Kingston-based Hip Hop artist Five Steez and Montreal-based producer Son Raw join forces on the explosive new album Re:DEFined, in a collaboration combining trenchant observations of artistic life in Kingston with a global sound palate refracted through crunchy, hard-hitting beats.
Backed by a diverse set of rhythms, sounds and subjects, Re:DEFined is a journey both inward and outwards, from reflective, orchestral missives (Diamond Gem) to soulful observations of everyday life (Juggle, Simple Man) to nocturnal bangers (The General, New Kingston). Re:DEFined creates a space for nuance and experimentation, while still delivering bass-heavy beats and heartfelt rhymes.
Kingston MC Five Steez has linked with São Paolo, Brazil-based SonoTWS for a new album titled Quietude. During the eleven-track offering, Five Steez gives insight and inspiration, sharing his personal journey, interspersed with street cinema, racial commentary and romantic tales. The scenes throughout the album are complemented by Sono's soundscapes that are mostly drenched in soul and jazz, but become ominous and urgent when necessary.
Quietude boasts features from Five Steez's partners in rhyme Nomad Carlos and The Sickest Drama from The Council of The Gods, Shanique Marie from the Equiknoxx Music label, Bad FX, who collaborated with Sono previously on their album Together, and early Griselda Records affiliate Tha God Fahim, who also appeared on The Council's first album.
The culmination of three emcees and three producers, Trilogy is the latest full-length missive from The Council Of The Gods, Jamaica’s foremost Hip Hop collective.
Five Steez, Nomad Carlos and The Sickest Drama of The Council consistently blur the lines between true school knowledge dropping and the latest wave of experimental sonics running Hip Hop, representing not only for their Kingston home, but for a generation of heads at the margins.
Production comes from Time Cow, Sawandi and Son Raw with A&R-ing by Equiknoxx Music.
HeatRockz 2.0 boasts boom bap bangers, made of moody, dusty and atmospheric beats, paired with top-tier rhymes marked by precision and ease. The EP begins with Five Steez establishing himself on the opening song as Commander in Chief before making it clear he's The Vanguard. He takes over on A.B.S. and lets everyone know who is king on U.G.K., the EP's final track.
“The process for HeatRockz 2.0 was the same as before,” says Mordecai. “I cooked up a batch of the hottest beats and sent them over for Steez to do his thing.”
Five Steez says, “The main difference in the approach this time was that I locked in at home because of this pandemic and did most of this project in one weekend.”
Pantone features four songs that will get heads nodding, having fun and even reflecting on life and death, all within 15 minutes.
The project opens with the track Spesh FX, featuring Nomad Carlos, a fellow MC of Five Steez in the four-member collective The Council. The party starts with What's Your Vibe? - a funky cut with an infectious groove and melody put together by J-Zen. Steez then takes a couple minutes to assert himself over any competition on No Debate. The final song, We Can Never Know, explores life's uncertainty, with Five Steez opening up in his first verse about friend and collaborator France Nooks, who passed in February 2018.
"J-Zen and I did these songs between late 2017 and early 2018," says Five Steez. "Now, our schedules have given us the time to wrap things up and share it with the world. I'm excited about this project because it's the same true school boom bap Hip Hop people know me for, but it's a very different groove, sound and texture from anything I've ever released."
J-Zen says, "I had been following Five Steez for a while and had heard his EP HeatRockz with Mordecai. I knew he was an artist I wanted to work with so I reached out and we made it happen. I'm proud to now present Pantone to the people and I hope they enjoy the music as much as we enjoyed making it."
Stream on All Platforms: http://fanlink.to/Pantone
Love N Art features 9 tracks of jazzy and soulful boom-bap Hip Hop meant to inspire hope.
“This is my most honest and personal project yet,” says Five Steez. “I believe it is my best body of work thus far and the music is very universal because of the sound and the message.”
Mordecai, who produced the entire album, says, “Five Steez has easily been one of the most consistent Hip Hop acts in Jamaica and it was a joy to help in adding on to the discography. This is an album for Hip Hop heads, but also anyone that appreciates good music with meaning and substance.”
Love N Art opens up with the song Give Thanks followed by the Shaq the MC-assisted Dreamer, which was released as the third single. Steez then speaks to some ladies he encounters on All I Need and gets back to business after on Work.
The song which began the album campaign in September, True Original, appears fifth on the project, and Shaq the MC returns as a guest on The Message, a powerful song about redemption and being one’s best self.
The theme of hope continues as the album progresses to Some Day and Days N Times, the last single released in January. Love N Art then closes with the title track – Love N Art (What I Feel) – where Five Steez emphasises the importance of knowing one’s purpose and worth.
Straight out of Kingston, Jamaica, comes an epic body of work from a group of lyricists who have upheld the essence of Hip Hop in their city for many years. The Council, formed in 2015 by long-time collaborators Inztinkz, Five Steez, Nomad Carlos and The Sickest Drama, has finally released the 16-track album Nothing Else Matters, exclusively on Bandcamp.
Nothing Else Matters, produced and mixed by Inztinkz, with art direction by Jomé Anderson and Warren Buckle, features hard-hitting, neck-snapping drums and majestic instrumentation, matched by superb rapping, articulating an unheard ‘third world’ perspective, but a narrative similar to other cities globally.
Nothing Else Matters goes only a few minutes past the one-hour mark. The project showcases a variety of sounds and topics, tied in sonically and thematically, with a Jamaican perspective being the common thread. An album with such depth and diversity is rare in Hip Hop today, and is ground-breaking coming from Kingston. With this effort, The Council has proven its place in the upper echelon of MCs and has represented its city in a new and creative way.
HeatRockz is Five Steez's first collaborative EP with producer, Mordecai. It is his most aggressive project to date and features ‘true school’ boom-bap Hip Hop bangers to keep heads nodding. “This is my first project without that much of a theme,” the rapper says. “It’s really me having fun, flexing my skill and making high-energy music ideal to play in the car or hear me perform at a show.”
The EP's opening track, Dirty Couch, is a dusty-sounding "bona fide headnodder" with Steez taunting inferior rappers. He follows with Encore, an energetic banger with which you can see him rocking his audience in a packed venue. The HeatRockz continue with Mic to the Check on which Steez fits in pocket on an uptempo beat with a catchy hook and his signature wit. The fourth cut is True School which features him pledging allegiance to Hip Hop's core principles and ethics over an eerie sample chopped by Mordecai. The project closes with Gods Collide, a reunion track with longtime collaborators Sosa and Nomad Carlos over a quirky but gritty instrumental.
'These Kingston Times' by Five Steez is a digital 8-track EP which captures the modern tale of the Jamaican capital, Kingston.
“I wanted to paint my city the way I see it, and in a way I've never heard the story told before in music,” says Five Steez. “Since Hip Hop’s genesis with DJ Kool Herc, there has always been a Jamaican influence and involvement in the genre, but you've never heard about actual life here in ‘yard’, as we affectionately call it. It's a new perspective in Hip Hop, but parallel to that of urban environments worldwide.”
Five Steez presents an unapologetic, raw and gritty reality-based portrayal of his city, described as a “paradise and a slum”. While Jamaica is recognized worldwide for its music and athletes among many other things, the country has developed an unenviable reputation of having one of the highest rates of murder and questionable killings by police as well as widespread government corruption. Much of this has historically taken place in Kingston.
This free EP features remixes of fan favourites from the Five Steez debut album, 'War for Peace'.
“I’m not usually a fan of remixes but I had multiple versions of the song ‘Growing Pains’… so I always knew some sort of remix project for the album could manifest. After the album was out, Zitro reached out, to me, to remix ‘Yard Nigga Rap’ and I liked what he sent back. From there, I put the word out that I was doing a free remix EP. Over a few months, I got dozens of remixes, some from producers already on the album and others from those who never had the chance to make it. I ended up choosing the best remixes that gave the tracks a different but natural feel. New beats, same boom-bap.” - Five Steez
'War for Peace' is the August 2012 debut album by Five Steez.
“This is real music to help people in the struggle find peace. It is new millennium boom-bap Hip Hop with soulful production, heavily themed with a lot of commentary, storytelling, introspection and raw lyricism on display." – Five Steez
      |
