A Short Hiatus

Sorry guys for the brief hiatus. I'm currently temporarily handicapped with a broken foot, and Gavin's been extremely busy working on his music venture. Check him out, Cities Aviv HERE. Honestly, I never really understood the difference between "good" hiphop and just bad rap, until recently. Not to be extremely cheesy or pretentious, but Gavin has really helped me broaden my musical taste, including learning to appreciate good, intellectual hiphop (not that all music needs to be "intellectual.").  However, that being said, most of our exposure to rap, unfortunately, seems to be what we hear on the radio- Lil' Wayne(?), Drake..etc (honestly, I had to google even these two to be able to write about them, pathetic, huh?), and for the most part, all you hear is foul/vulgar language about the objectification of women or even worse, almost incomprehensible and unintellible noise about nothing united with beats that are quintessentially "southern" with the "ts-ts-ts-ts." Sorry for the rant. Good rap, on other hand, (in my humble opinion), appropriates samples from old soul songs or have beats that are complex and leave your brain feeling almost overwhelmed! It's awesome! A really great example is Madlib on Stones Throw Records from L.A. Seriously, check him out. I recently purchased a record Miles Away by Madlib, under one of his many aliases, The Last Electro-Acoustic Space Jazz and Percussion Ensemble as a thank-you present for one of my professors, who is undeniably one of the biggest jazz-snobs out there, and he loved it! All of this was a really round-about way for me to say that Gavin's music is up there with many of these other rappers that he always goes on and on about and looks up to such as: Jay Electronica from New Orleans, Strong Arm Steady, MF Doom..(even if he is too humble to admit so). Unlike most of the crass radio rappers, Gavin, or Cities Aviv has writing that is infused with subtle word play, punning, and metaphoric language- truly music that makes one think and requires time to process, possibly even a thorough second-listening. Definitely check him out at his myspace and stay in tuned for a potential show in late June or early July as well as the release of his own album, Dead Days.