Bay Area female emcee Hopie may not yet be a household name but that could all soon change once the hip-hopper's brand new self-released album Raw Gems, which with production by 6Fingers captures the artist at her best and in some excellent company (guest  spots from  MURS, Del the Funky Homosapien, LuckyIAm, Moe Green, Psalm One, Josie Stingray, and Donwill) makes its way out into the hip-hop sphere and hip-hop fans catch up on this San Francisco secret. The new album, which dropped this week, is the third full-length album from the artist who until very recently went by the rap name Hopie Spitshard and who was also known as simply Hopie Spitta. Tomorrow night (Thursday September 15th) the Manila, Philippines born and Daly City, San Francisco raised artist will be throwing a big record release party / hip-hop showcase at 330 Ritch for which she'll be joined by an array of local talents  including DJ Snayk Eyez, La Femme Deadly Venoms, Rocky Rivera, and Hard Candy, 

A lot of good things, it seems, have happened in this artist's life of late; on both a personal and an artistic level. In her personal life Hopie, who many of her diehard fans feared had dropped out of the hip-hop game for good since they hadn't heard much from her for a few years, had taken a couple years off to focus on law school which she graduated from last year. Since then the tireless woman has kept busy working in the studio on both Dulce Vita, which dropped earlier this year, and on the brand new Raw Gems. 

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.

Longtime Oakland hip-hop artist  Del the Funky Homosapien (the Hierogyphics member formerly known as Del tha Funkee Homosapien) has been making innovative, quality hip-hop music for over twenty years now.  And, as shown by the emcee & producer's impressive new album, Golden
Era, he shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

Del's impressive discography dates back to his his 1991 major label debut I Wish My Brother George Was Here on Elektra. In addition to numerous other solo artist albums, such as No Need for Alarm (1993), Both Sides of the Brain (2000), and Eleventh Hour (2008), he has released collaborative project albums including the two with his longtime crew the Hieroglyphics (1998's 3rd Eye Vision and 2003's Full Circle) and the wonderful but slept on Parallel Uni-Verses (2009) with Tame-One of NewJersey's Artifacts fame.

On a wider scale, however, Del is perhaps best known for his work with Dan The Automator as Deltron 3030, who released 2000's acclaimed self titled album, and his brief but well-received work with Gorillaz, for whom he helped make the 2001 hit debut single "Clint Eastwood." Del's latest release, Golden Era (released last month by The Council), is a 3 CD set (for the price of one) that includes the all new Golden Era album plus two albums that previously were only available as special download formats, never in physical format: Funk Man (The Stimulus Package) and Automatik Statik, which were both released in 2009. I recently caught up with Del to talk to him about such topics as the new album, the anticipated next Deltron release, and why he changed the spelling of his name. This is what he told the Amoeblog.

1) Jay-Z Blueprint 3 (Roc Nation/Atlantic)

2) Fashawn Boy Meets World (Loud)

3) Sean Price Kimbo Price (Vision Mktg)

4) Del the Funky Homosapien & Tame One Parallel Uni-Verses (Gold Dust Media)

5) Sene & Blu A Day Late & A Dollar Short (Shaman Work)

Clearly Jay-Z is the king of the world, or at least of hip-hop right now. Not only is the phenomenally successful and popular artist number one (still) on the Amoeba Music chart with Blueprint 3, an album that came out almost two full months ago, and one that is doing equally well elsewhere, but last night Jay-Z along with Alicia Keys wowed the baseball world with a moving four minute performance of "Empire State Of Mind" (video above) during the World Series at Yankee Stadium. As a diehard, decades long fan & supporter of hip-hop music and culture from back when the genre was still being dismissed as a "passing fad," I found last night's well received performance another wonderful bit of validation and endorsement of a music form that I love and respect so much. In fact, so moving was last night's performance that it no doubt inspired the Yankees achieve their 3-1 win against the Phillies, which puts them at a tie, in this second game of the Series, which shifts to Philadelphia over the next three games, starting tomorrow, Saturday.