Chadio & The Dirty Sample’s No Wives Club drops on May 14, but pre-orders for the cassette or digital versions of the album are now live. Order now and get the songs “Clocking In” and “Partner” (featuring SOS aka Sauce). And stream the full album right here for a limited time only:
About No Wives Club It’s a classic team up as underground Canadian legends Chadio and The Dirty Sample join forces for their first full-length collaboration. The two rapper-producers have known each other through live shows since the early 2000s, but aside from a few remixes they hadn’t really worked together despite their desire to do so. Cut to 2020: Chadio and The Dirty Sample are both going through breakups, so No Wives Club is born. The Dirty Sample provides a classic era Vancouver sound over which Chadio is able to express how they are both feeling. It’s no surprise heartbreak, betrayal and relief are major themes of the album, but Chadio also explores the feelings of rapping as an old man in a young man’s game.
About Chadio & The Dirty Sample Chadio cut his teeth freestyle battling on Vancouver radio show The Morning Drive By with Maximus Clean, and stood as the freestyle champ from 1998-2000. Since then he has released eight solo albums and additional projects as a member of Imaginations Treetrunk (with Azrael and Aalo Guha), Quoted Motives (with Azrael), Dance Dance Revolution Will Not Be Televised (with Azrael, Shay Faded and Cons), and 50 Fingers (with Azrael, Kaboom Atomic and the Gumshoe Strut). He has established a unique vocal style that is organic and flips easily between flows and rhyme schemes while his lyrics tend toward the personal. Chadio also started making beats in 2016, and recently he has been releasing bootleg projects and beat tapes as Pasquale.
Calgary’s The Dirty Sample started rapping at an early age, evolving through a series of aliases from Planit through Crash Silverback and Apeface to current MC alter ego Ol’ Gorilla Bones, but he found his true calling when he wasn’t getting the beats he wanted and picked up a sampler. Now with 30+ albums under his belt, The Dirty Sample has a catalogue that includes instrumental works, remix projects and numerous collaborations. His biggest hit, Raw Produce (Phonographique, 2015), received positive features from XXL, Mass Appeal, Complex, and 2DopeBoyz thanks to key single “Three Sixty Five” with Roc Marciano.
Nevamind & Royal-T (The Yesmen) release their fourth and final release with this self-titled album. Originally recorded in 2016 and finished just one week before Royal-T’s passing, the album was therapy for T and an opportunity to chill with his hip hop fam before his time was up. With debauched lyrics about sex, drugs, and the rap life, The Yesmen and guests flip through a variety of flows over Nevamind’s neck-snapping production. Aside from a current mix of the album, all ten songs remain as T would remember them, and they continue to hold up five years later.
The duo met in Thunder Bay, ON, in 2000, when chopper Royal-T competed in a rap battle where judge Nevamind—a rapper, producer, photographer and comedian—was so impressed he invited the battle rapper back to his Nevres home studio and subsequently impressed T with his own mic and production skills. The two quickly became like brothers, and would constantly “yes” each other, leading to their group name. They dropped their first album together, TBay Classics, in 2002, and followed up with NO in 2012, and the Return of Pee Wee EP in 2014. In between The Yesmen albums, Nev and T also released a number of solo albums and collabs with their fellow Deepcave fam.
Nevamind & Royal-T’s The Yesmen drops April 16 on digital, CD and cassette from Hand’Solo Records.
“It’s refreshing to see something like this in music, as it does feel like the cassette itself could put a curse on you or one of your enemies.” – Raised by Cassettes
Very awesome to see this excellent review of Magick Show’s Dark Night of the Soul cassette posted today at Raised by Cassettes.
Read the review below, or click the image to read it on their site and see more photos…
Celebrate the one-year anniversary of Mickey O’Brien’s Twin Flame – The Honeybear Saga with this remix of the EP by DJ Matto. It’s a whole new experience!
The EP drops on February 26. Pre-orders are open. You can preview one song on Bandcamp, but you can preview the full EP here, and only here, until the album officially drops…
If Spotify is your app of choice for music streaming, please consider pre-saving Twin Flame – Reshuffled, DJ Matto’s remix’s of Mickey O’Brien’s love- and lost-themed EP from last year.
Revolutionary rhyme ripper Mickey O’Brien, repping Sudbury, ON, has built a name for himself as a relentless force in Canadian hip hop music. Since moving on from Kill the Autocrat, O’Brien has released a solo album and an EP, as well as another EP as one half of horror duo Magick Show, each one unique, bold, and raw. All on Hand’Solo Records. To celebrate the one year anniversary of Twin Flame – The Honeybear Saga, O’Brien’s love- and loss-themed project heavily influenced by the Tarot, DJ Matto (of Japan’s +/-) reimagines and remixes the EP. Or rather, he reshuffles the deck.
To introduce Twin Flame: Reshuffled, dropping on February 26, 2021, O’Brien presents the video/single for “The Tower (Reshuffled)”, the video edited in the land down under by Greenboots. The track is an unflinching dive into love, relationships, destiny and desire, drawing on Tarot imagery, key to the EP’s concept. The Tower card represents chaos and destruction, and a negative Tower event can be akin to a bomb going off in your life. You don’t know how you will survive, but as the song relates, ultimately it makes you the person you are.
Credits: Written and performed by Mickey O’Brien Remixed by DJ Matto Cuts by DJ Uncle Fester Mastered by Dorc
The year 2021 is a big year for Hand’Solo Records as we celebrate 25 years releasing the best in underground Canadian hip hop, beginning in 1996 with Bassments of Badmen. A bunch of cool surprises are planned for the year, and the first of these is a small batch of toques (or beanies, as they’re called by non-Canadians) embroidered with the Hand’Solo logo. In honour of the 25th Anniversary, there will only be 25 in this design.
In less than a week, Donald Trump will leave office as a one-term president, and it can’t come soon enough. “OZ”, Magick Show’s second single from their Dark Night of the Soul EP, drops on Jan 20 to celebrate, but we just can’t wait so we’re dropping the video early…
Magick Show is a rap duo out of Sudbury, ON, combining the distinct styles of working class poet Mickey O’Brien and lyrical/sonic explorer Max Moon. Their debut, Dark Night of the Soul, released in October, is an abrasive departure from their solo projects. “OZ”, the final track, takes a step outside of the horror-mystic aesthetic to focus more on the true horrors in the world. With guest Moka Only on the hook, the duo fast-forward through the years to imagine a post-apocalyptic scene where might is right, scarcity is common, and the marginalized are constantly on the brink of survival. The release of “OZ” marks the duo’s wildest and most timely release yet, dropping on January 20 to celebrate the departure of Donald Trump as U.S. president. The “OZ” video, created by Baked Clown Animation, is a bad yet thoroughly entertaining acid trip through the worst and most ridiculous elements of 2020, better known as The Worst Year Ever. ”OZ” is produced by Juno-nominated producer and Sound Battle Royale champion Fresh Kils, with scratching by turntable renegade DJ Slam!.
New lyric video and DJ Pack from Primal Winds out now…
Fighting the system is hard work and sometimes you just need a break. But how are a pair of programs supposed to do that in The Grid? Head to Argon Square, of course. So when Primal Winds need a break from the doom and gloom of their fourth album, The Renegades, which explores how the dark themes of Tron parallel our own world, District Prime and Iron Wind jump on their light cycles and hit the city to let loose for “Neon Lights”. Wind’s original production is a head-nodding throwback to inspirational 80s movie montages anchored by a soulful hook from frequent collaborator Alexa Ourania. The single also includes a mellow, introspective boom bap remix from DJ Matto while The Cybertronic Spree drummer Rumble kicks the drums and synth into overdrive to transform the song for his remix. In addition to these three catchy versions of one song, “Neon Lights” also receives the lyric video treatment thanks to Janelle Designs. …Because you deserve it, program!
