1) Gangrene Vodka and Ayahuasca (Decon)

2) Lushlife Plateau Vision LP (Western Vinyl)

3) Homeboy Sandman Subject Matter (Stones Throw)

4) Eligh & Amp Live Therapy At 3 ( Legendary Music/Live Up/Traffic)

5) Wiley Evolve Or Be Extinct (Big Dada)

For a change from the usual sales-based Amoeba weekly hip-hop chart this week's Hip-Hop Top Five Chart is my own personal favorite brand new and soon to drop hip-hop releases. Topping the chart is the amazing Oh No and The Alchemist group Gangrene's third and latest collaboration Vodka and Ayahuasca on Decon. Also here is the recent Eligh & Amp Live Therapy At 3 ( which gets better and better with repeated listens and the brand new Wiley
album Evolve Or Be Extinct - a double CD on Big Dada which will appeal equally to grime and hip-hop heads. Not out yet but worthy of mention It is the forthcoming Lushlife album Plateau  Vision LP, which will be released in mid April on Western Vinyl, and is sure to propel to mainstream visibility the South Philly producer/emcee/musician who made waves last year with the much buzzed about mixtape No More Golden Days. As with that mixtape, which was an actual cassette tape, this new CD album blends mid 90's underground NY hip-hop flavor with Dilla/Madlib type production values. This is the sort of well produced album that will make you want to also track down the instrumental version. It's pure pleasure to listen to and Lushlife's flow is a treat to listen to. He is also joined by several well chosen guests throughout the 11 track album including Styles P, Canadian rapper Shad, Heems of Das Racist, and ex-Titus Andronicus garage rocker Andrew Cedermark who joins him on the album track "The Romance of the Telescope." My personal favorite tracks are the throwback eigthies/nineties sounding "Anthem" and the opening "Magnolia" which, over a dreamy hypnotic backdrop and a series of well chosen samples, finds Lushlife rapping about such things as graffiti and Coney Island. This is already making its way to becoming one of my year end top albums.

         

For the past decade the Bay Area half-hour, hip-hop TV show Distortion 2 Static (D2S) has been diligently covering the wide world of hip-hop with an emphasis on both homegrown and national hip-hop, from each element of the genre and providing viewers with a steady stream of talent. Additionally, as its website states, it "offers an intimate perspective into a progressive Hip Hop culture by highlighting the current events within the community and profiling those who are committed to advancing its art forms. The D2S brand also extends itself into fashion, music, and nightlife entertainment." But this week, after one long decade, D2S will call it quits (ten years is "the perfect time to move on" they say) and rather than mourn will celebrate the departure of the show that began in 2001 with a big party on Friday night (Black Friday 11/25) at club Mighty, 199 Utah Street in San Francisco in a farewell party that they are dubbing All Black Everything: Celebrating 10 Years of D2S. that will include sets by DJ Neil Armstrong.

What I personally liked about D2S, which aired on the WB channel in SF, whenever I caught it, (and I watched it mainly in the first half of its decade run on TV and online in clips for the second half of its run) was its genuine love of hip-hop culture in all its elements from graffiti to b-boying and DJing and rapping: and how it lovingly covered so many areas from classic underground 1990's hip-hop videos to (then) new hyphy artists - and amazingly managed to squeeze it all into a half hour show with commercial breaks. The impressive list of artists who appeared on the show is so long that it might be easier to list those who did not grace the screen of D2S. Even more impressive to me was how, despite its budget restrictions, the hard working folks behind D2S did a super slick job on editing and graphics etc. etc.  I have talked to many other fans of the show over the years who similarly thought highly of its commitment to hip-hop's legacy with many comparing it to Yo! MTV Raps back in its early days. Clearly the show was a labor of love with its makers going out of their way to make a quality show for little or no profit.

Celsius 7 is a longtime Bay Area hip-hop artist who has stayed true to the underground over his two decade long career. Most Bay Area music fans were first introduced to him 16 years ago when he arrived on the local underground hip-hop scene as part of the heralded group Psychokinetics.  Since then he's carved out a rep as both a member of that revered indie group and also as a solo artist. Four years ago, when the Amoeblog last caught up with the artist, he had just released his solo debut album Wanderlust. Last week he released the follow up: the album Life Well Spent that can be found at Amoeba Music. This week I caught up with Celsius 7 to ask him about his personal hip-hop history, all the traveling he's done in recent years, his latest album Life Well Spent, the John Lennon Songwriting Award he won a while back, and how his own life has been going since we last chopped it up.


Amoeblog: Exactly how well spent has your life been?

Celsius 7: Well, I've lived the better part of the last thirteen years cubicle-free, and have gotten to travel and perform my music on four different continents. I've fallen in love and had my heart broken a few times. I've eaten well, laughed heartily, and I've followed my dreams. I've learned a whole bunch and still have a thirst and passion for life. It's definitely been an unorthodox approach, and it's been rough at times, but let me put it this way, if I died tomorrow I would feel like I played the game very well.

While most people today, September 11th, 2011, will be mourning those who perished in the 9/11 attacks a decade ago exactly, many others here in the Bay Area will also be honoring the late great local rap legend Cougnut who died ten years ago in an auto accident on September 4th 2001 and was buried exactly ten years ago to this day on September 11th 2001.

The San Francisco rapper, who was distinguished by his unique raspy voiced flow and engaging, relatable lyrics, was known for his membership of the pioneering San Francisco rap crew IMP (Ill Mannered Posse) who arrived on the rap music scene in 1989 with No Prisoners and are probably best known for  their mid nineties album Ill Mannered Playas on In-A-Minute Records. This afternoon, from noon to 3pm in the East Bay, Cougnut's former IMP potna Baldhead Rick and others will be honor the occasion with the Cougnut 10th Year Anniversary BBQ at Lake Temescal Regional Recreation Area  in Oakland.

"When I first heard the news of his death my reaction: of course was shock, sadness and a loss for the  Bay Area rap scene and the sense that something big was taken was from us," recalled Kerry Huffman Vann - co-owner of Urbanlife Distribution & Rapbay.com who originally got to know the well liked rapper when she worked at the now defunct In-A-Minute Records. Despite his intimidating look and gruff voice Cougnut was a warm and friendly individual. Recalling this day ten years, Huffman Vann continued, "My mom didn't want me to go to the funeral that day. The planes had just hit and there were alerts on Bay Area bridges. I told her I had to go pay my respects. I had to be there. I was sad. I had just spent some time with him a couple weeks prior. He was really coming into his own and ready to shine in his solo career. And somehow, he reminded me of 2Pac."

Dub Esquire (a.k.a. Dub Esq) is one of those Bay Area hip-hop soldiers who has been quietly on the grind for two full decades.  Since the early '90s, the Oakland-born and bred emcee has been tirelessly putting his heart and soul into his favorite art form. He is one of those dedicated hip-hop heads who may not be known on a mainstream level but yet has been paying his proverbial dues since the early '90s when he first arrived on the scene in the long-defunct but oft-referenced underground Bay Area hip-hop group Misfitz Ov Stylz. More recently he's been getting props for his solo recordings -- recordings that often blur that division between so-called "rap" and "hip-hop" with the release of the album G-13 and the EP Rap Starz. However, soon both of these fine releases will be eclipsed when, in 2012, he drops his most ambitious project yet, his album The Odyssey with its impressive line up of guest spots that include such luminaries as The Grouch, Del the Funky Homosapien, and Sadat X.