 Some people just make music. It's rare and powerful when an artist goes beyond the scope of just 'making music' and becomes an entirely different being. Guante is more than just good music, he is a force of creative energy, and activist and above all: a teacher.
He lives here - Why is Guante so angry? It's not merely a website for his music, it's a dedicated news feed to the thoughts and mind behind Guante. He has made appearances on numerous lists, including: URB Magazines "Next 1000" and City Pages "Artist of the Year" - but his music alone isn't what makes him so magnetic, he is literally a teacher to the younger generation. Lightning is taken from his latest release with his go to producer, Big Cats! To me this song embodies all that Guante is: powerful, creative, uplifting and haunting. It's the type of song that you spin once, and immediately have to spin it again because you want to catch everything you missed the first time through. It teaches you something about yourself that has always been there, you just might not have seen it right away. Couple songs like this, with him actually teaching kids about Hip-Hop and poetry and you start to see how important Guante is. | |
Imagine Superman sitting down to draw his own comic, imagine Wonder Woman not just saving peoples lives but taking the time to get to know them, joke with them, comfort them - to build real relationships.
Guante - Hope is Something You Build
| After hearing his words, you slowly start to grasp the spectrum of Guante. He is a moving target, a puzzle piece of emotion, excitement, struggle, pain, hope and change - his most powerful feature? He invites you to express your story, show your excitement, pain and hope. He is bigger than a MC, he becomes art.
 Not much needs to be said about Mike the Martyr. A quick Google search for his name will yield a shit-ton of results. Needless to say the man is making moves locally and nationally.
He lives here: Lake Street Store But what about the tunes? Simply put, it's like a home cooked meal.
A quick breeze through his Soundcloud page and you almost immediately hear what I'm referring to. He contains the ability to mold those organic, soulful samples into the beats that painted my earliest Hip-Hop dreams. Thumping drums, vocal samples wrapped around pianos, flutes, guitars, saxophones and organic melodies. It's soul-food for your ear. This is the sound that made me fall in love with hip-hop, it's the wisdom of the ancients refreshed by a new pair of ears. The drums are dirty, the bass is full and the head-nod is on full-automatic. One of my favorites off of Lake Street Bar 3 - "09 September 23" Instrumentals like this sort of hug you, it feels a bit cold like Minnesota which he proudly reps so well, yet warm like the Street he constantly pulls from. Headphones on and drift out.
 His latest effort finds himself splitting production with a few others, along with microphone time. His flow fits perfectly with his production. They are mirror images; smooth, clever and unpolished to perfection. I don't mean unpolished like it's lazy, or unclear - I mean unpolished like a blues solo, like a groove, it's hypnotic. He managed to get a few local MC's to step a hair out of their comfort zone, specifically Prof on East Lake. I find some of his best work is when he's alone rocking over his own production - Different Stages.One of the best parts of all of this awesomeness? It's free - just click and throw it in your headphones while you move through the city, Mike dishes out a perfect soundtrack. I really enjoy the flip up on Lake Street Lauryn - Also can't complain with the Lauryn Hill sample.
 Kuley - or as I would call him, an infectious mix of positivity, self-made production, creative energy and lightning fast machine gun rhymes. It's hard to not be drawn to him, he's lyrics contain so much positivity that it's hard to not believe him, it's hard to not sing a long, and it's hard to not pay attention.
A member of the Breath of Life Audio camp, their YouTube channel is practically a dedication to him. A few loose tracks here and there and an official video for "We Are The Change" "We Are The Change" finds Kuley at his best. Simple production, enough to keep the head nod in full effect, occasional busts of rapid fire delivery, nicely placed between nuggets of ego and enlightenment. After casually mentioning the possibility of starting a riot he preaches:
"Just kidding, real name is Ryan - Stand for peace, love never violent."
Quickly you can sense his overall presence and theme: he will kill you with delivery and word play, but there are no guns here. This line actually appears visually on the screen. I believe it is completely intentional because Kuley's music carries this theme throughout. On "Dreamers" he touches on a little bit of everything - love, heartache, humor and above all - hope. All tightly bound by the passion to create Hip-Hop. After a few more verses of quick-wit-quick-spit wordplay, the infectious hook rings clear: "They try to bury us, but we just carry on.
We know we are the change, our nights are very long.
We stand here, not afraid - rain right before the dawn.
Raise up the sun inside, and silently we make a song."
While the bulk of his catalog remains positive, he's not afraid to throw down:
Oh yeah - and maybe I made light of this point up above so I'm going to stress it now. HE MAKES ALL HIS OWN BEATS (except where noted - there are a few guest productions). Enough can't be said for MC's that are able to craft with words and with music - my hat goes off to him on this fact alone!
Well well well - Common Labor has finally done it. We have created and are about to release to the public our first album! Yay!! To celebrate, we've created a sweet music video (down below) and are throwing an AWESOME release party. Seriously I'm crazy excited about this one, the line up is absurd - crazy, ridiculous good. It's soo good that right here, on The Basement, I'm going to profile each act individually:
Sunday 13th - Kuley
Sunday 20th - Mike the Martyr
Sunday 27th - Guante
Feb. 3rd - MaLLy
(He's no stranger to the basement - Catch him TWICE on the podcast.)
So kick back - enjoy the video - enjoy the album - and come enjoy the Release Party with us!! Common Labor "Tales of the Troubadours" Release Party
Common Labor
Guante
Mike the Martyr
Kuley
Hosted by MaLLy
Saturday February 9th 2013
Hells Kitchen, MPLS MN
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