by Jake Espinoza.
“Green and Yellow, Orange and Black, This is Oregon State/ Free Music, cop that shit on the release date” – Cool Nutz
Oregonians are a bit spoiled with all of the free/cheap entertainment options available to us during the summer, and as a way to show appreciation we are donating six free albums this month from a selection of our most talent artists.
Oregon loves you. You’re welcome.
This may actually be the biggest month in the history of Oregon’s Hip-Hop scene. If anybody can think of a month that compares please fill me in…
Cool Nutz’ “The Cook Up” and Luckyiam’s “I Love Haters” produced by A. Kruse–originally from Salem–both came out today. Amsterdam and Goodwill have a project being released later this month called “Earth and Sky”, Luck-One’s mixtape “King of the Northwest” is being released August 30th alongside Braille’s highly anticipated “Native Lungs”. Also, 9DM’s “Drunk Enough to Drive” is dropping August 9th, and he lives SUPER close to Oregon (we’ll have much more info on all four as their release dates approach).
“I Love Haters” is another example of Luckyiam showing people how to sound cool on the mic. There are very few rappers who can tell a better story about having sex with a girl after a concert than Luckyiam (I think he actually posted a related video on Twitter one time). Kruse did a great job with the diversity of his production. The album itself has been finished for a couple of years now, and is available to download for free via L-R-G.com. Kruse told me that he’s been a fan of the Living Legends since he was in high school, and that putting the album out with Lucky is a huge accomplishment. The album also features Slug, Pep Love, and Aceyalone. Kruse gets on the mic on So Simple Back Then–a track about how simple life was before bills started stacking up.
My least favorite part of the album is honestly probably the title, but ironically the title track is one of my favorites.
This is not the first album Luckyiam has done with an Oregon producer. He teamed up with Sapient and formed the group The Prime a few years back. They released their debut album “One Uppers” in 2009. Sapient said the Prime has at least another album worth of material already recorded and waiting to be released.
Cool Nutz’ “The Cook Up” features production from some of the finest in Portland including Tope, Trox, Calvin Valentine, Terminill and Lawzspoken. He also kept it very Portland with features from Mikey Vegaz, Dubble 00, Kenny Mack, Illmaculate and Only One, and included a track produced by DJ Quick featuring Potluck called The Good Life.
Where Luckyiam and Kruse love haters, Cool Nutz seems to find them a bit of a plague to the game.
“They become everything that you fear/my hearts so cold cause love don’t live here”
The album bangs throughout, and the cool out tracks produced by Tope and Calvin Valentine really help give the album a complete feel. This is an album you can throw in at the party and let play all the way through. Cool Nutz best work so far. Go download it now at www.raphater.com.
#FreeAlbumAugust
#OutHerePDX
#LetsGO