Yesterday after stopping by Amoeba Music Berkeley to talk with E-Lit at the East Bay Amoeba about the new hip-hop releases of the week (check back here on Friday for the latest Hip-Hop Weekly Rap Up Amoeblog) I ran into local indie hip-hop talent Celsius 7 outside the store on Telegraph Avenue who - on the spot - did the above freestyle rap. Celsius 7, who has been interviewed here on the Amoeblog a couple of times including five years ago around the time he released his debut solo album Wanderlust, officially began his hip-hop career back in 1995 when he formed the group Psychokinetics along with his best friend Domingo (aka Spidey). The group, that soonafter added iLL MEDia and Dj Denizen to the lineup, never officially broke up but haven't done anything as a crew in years.

Without Psychokinetics Celsius 7 has remained active in hip-hop as a solo artist and his lomgtime musical partner Spidey even makes a cameo on his latest solo album Life Well Spent. The longtime East Bay emcee/producer who, as he explained in his second Amoeblog interview a few months ago when his latest CD first dropped, that the album had been in the works since 2008 when he first started writing some of the new songs adding that, "I worked diligently on Life Well Spent for probably about the last year....It just took me awhile to find inspiration as I was maybe a little bored with my chosen creative outlet. Once I started getting all these good beats from all these producers I solicited, it all pretty much wrote itself. Sometimes that's all you need; the right beat."

One of the best beats on the album is on the standout album track "Pop Rox" which is a heartfelt engaging song that acts a wonderful paean to the 1980's hip-hop (from old school to early golden age periods) music and culture that the East Bay native grew up on, and clearly loves with a passion. Yesterday Celsius 7 told me that he is currently working on a video for "Pop Rox" which should be a good video since he covers a lot of ground in it - including references to how, when he was lil un growing up in Alameda, he would breakdance for fun but admitted to me, with a laugh, that he was "a horrible" breaker. Look for Celsius 7's albums Life Well Spent and Wanderlust at Amoeba Music.