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airadam · 7 months

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Episode 172 : Yield To None

"Do you wanna be dope, or do you wanna deal it?"

- Common

All Hip-Hop at a nice steady pace - but a varied platter of vibes - for this episode, as I celebrate my birth month!

Great personal news : I'm very proud to be included in the new "Hidden Histories : Black in Manchester" resource by Parise Carmichael-Murphy - have a read!

Twitter : @airadam13

Twitch : @airadam13

Playlist/Notes

Meyhem Lauren & DJ Muggs : GT3

From the car-themed "Members Only" 2019 collaboration between Meyhem and Cypress Hill DJ/producer DJ Muggs, this track integrates the sound of some very angry engines as an additional instrument/element of what is otherwise an extremely sparse bit of production - drums and bass only. Meyhem is laid-back and comfortable at this pace, crafting a track that even those of us without a Porsche on the driveway can appreciate - well, as long as our speakers or headphones deliver the goods!

[RZA] Raekwon : Can It All Be So Simple (Remix Instrumental)

You might detect a little sonic garbling where I was using Serato's "stems" feature to try and remove the vocal samples in the hook, but other than that here's the glorious sound of a hard-to-come-by RZA instrumental of a track from the monumental "Only Built 4 Cuban Linx..." LP. Rae, Ghost, and RZA took their track from the Wu-Tang debut LP which was already a classic and subtly made it a little darker, a touch rougher and a little less nostalgic. A masterful remix and rewrite.

Roc Marciano : Ridin' Around

A very different kind of rider music to the opening track, but still with an ominous bassline which helps carry the vintage crime vibes perfectly. This is a deep cut from Roc Marciano's seminal solo debut "Marcberg" album, with his gangster wordplay on full display atop a track with more drum action than on much of his later work.

Showbiz & AG : Trapped

This is one of those records which, despite being by a highly respected group, has likely slipped under your radar. The DITC production legend Showbiz is here under his original name (you can find much of his other work credited as simply "Show") alongside his day one MC AG on this late-night creep number from the 2012 "Mugshot Music" album.

Planet Asia ft. Prodigy : Stick & Move

If you love your dark, underground NYC Hip-Hop, you might have heard this sample used elsewhere, but for the current episode this is the slow, menacing, bi-coastal track that gets the nod. Fresno and Queensbridge in combination as Planet Asia and Prodigy (RIP) go back and forth over an Evidence beat on this 2005 release. Not even a hint of going for the pop audience here, just gutter from start to end. Got to respect it.

Mud Family : Itchy Town

I've been holding onto this one for absolutely years! I first heard this on a "Radio Zero" show courtesy of Dave The Ruf, and it's a dark, brooding piece of UK boom-bap from this highly-regarded north London crew. Centred around the MCs Chester P, Skinnyman, and Mongo, they released their core work in the late 90s and early 00s, with this absolute beast being on their very first wax release, 1997s "The Mud Files, Vol. 1". Production on the EP as a whole is credited to Deckwrecka, Firebomb Fritz, and Mad Money Wah - not sure who did what on this cut, but I applaud them for cooking up a track that still bangs after over twenty-five years!

DJ Premier : Dee Ell P

It's been over a decade since DJ Premier gave us a "Beats That Collected Dust" collection, but there's a good reason for that...as he correctly points out, the beats that end up included have to be given time to collect that dust! With that said, the third edition is out now, and is a good digital pickup while the (likely pricey) vinyl works it's way through distribution to the shops. As for the title of this selection from the new release, I haven't deciphered it yet. "The LP"? Was it a track meant for Large Professor, perhaps? Probably overthinking it - just enjoy the master of the MPC 60 going back into his vaults.

Mabanua ft. Kev Brown : Holdin' It Down

I had completely missed this but was introduced to it by none other than Kev Brown himself when he played it on one of his "Beats 'n' Stuff" shows on Twitch! While he drops plenty of unreleased material, he'll throw in overlooked gems from his discography like this one, a collaboration with Japanese beatmaker Mabanua. Given that Kev is on the mic all the way through, I can only assume that Mabanua did the production here - even though it has that Kev Brown feel in spades!

De La Soul ft. Common : The Bizness

An old classic from some of the greats. If you don't already have De La Soul's "Stakes Is High" album, you can now easily buy digitally or stream it, so get on that! This track has, apart from one regrettable homophobic reference from Common which the label partly censored, bars upon bars of heat on a self-produced track that you can't help but nod your head to. I can also think of at least three Hip-Hop tracks that sampled/scratched lines from this one, which is a sure sign of a piece of work that has your peers paying attention!

Blu & Exile : Berries and Juices

You can't help but bop to this, Exile's beat has an undeniable bounce and while Blu does say "beat so sweet that I ain't even gotta do s--t", he unquestionably lifts it to that next level with a couple of chilled verses. Bonus points for the "Coming To America" reference 🙂 Take heed to the title of the album this is drawn from - "Give Me My Flowers While I Can Still Smell Them" - and apply that sentiment to not only this duo but all the artists you enjoy!

pH7 ft. Access Immortal and DJ Roger Rekless : New York

A long-lost track that only resurfaced for me during the Great Digitisation of 2020-2023! A trans-Atlantic collaboration with German artists pH7 (Cologne) and DJ Roger Rekless (Munich) coming together with Bed-Stuy MC Access Immortal for a jazzy number with solid boom-bap underpinnings, tight cuts, and an overall clean and refreshing sound. You can find this on the somewhat obscure "Blazing Heat" EP,

Ilajide : Ayerloom

Taking it back (ok, not that far back) to 2015 for a beat from "Latex", the first solo LP by one of my favourites, Ilajide of Clear Soul Forces. That drum beat could have come from an 80s Hip-Hop classic, as could the rest of the sounds on the track - and yet, as a whole it doesn't seem of that era. This Detroit beatsmith isn't afraid to go after a certain sonic hardness that other producers might shy away from in the modern era, and it's that banging aggression that helps set him apart.

Kuartz : Glitch In The Ghost

Local beat legend Kuartz released his new LP "Hybrid Dialects" this month, and it's a collection of bassy, techy, angular production that is well worth spending your hard-earned cash on! This was the first track I heard from it, which he debuted earlier in the year at Manchester's WORKINONIT beatmakers event - it was so raw that I had to ask him for an advance copy 😁 I've played it on Twitch a couple of times but now here it is as a taster for the album.

Grand Agent ft. Liv L'Raynge : Ooh-La-Lah

I hadn't heard this for absolutely ages until pulling it out earlier this month, which is a sign that no-one I've been listening to has been playing it either! Grand Agent collaborated with Oxnard production wizard Oh No on the "Under The Circumstances" LP which this track is drawn from, and the album has the husky-voiced MC Liv L'Raynge as the featured guest - with this track being her standout performance. She burns it down on the opening verse over Oh No's heavy beat, and really steals the whole show to be honest!

Coyote ft. Shaquille O'Neal : 3 Lokos

I first heard an excerpt of this on Instagram - not sure it was on Shaq's page, but either way it sent me to go ahead and find the full version of this new single! Coyote is the pairing of Ladies Love Guapo and Ricky Blanco, neither of whom I know already but they both spit rugged on this track, which they produced alongside Brian Lee and on which they were specifically going for a hardcore 90s feel. I know, I know...you want to know about Shaq. Well...he kills his verse. The doctorate-holding four-time NBA champion has been recording since 1993's guest appearance on "What's Up Doc?" by the Fu-Schnickens and his "Shaq Diesel" LP, and despite a long break he comes out spitting with that hunger!

K-Otix : World Renown

Classic underground Hip-Hop right here from 2000, and now available along with the rest of the "Universal" LP on Bandcamp, so no reason not to put some dough in the artists' pockets! You might hear this record and think NYC, but nope - this is a Houston record! It might have been releaed on Bronx Science record, but the skills are all Texas-raised. The incredibly memorable beat comes from the man known as The ARE, who has also done some amazing work outside the crew, and Damien and Micah take the vocal reins. Big record.

DJ Spinna : Surely (Instrumental)

As we move with the wind-down, here's a beautiful track from the studio of DJ Spinna, taken from the instrumental release of his solo debut on BBE, "Here To There". With Ovasoul7's vocals gone, the guitar of the late UK jazz guitar legend Ronny Jordan and the programming work of DJ Spinna get to take centre stage, giving the track a different dimension.

Method Man ft. Ghostface Killah : Afterparty

An appropriate record to end the show with! A dope sing-songy exchange between Meth and Ghost starts the track off, and the melodic approach pops up throughout the track in between straight up bars over a smooth beat from a producer credited simply as "Q", but better known to most as Qur'an from Da Youngstas (sorry, can't bring myself to put the incorrect apostrophe in!) Still my favourite track on "Tical 0 : The Prequel", just as it was on first listen.

Please remember to support the artists you like! The purpose of putting the podcast out and providing the full tracklist is to try and give some light, so do use the songs on each episode as a starting point to search out more material. If you have Spotify in your country it's a great way to explore, but otherwise there's always Youtube and the like. Seeing your favourite artists live is the best way to put money in their pockets, and buy the vinyl/CDs/downloads of the stuff you like the most!

Check out this episode!

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dippedanddripped · 4 years

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As the number of abandoned storefronts and closed retail outlets continues to mount, the once unremarkable activity of shopping at brick-and-mortar stores can feel like reality askew — like a stroll through the Twilight Zone. As this glum new normal becomes, well, the norm, signs of life can be almost as jarring.

Take, for instance, a pair of storefront windows on Beverly Boulevard in West Hollywood. Just recently they were lifeless reminders of an upscale furniture store, now defunct. Then, in August, they began to fill with seemingly unconnected objects: bluejeans piled in a chest-high mound, a lounge chair upholstered in denim, a mannequin in a jumpsuit with an eyeball for a head standing amid a sea of paint-splattered drop cloths.

Hand-painted signage in the other window offered only that this “Appointment Only” storefront with the cryptic displays, and the 6,000 square feet of retail space behind them, are the domain of Gallery Dept.

Despite the name, Gallery Dept. isn’t a gallery or a department store but a hybrid clothing label that sits somewhere in the Venn diagram overlap between street wear label, denim atelier, neighborhood tailor and vintage store. Just as accurately, you could call Gallery Dept. the personal art project of its founder Josué Thomas, a designer whose own creative urges are just as disparate and layered.

With so many small brands in a state of retreat this summer, Mr. Thomas’s label has not only weathered these spirit-crushing conditions but thrived. In less than two years, Gallery Dept. has moved from a crowded workshop a few blocks down Beverly Boulevard to its new space in part because its hoodies, logo tees, anoraks and flare-cut jeans — each designed and hand-painted by Mr. Thomas on upcycled or dead-stock garments — have become unlikely objets d’art in a crowded street wear market.

This corner of the fashion industry is a crowded one, and in recent years there have been a glut of collaborations and merch drops that have taken on a corporate cadence. In contrast, Gallery Dept. is something of a bespoke operation, offering street wear basics that are blessed with an artist’s (in this case Mr. Thomas’s) singular touch.

Mr. Thomas began to cut jeans and screen-print shirts as the mood struck in 2017, and since that time Gallery Dept. has grown from an underground cult label for collectors to one with atmospheric clout after being worn by Kendall Jenner, LeBron James, Kendrick Lamar and two of the three Migos (Offset and Quavo).

Those lucky enough to enter the appointment-only space, now booked with up to 20 appointments a day, are greeted inside by a 20-foot-tall span of wall that reads, “Art That Kills” in a large crawl text, and the occasional reference to Rod Serling’s seminal sci-fi program.

Throughout the sunlit store, Mr. Thomas’s abstract paintings and writings fill the spaces between clothing racks and bright brass shelves heavy with the brand's thick hoodies and sweatpants. Over the chug of sewing machines, one can hear snippets of bossa nova Muzak, a vinyl-only mix also made by Mr. Thomas. (There are also plans to release music by other artists, including the New York rapper Roc Marciano, under an Art That Kills imprint.)

Gallery Dept.’s new space was financed on the strength of e-commerce sales from this past spring, and not with the help of venture capital or outside investors, Mr. Thomas said on a recent walk-through. This freedom gives him and the label, which now employs 12 people, the freedom to operate on its own esoteric terms. And there are a few. In the store’s dressing rooms, there are no mirrors to survey a fit. (“We’re going to tell you if a piece works or not,” he said.) Nor are there price tags on its garments.

“If the first thing you look at is the price, it’s going to alter your thinking about a piece,” he said. “I’d rather people engage with the clothing first.”

The Gallery Dept. does not indulge pull requests from stylists or send its pieces to influencers, a practice Mr. Thomas explains with a trace of punk indignation.

“Kendall doesn’t get a discount,” he said. “We don’t seed. I don’t care who it is — we don’t cater to different markets.”

Wearing cutoff carpenter pants and a white T-shirt, each dusted in a fine rainbow splatter, Mr. Thomas looked every bit like an artist roused from his creative flow, complete with paint-stained hands and individually colored fingernails. Standing in a mauve-carpeted room, Mr. Thomas pointed out his latest ideas: pewter jewelry in eccentric shapes, like an earring in the shape of a zipper pull, made in collaboration with the Chrome Hearts offshoot, Lone Ones, and shorts cut from dead-stock military laundry bags — while explaining the origins of his own style.

“I liked my parent’s clothing growing up,” Mr. Thomas said. “As a teenager, I was able to fit into my dad’s leather jacket. The beat-up patina on it was perfect, and I realized that that was personal style. It was something you couldn’t go to a store and buy.”

Mr. Thomas, who turned 36 in September, never studied fashion or garment making, and he can’t work a sewing machine. But growing up as the son of immigrants from Venezuela and Trinidad, he watched as his parents subsisted on their raw artistic skills to create a life in Los Angeles. And he now uses those same talents as an artist and designer: sign-painting, tie-dying, screen printing. For a short time, his father, Stefan Gilbert, even ran a private women’s wear label.

Similarly, in his early 20s, Mr. Thomas worked at Ralph Lauren. As one of the few Black people in creative roles in a predominantly white company, he soon realized that the only way to survive in the fashion industry would have to be with a project of his own making.

“I was the ‘cool’ Black guy, but there was nowhere for me to go,” he said. “Best case would have been sourcing buttons for women’s outerwear or something.”

Gallery Dept.’s spontaneous inception came about in 2016 when Mr. Thomas sold a hand-sewn denim poncho off his own back to Johnny Depp’s stylist. At the time Mr. Thomas was focused on making beats and D.J.-ing, but after selling all of the pieces he’d designed for a small trunk show at the Chateau Marmont, he realized he’d discovered a new creative lane.

It had less to do with ponchos, which were dropped from subsequent collections, and more to do with old garments being remixed in the heat of artistic paroxysm, with as little second-guessing as possible. With the help of Jesse Jones, a veteran tailor, Mr. Thomas began churning out made-to-order pieces for customers who often were unaware of what, exactly, they had stumbled into.

“We were creating pieces while we were selling them,” he said.

Working with heavy vintage shirts, hoodies, trucker hats, bomber jackets, whatever was at hand, Mr. Thomas would frequently screen-print the brand’s logo, adding paint or other flourishes as the feeling struck.

Today that extends to long-sleeve tees, sweatpants and socks. At the time, he also began blowing out the silhouette of vintage Levi’s 501s and Carhartt work pants into a subtle flare, accented with patches and reinforced stitching, resulting in a streetwise update of the classic boot-cut jean.

Mr. Thomas christened this style of jeans the “LA Flare.” And where denim has so historically hewed to “his” and “her” categories, the LA Flare is the zeitgeist-y “they” of street wear denim. (The label labels its items as “unisex.”)

The jeans come with a luxury item’s price tag, with a basic version starting at $395. Custom tailoring and additional touches by Mr. Thomas, can push the price upward of $1,200. One early collaboration with Chrome Hearts, a pair of orange-dyed flares patched with that brand’s iconic gothic crosses, has gone for $5,000 on Grailed.

“There is nothing like Josue’s repurposed jeans,” said George Archer, a senior buyer at Mr Porter. “They are both a wearable piece and a work of art. No one else is doing what he’s doing.”

For Mr. Archer, who first noticed the Gallery Dept. logo popping on men in Tokyo in March, Mr. Thomas “interprets and creates” clothing as if it was an end in itself — and not a commodity to be monetized. (Nonetheless, Mr Porter hopes to monetize a collection of Gallery Dept. pieces via its e-commerce site later this year.)

“You can feel the warmth of Josue’s hands on each of the pieces,” said Motofumi Kogi, the creative director of the Japanese label United Arrows & Sons. An elder statesmen of Tokyo’s street wear scene, Mr. Kogi found the label on a trip to Los Angeles last year. It’s not only Mr. Thomas’s artistic touch that stands out to him but his vision for remaking a staid garment into something that Mr. Kogi believes has not been seen before.

“He took this staple of hip-hop culture and refreshed it,” he said, referring to Carhartt pants.

Getting the people who make that culture to buy in was another matter. “The first year we did the flare, in 2017, skinny jeans were in,” Mr. Thomas said. “Rappers would come into the shop and say they’d never wear a flare. Now, everyone is wearing it.”

On Instagram, fit pics by rappers like Rich the Kid, along with the aforementioned Migos, Quavo and Offset, Gallery Dept.’s flare has become a familiar silhouette, skinny jeans breaking loose below the knee, usually coiled up at the ankle around a pair of vintage Air Jordans.

One fan of the jeans, Virgil Abloh, sees Mr. Thomas’s “edit” of the classic garment as the next chapter of its history.

“Their flare cut is the most important new cut of denim in the last decade — since the skinny jean,” Mr. Abloh said. A self-described Levi’s “obsessive” who owns more than 20 pairs of Gallery Dept. jeans, he walked into Mr. Thomas’s workshop one day after a routine stop at the Erewhon Market across the street.

“I thought: ‘This is amazing. Here’s some guys editing their own clothes in a shop,’” he said. “It reminded me of what I was doing when I started out, painting over logos, making hand-personalized clothes.”

Mr. Abloh considers Mr. Thomas’s work to be the fashion equivalent of “ready-made” art, and he offers Shayne Oliver of Hood by Air as a distant contemporary. He suggested that he and Mr. Thomas come from a lineage of Black designers that is still in the process of defining itself.

“He’s a perfect example of someone creating their own path from a community that hasn’t traditionally participated in fashion,” Mr. Abloh said. “I see Josue as making a new canon of his own, showcasing what Black design can do.”

Mr. Thomas didn’t argue with that. But he was also a little preoccupied with whatever was taking place at the tips of fingers to get lost in the thought. The future of his brand, after all, depends on his ability to stay in that moment.

“People want things that aren’t contrived,” he said, pulling at his own shirt to drive the point home. “This paint came from me working. I wanted to recreate this feeling. Once something is contrived, when you can see through it, it’s ruined. There’s only so much you want to explain.”

#design #gallery dept #streetwear blog #upcycle designers

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