>I really like the use of piano in Brother Ali's the puzzle. Do you listen to Atmosphere at all? Broth Ali and Atmosphere are on the same label, and the guy who does the production/beats (Ant) is the same for both. So you'll find a lot of those nice piano style beats on the later albums by Atmosphere like Can't Imagine How Much Fun We're Having and When Life Gives You Lemons. This track comes to mind: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5VRXTEGO2w Atmosphere and Brother Ali are easily my favorite hip hop, but I'm biased cause they are from the Twin Cities and I get to see them live a couple times a year.
Wow this is the most powerful song I've heard in a while, I'm so glad you recommended me to Atmosphere: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEHTTFOwsDs. I swear it gave me goosebumps. Makes me think about how lucky I am to have my dad in my life. Thank you.
Always fun to share a favorite group with someone. When you mentioned you liked the piano type beat I figured you'd like Atmosphere stuff. Atmosphere are local heroes, and my favorite hip-hop group by far. You'd probably also like "The Waitress" off of When Life Gives You Lemons, "Became" off of The Family Sign, and Pour Me Another and Get Fly off of Can't Imagine How Much Fun We're having. All of those have a heavy piano to their beats. Ant is a big fan of the "dirty piano" sound, and you'll find it on lots of their tracks. It's why they are easily my favorite group, as I play piano, and love it when it's mixed with a hip-hop track. If you're the type of person that likes supporting artists on small labels, here is where you can buy their music directly. If you buy from their "Fifth Element" store they get all the profits. They also have a brick & mortar store by the same name in Minneapolis where they sell all their shit. They don't mind pirates, but they try to make it easy for people to get their music (DRM-Free) through their storefronts. They also release a free album almost every year, which you can get there, and they are just as good as their studio albums (sometimes better). http://fifthelementonline.com/collections/rhymesayers Cheers, hope you enjoy them! :)
We don't have accents except waaaay up North in "Iron Range" territory. In the Twin Cities there are little to no accents. The movie Fargo gave us a bad stereotype. We all talk like what I would consider normal, or like how the majority of people sound on TV or in movies(if that makes sense).
His stage name is "Ant", short for Anthony. He works on "Rhymesayers Entertainment" label, which is the label he and Slug founded years ago, and the same label Brother Ali is on. They have some other great local acts on there as well, and Ant does some of the production for other artists as well, but mostly Atmosphere and Brother Ali, who he normally does the whole album for. He is who does the beats for Atmosphere and Brother Ali. Ant technically is one half of Atmosphere, Slug being the other half of the duo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_(producer) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhymesayers_Entertainment I'm convinced he is Steven Segal.