This is ThriftDeepspace 5

Edition

Old Iron Sides by Mars IllStronger, hookier, and more musically adventurous than any-thing outside of Pro*Pain, Old Ironsides is an album worth tracking down, regardless of its independent status. Already Christian rap’s best-kept secret, their stubborn insistence on self-releasing quality projects such as this one will no doubt do nothing to change that perception any time soon. Underground rap fans should sit up and take notice, because Mars Ill are making serious noise.

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SPHEREOFHIPHOP.COM

Listen herePurchase here

Listen herePurchase here

Listen herePurchase here

Listen herePurchase here

Listen herePurchase here

Listen herePurchase here

SPHEREOFHIPHOP.COM

Manchild has been a hip-hop fan since his brother traded his Run DMC (Self-Titled) tape in 1984. In college, Manchild roomed with Joe Brewer aka Sintax the Terrific. Sintax had been rhyming since he was younger, and actually cut a demo with DJ Dove of SFC while he was in High School. DJ Cartoon did a beat for him and everything. At the time Sintax went by a different name which I have been sworn to secrecy not to reveal. Anyway, Sintax convinced Manchild, because of my love of the music and culture, to try his hand at emceeing. That was in 1995.

After writing some rhymes Manchild & Sintax decided to start a group together. That group was called the Pride. They released an album together in 1996 and began touring around South Caro-lina on weekends. The Album, by the way, was a horrible mess. They followed that up with an EP in 1997 entitled “Common Knowledge”. They had met a guy named Jendor (Shadow of the Locust) at CRUvention in ‘96 and they ended up buying 6 beats from him. They also met High Tech the Recon around the same time who laid down one beat for that EP as well.

Back in those days, the internet wasn’t popping like it is now, so finding other like-minded groups was much tougher. Through our limited resources, they found a guy named Sev in upstate NY and a group called Labklik operating out of Arkansas and Oregon, and they really identified with them. During a freestyle on his way home from work in ‘97, Manchild said something about “Deep-space5”. Got home, spoke with Sintax and suggested we start some sort of crew affiliation. They called Sev, Listener and Illtripp from Labklik, and Deepspace5 was formed. Right after that, Sev and the Pride released a split 12” (first piece of vinyl for either of us) and started servicing it to col-lege radio.

Manchild met Dust at CRUvention 1998. All of the Deepspace5 guys at the time (minus Illtripp) were there and were back and forth between the convention and our hotel room/studio writing and recording the original Deepspace5 EP (available at www.deepspace5.bandcamp.com).

Dust was a DJ and producer for a group called DPS (DeadPoetSociety). Within 6 months of meet-ing Dust, I went full time with his group and toured with them for a full year (1999). At the end of that year, Dust moved to Atlanta (Rahlo, the other MC in DPS stayed in Indianapolis) and we formed Mars ILL. We recorded Raw Material and released it independently along with Josh and Sphere of Hip Hop Records. During the process, I had met Playdough over the phone, and asked him to do a song with me for the album. We had met briefly at CRUvention ‘98 but definitely had not connected. He got the beat from Freddie B, we did the song together and “Black Market” Hap-pened. After that, I asked he and Fred to join Deepspace5.

Tortured out of Manchild.

Current events and social justice have always been an important element of my own music. The delay between writing a song and officially publishing it to the world, how-ever, can rapidly date cultural and political commentary in an artist’s lyrics. Unlike a blog which can speak immediately to an event, the process of music produc-tion and distribution necessarily comes at the expense of timeliness. I saw ipoetry as an opportunity to create running commentary set to music. A news report in a song. Or a blog set to song. A “blong.” But, I’m not, nor have I any aspiration to be, a scoop journalist. My goal is to summarize in lyric an important event of our time that might otherwise seem uncommon to musical composition. I anticipate editorializing to a certain degree but I am philosophically adamant that there are almost always two reasonable sides to a story, which should at least be respected in tone.

The songs are neither Billboard hits nor Ivy League analysis. And the videos sure as hades aren’t Dreamworks. But my legal and artistic backgrounds position me to share a take that has a touch of artistry and sophistication in the same moment. It’s one man’s snapshot of events. A rap journal. I’m not sure anyone’s ever tried it. Think “Schoolhouse Rock” for hip hop heads and “Yo MTV raps” for policy wonks. I’m hoping there is a little something there for everyone. (But probably nothing there for anyone.)

Sintax the TerrificLawyer by day moonlighting as a hip-hop iconoclast

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Beat Rabbi and Sintax the TerrificQohelethThe rumors were true. Beat Rabbi and sintax.the.terrific did a med-itation record. It's based on the wisdom literature, Ecclesiastes, or "Qoheleth." Qoheleth means "preacher" or "teacher." It is translated as "ecclesiastes" in our English Bible. Qoheleth is related to a He-brew verb which implies assembling without regard to purpose. Rabbi produced this collection of beats years ago with the idea of possibly releasing them as an instrumental record. Later, he approached me about writing a conceptual album around the themes of Ecclesias-tes. We finished the initial recording, but somewhere along the way, between family, work, and 10 other projects between us, some of the

finishing touches never happened. No serious mix or master. No cuts. But the spirit of the original idea was worth sharing. My homeboy fienix hand painted a cover and completed the fresh artwork. We just thought people might prefer to have a sincere, but less than complete, work, over nothing at all.

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RAP NEWS

Freddie B-R-you-know the flows are fresh

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Sev Back to dustBack to Dert Shooting

Playdough - Writer DyeBible MixtapeAwards

Manchild - InsiderMove MerchantsLife Don’t RhymeYou DOn’t know JaqRed Bull MC

Manchild / Playdough / Heath McNease

Dust / PoemsDust / remix album

Deepspace 5 pageAll releases

Sivion - Butterfly Sessions - other albums / Phat Kats / 4 days in Geneva

Listener - Wooden Hearts - recent Youtube videos - remastered albums

Fong - wanted poster

Beat Rabbi - other albums