‘: Bandcamp

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In terms of contribution to hip-hop in Nigeria, Port Harcourt, or PH for short, is akin to New Jersey: often forgotten but well respected. The latest offering from the PH based producer and emcee MHP (aka Mic High Priest ) is The Hero Returns, a solid return to the roots type project. The beat tape is a sequel to his previos release. The Legend And The Hero.

Exactly what I expected from this dude, he is definitely a student of the game and culture. The album boasts superb sampling techniques, pounding drums and an unmatched knack for crafting vocal hooks. The Hero Returns will surely resonate with hip-hop heads as the samples will have you scrambling for old tapes and forgotten classic singles.

MHP has been crafting potent cuts for a minute now and was the main mind behind the second instalment of the infamous AHH (Netherlands-based music forum) mixtape that featured various emcees and producers from different backgrounds and nationalities.

MHP is a hip-hop act from the city of Port Harcourt. An emcee/producer, he’s been working his craft for a while now, starting off in a group called ‘SoulJazz‘ which did pretty well in the underground scene.

He made a video a couple of years ago called ‘WONT TAKE LONG‘ as well as a series of mixtapes in the past couple of years, from The Common Letter P to The Joint Venture (The Ghost of 94) with producer Rapsom. Most recently, he produced for PH veteran LYRIKAL in his RMFAO mixtape.

Typically, the sounds are reminiscent of 90′s HipHop when the art form was still green and fresh. This project ‘THE HERO RETURNS‘ is a sequel to a previous beat tape called ‘The LEGEND and The HERO‘ with fellow producer ‘Black Intelligence’ which was well received.

Download The Hero Returns: Hulkshare

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We here at Word Is Bond have always been five star in our compilation game and here is another one to add to the collection, as Sinoptic International present Pure Dopeness Vol. 3. The name may be a big claim but you can be sure that it lives up to it, with audible contributions from all four corners of the globe. Expect to hear the likes of Japan’s ill.sugi, U.K.’s Hellblazer, California’s Prozak Morris and many, many more – enough to make 18 tracks worth. You might recognise the name Sinoptic too; Sinoptic International was born out of the ashes of the now extinct Sinoptic Music, West Yorkshire’s (and Britain’s) sickest hip hop collective, and I’m glad to see that to a degree they are still continuing. Be sure to support Pure Dopeness, get elevated by these beats and read Sinoptic’s far more eloquent and passionate prose on their release. Don’t sleep!

This project will always be free. We will never sell out this underground beattape.”Pure Dopeness” is and will always be priceless. It can’t be sold. Just like the souls of each artist left in these 18 timeless masterpieces. That pure fire will never stop burning. All you have to do is take this present and spread it and share it as much as you can. Spread the word, “Pure Dopeness” is a perfect therapy for beattape addicts. Everywhere you go and chill you can play it. Turn it up and play it again. For us. Even at work! Anytime… 
Get to know us.We are Sinoptic International, a unique and revolutionnary collective of worldwide beatmakers led by Dj Hellblazer (soundcloud.com/dj-hellblazer) and GooMar (soundcloud.com/goomar) . 

On board we have remarkable professional beatmakers from Japan, The Netherlands, USA, Russia, Canada, France, Germany, Norway, South-Eastern Europe, Brazil… Let’s name Paul Hares, Prozak Morris, Hpnotic718, Hellblazer, GooMar, Keor Meteor, Radj, loop.holes, iLL.Sugi, Cor Stidak, Je$u$, Dr. Drumah, ParaDice, SmokedBeat and many more coming soon on Pure Dopeness vol.4… Spread the dopeness, support us, play our music everywhere in the world, don’t let us down. We need YOU. Support our movement, we cannot exist and continue without you. Let’s build this project together. We need to collaborate by helping each other. This is a huge s.o.s.. Show us love. By any means necessary. Don’t wait. Act. You can do it easily. Just know that we are giving away a part of our souls and hearts in these pure dope beats. As i said, Pure Dopeness will always be free. It is priceless, it just cannot be sold. It must be shared for free without borders or frontiers. That’s why you can easily share it, spread it. Don’t hesitate to help us if you have the time. Don’t just stand there like an old grandma. SPREAD THE WORD! (even to your grandma if she digs beats!) “Pure Dopeness” is the soundtrack of your life, it will never end, i will pass it on to my children who will pass it on to their children, and so on forever… I’m dead serious. I almost died while working on the release of this volume… No jokes I’m not complaining, we all have ups and downs. But i really saw Death from a close point of view a few days ago, just before releasing this magic Beattape. And what kept me alive was the audience of this project. YOU. My true family. I don’t know who you are, what you do, where you’re from, what you think or what you dream of… I just want to thank you endlessly for listening to our Art. Thank you infinitely from the deepest roots of our souls and hearts. We will always deliver you that real pure dope sound. 
This is our Profession, our hard work, our Life, and we are sharing it with you because we love you. Not like in a stupid soap-opera tho. We truly love you for lending us an ear. So don’t forget to think of us when you listen to “Pure Dopeness”. We don’t deserve oblivion. We need to spread this revolutionnary pure dopeness all around the world. We are truly universal, we don’t judge or categorize anything. We just create masterpieces and release them for free every 2 months. Here onwww.sinoptic.bandcamp.com and nowhere else. That’s why “Pure Dopeness” has a true potential to really become the most authentic beattape in the world. Make that happen. You can make miracles with a small effort. Keep us alive. And we’ll keep bringing that Raw and Beautiful, Pure and Dope Sound from rare crackling-dusty vinyl sample-based creations to genuine and mad instrumental compositions… The Underground is coming out of the darkness in pure dope musical form. Make us come out from the dark. Make us shine and talk about us, play “Pure Dopeness” to all and everywhere. Make us mainstream. Be our family. Cos we are yours forever… 
Stay tuned.

Download Pure Dopeness International Vol. 3: Bandcamp

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Here’s a brand new project called Late Night Jazz For Baby Makers, a release by producers Mr. Moods and Darkside from Quebec to Buenos Aires. The entire record was produced by this two talented producers, who I found via The French Touch Connection series and have that classic Jazz influence. Peep it and support underground artists!

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Humanoide is the latest release from producer RADicule who is a member of Roots Of Society, a record label based in Buffalo, NY (who we featured in our previous post), and these guys are pushing the envelope when it comes to crafting highly potent beat tapes. While I may be new to RADicule’s work (his last release was Waltz To Ganymede, a cowboy bebop tribute of some sorts), I’m surely going to be tuning in to this guy more than ever.

Humanoide is what I would call a transdimensional audio sojourn into the deep, dark corridors where the unexpected is the norm. RADicule plays the puppet master on this project, twisting a myriad of sounds and backdrops and weaving them into something unimaginable. He completely strays from the norm even when using familiar loops and drum breaks but his most powerful weapon has to be the layering(Holy White Lines, Gettin’ Here/Yesterday’s Me) and from a producer’s point of view; he effortlessly impresses from start to finish.

I need not reiterate the cohesiveness in the chaotic themes used here as RADicule keeps the audience guessing on every track.

A very solid project indeed. Get with the program.

“HUMANOIDE is RADIcule. it’s my sanity, insanity, grief, pleasure, all that. let it love your eardrum. simple. #HUMANOIDE. stay golden listeners.”

- RADIcule

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The Sacramento based label Roots Of Society hit us up with this release from one of their producers by the name of Kaleo and ever since I listened to Joseph’s Illumination I had no doubts about the type of music to expect from this label - hit me up with this release from one of their producers by the name of Kaleo. Right off the bat, Kaleo starts off mellow-solid introduction track I must add. Possessing a knack for dreamy, retrospective jazz piano backdrops against pounding drums, Kaleo’s formula is simple, straight to the point, and effective.

It is quite easy for a singular themed project like Rocking With Elegance to fall into the boring category but that doesn’t occur here. Expect a wide variety of jazzy soundscapes but, I dare say, with drums still stay hard circa ’95. The fourth track, ‘Bahama Mama’, reminds me of Camp Lo’s original version me of Jay Z’s ‘Feeling It’( think about it). My favourite happens to be ‘Blazing It Up’ laced with blaring horns and a throbbing bass line to match.

It would be futile to compare Kaleo to his colleagues as he definitely carved his path with this project making Rocking With Elegance easily enjoyable from start to finish with few missteps.

Get with the program.

Kaleo (Kaleo Beats) residing from Buffalo, New York presents his first instrumental release “Rocking With Elegance” with us at Roots of Society Records. This is a 14 track instrumental / jazzy hip-hop / hip-hop album.

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It’s been a while – too long – since we last featured DJ Manipulator, so let’s rectify that by posting ‘Dim Sum‘, the latest beat in his Manipulator Mondays series. A fine addition to the Word Is Bond archives it is too, as his signature banging drums are laced with a juxtaposed soft, melodic chop of a delicate few bars, not to mention that dim sum is actually a delicious foodstuff, so a shoutout there. DJ Manipulator is actually remarkably consistent beatsmith, as anyone who has paid attention to Manipulator Mondays will know. I don’t think I’ve heard one which doesn’t bang and isn’t weak, and that can’t be said of many. His collaborations with MCs, such as Haze and Louie Gonz, are always strong, and it’d be cool to see some more in future, but for now Manipulator Mondays will do just fine.

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