Addi "Mindbender" Stewart

Exclusive Interview with Torae & Marco Polo

by Addi "Mindbender" Stewart September 14, 2009 Exclusive

Transcribed by: Sean Deez & eA Note from Deez: The Interview is already quite long as it is, so I won’t bother with any type of introduction. Marco Polo and Torae have been put on display on this site plenty of times. You know their names, you know what they do. Enough talking, let’s get [...]

Raekwon: The Best Rap Crack Money Can Buy

by Addi "Mindbender" Stewart September 8, 2009 Exclusive

Today, history is officially made. Only Built For Cuban Linx Part 2 is available to the world. It’s been 14 years in the making, a lifetime and a half in hip hop chronology. But the righteous ones live forever in music, and Shallah Raekwon is nothing short of an Older God and Grandmaster MC in [...]

Smif N Wessun: Hellucinations in Heaven

by Addi "Mindbender" Stewart August 13, 2009 Exclusive

Fascinated by the Blackberry vocal recording function, Cocoa Brova number two aka General Steele of the legendary group Smif N Wessun marveled at the state of technology today when I sat down to talk to them at a posh hotel tucked into a swanky slice of King St. Tek aka Smoke had an iPhone, which [...]

Wu-Tang Clan: Chamber Music

by Addi "Mindbender" Stewart July 27, 2009 Music Reviews

Ominous string instruments. Bootleg kung fu movie samples. Wisdom cautiously spilling from the sealed lips of ancient martial arts masters. Sword strikes. Track titles like “Supreme Architecture” and “Kill Too Hard.” Yes! Just when autotune was declared war upon by the likes of King Jiggamayne, this secret second roundhouse to the loudmouth of rap wackness [...]

De La Soul: Are You In?

by Addi "Mindbender" Stewart July 24, 2009 Music Reviews

F’real, Posdnous was God to me in 1993. F*cking G-O-D. I know every word, breath and inflection of “Breakadawn,” even though nobody on earth knows the actual meaning of 85% of the lyrics they say on it. That song resonates infinitely deeper now because of its immaculate use of Michael Jackson’s “I Can’t Help It” [...]

Ciara: Fantasy Ride

by Addi "Mindbender" Stewart July 3, 2009 Music Reviews

Remember when De La Soul and Tribe Called Quest used to dis the shit outta R&B? Not on some childish hater shit, just on some self-pride b-boy shit? Those were the days. The vibes and stuff of modern music was much more raw and uncut. Today, it’s all one crazy ass unbelievable blur. Not three [...]

Tona & Lyve: Direct Deposit

by Addi "Mindbender" Stewart June 30, 2009 Music Reviews

Toronto has been patiently waiting to jump in the (cess?) pool of hip hop music since Maestro Fresh Wes set the standard of excellence in 1989, spilling his flexible flows all over the breakbeat bliss of “Let Your Backbone Slide.” Twenty years later, Canada STILL hasn’t exactly stamped themselves across the map of rap, not [...]

The Foreign Exchange at Revival in Toronto [6/5/09]

by Addi "Mindbender" Stewart June 17, 2009 The Show

Photo credit: Philip Litevsky [dopealot.com] Some stuff doesn’t translate from the record to the stage as exactly as a dreamer can imagine. The mini-cult that has formed in Toronto’s Dilla-crazy, new-millennium rhythm and blues (“neo-soul” is nearly as bad as saying “urban”) obsessed populace has slowly but surely treated Little Brother (and all things OkayPlayer [...]

Torae & Marco Polo: Double Barrel

by Addi "Mindbender" Stewart June 15, 2009 Music Reviews

DJ Premier rambling heartfelt, intelligent thoughts as an intro? Blaow. Your album is pretty much automatically certified to have a certain true school aesthetic, auto-tune be damned. Anyone who’s been listening to rap long enough should instinctively travel that path of rhythmic thinking. Torae? Marco Polo? Double Barrel? What caliber of music are you aiming [...]

Killah Priest: The Exorcist

by Addi "Mindbender" Stewart June 1, 2009 Music Reviews

In these Afghani-Israeli-Sri Lanka wartorn days and times, you can’t go wrong with an explosion-filled, Falluja-like wartorn album introduction to dive into someone musical madness. But having that soundscape seamlessly secure itself to Killah Priest in Heavy Mental mode, spitting hellfire on the same ominous violins Shyne destroyed on “Whatcha Gonna Do” on his debut [...]

Mr. Lif: I Heard It Today

by Addi "Mindbender" Stewart May 28, 2009 Music Reviews

Almost out of nowhere, we get the new Mr. Lif album. Strangely, it’s not on Def Jux. On Lif’s own eclectically-titled Bloodbot Tactical Enterprises Label, I have to say that Lif is off to a very auspicious start, if he was thinking of helming his own sonic soldier of fortune mission similar to Definitive Juxtapositions. [...]

Busta Rhymes: Back On My B.S.

by Addi "Mindbender" Stewart May 25, 2009 Music Reviews

8th solo album? Damn, time flies fast. I vividly remember chilling in my basement getting my skull blown off its shoulders by the earthquaking impact of “Everything Remains Raw” like it was like, two days ago. If only Busta Rhymes remembered what that shit smelled like… First and foremost, there is certainly nothing “Blessed” about [...]

Wale: Seinfelding the Game

by Addi "Mindbender" Stewart May 10, 2009 The Show

*Big Shouts to Jay for hooking up access to the show and big shouts to Mayan for hooking up some great pictures* I saw him rock last week, and honestly, I expected more. Not that he wasn’t decent, or didn’t have flashes of powerful potential, but straight up, I didn’t see what the hype was [...]

Tanya Morgan: The Unknown Roses of Rap

by Addi "Mindbender" Stewart May 4, 2009 The Show

What’s in a name? That mysterious question continues to linger subconsciously in the psyche of all creative artists, as well as in the minds of the supporters of art. What musical elements combine to make The Roots everything that is “The Roots”? What defines the artistic realm of Nasty Nasir Jones? Is there really a [...]

Classified: Self-Explanatory

by Addi "Mindbender" Stewart April 21, 2009 Music Reviews

It’s a brand fucking new day in hip hop, both Canadian and across the world. Veteran Halifax rapper/producer Classified has released Self-Explanatory, one of the best, most cohesive, thoughtful, and well-crafted Canadian hip hop albums in years. With the abhorrent proliferation of Auto-tune-tainted, money/hustler/make it rain/trap rap, the near demise of “abstract, backpack rap” (damn [...]

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