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Chewbacca makes a silly mascot for Random Axe at this San Francisco leg of the Rock The Bells tour.

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London rapper Paul White has a video for his single “Trust” that you could download last week. You can buy his first full-length Rapping With Paul White from his Bandcamp page.

“We don’t know where we’re going but we sure make a lot of noise getting there!” – so goes the tongue-in-cheek opening to Paul White’s Rapping With Paul White, the gifted South Londoner’s first full-length vocal hip-hop project. The album features the bold, moody personality of the UK producer and features a cast of characters including Guilty Simpson, Danny Brown, Homeboy Sandman, Tranquil, Marv Won, Moe Pope, Jehst and even a delightfully peculiar poem from folk singer Nancy Elizabeth. Rapping With Paul White will be released on August 23rd via One-Handed Music.

The first single from Rapping With Paul White features previous collaborator Guilty Simpson. The Detroit heavy-hitter goes in hard over Paul White’s sparse, brooding electronic beat, dropping tales of caution with customary menace. Download “Trust” below and the bonus track “The Doldrums”, also on the album, which just might be the finest slice of medieval vocoder hip-hop you’ll hear all day.

(MP3) Paul White – “Trust” ft. Guilty Simpson:
http://paulwhite.bandcamp.com/album/trust-ft-guilty-simpson

Paul White first made his name with 2009’s instrumental opus The Strange Dreams of Paul White which led Diplo to declare “I’m his biggest fan” and The Independent to label him “a 21st century DJ Shadow”. While included in the ‘beat scene’ alongside Hudson Mohawke, Flying Lotus and others, Paul White’s hip-hop sensibility has always been at the forefront, which partly explains why his 2010 podcast for LA’s Stones Throw Records racked up 300,000 downloads in just a few weeks and alerted a new audience to the young Brit.

All this meant that assembling some of his favorite MCs for Rapping With Paul White was the easy part. Stones Throw artist Guilty Simpson appears twice, his grim warnings perfectly matching the sparse, brooding production on lead single “Trust.” Gap-toothed, mohawked Danny Brown is one of rap’s rising stars – a recent signing to A-Trak’s Fool’s Gold label, his lewd punchlines top White’s exuberant production on the not-safe-for-work “One Of Life’s Pleasures.” There’s humor in New Yorker Homeboy Sandman’s turn too, as one of hip-hop’s most likeable lyricists recounts his cultural missteps during a trip to London over a quintessential Paul White track.

It’s not all Americans on the mic: Jehst shows why he’s one of the UK’s most respected MCs on Indigo Glow, and One-Handed Music label mate Tranqill lays waste to Rotten Apples in the album’s grittiest moment. There’s plenty for fans of his instrumental work too: from waltzing drum machines to medieval vocoders, the interludes are every bit as compelling as the vocal tracks.

Tracklist:

Intro: We Make A Lot Of Noise
Right On
Trust ft. Guilty Simpson
Run Shit ft. Marv Won
One Of Life’s Pleasures ft. Danny Brown
The Doldrums
Life Is Flashing Interlude
Stampeding Elephants ft. Moe Pope
Rotten Apples ft. Tranqill
Thirty Days
A Weird Day ft. Homeboy Sandman
African New Wave
Indigo Glow ft. Jehst
Dirty Slang ft. Guilty Simpson
A New Way
Evasive Action
Wily Walruses ft. Nancy Elizabeth
Outro: We’ll Never End

Detroit trio The Left, comprised of producer Apollo Brown, rapper Journalist 103, and DJ Soko, are celebrating the release of their debut album, Gas Mask, today with “Reporting Live,” the first official release from the album featuring fellow Detroit wordsmith Guilty Simpson.

Apollo jumps things off with a soulful grittiness — the track seamlessly mixes Apollo’s vocal chops, horns, and heavy drums – and the instrumental serves as a perfect match for Journalist’s own gravelly vocals, as he rhymes, “Reporting live from the gritty blocks of Rock City/ Forgotten sound of Motown produced by many/ Rappers come a dime a dozen, but not many/ Can carry the status of legends, I hope that y’all hear me.” Guilty follows in step with his own verse (“Young killers take it in blood/ Dirt doers get wet up, then pigs come play in the mud”), and Detroit city imagery abounds as the two Rock City vets take you on a tour of their hometown.

The Left’s Gas Mask is available now via Mello Music Group.

Download The Left’s “Reporting Live” here:
http://media.audibletreats.com/The_Left-Reporting_Live_Ft_Guilty_Simpson.mp3

iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/gas-mask/id392459687
eMusic: http://ow.ly/2ZLtO