Artists
who's who and who's doing what?iSWHAT?!
line up
- Brent Olds (b)
- Cocheme'a Gastelum (sax)
- Hamid Drake (dr)
- Napoleon Maddox (voc)
- country:USA
- style(s):Hip Hop Jazz
- label:Discograph
- type:Band
- gender:male
- instrumentation:instrumental, vocal
- artist submitted by:
booking territory: GAS
2012: april / mai
Don't adjust the speakers. That is the legendary riff to Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" skronking on tenor saxophone underneath the spitfire rhymes of Napoleon Maddox. Busting out of the Midwest with their 2004 debut, You Figure It Out, on HYENA Records, Maddox and avant-jazz sage Jack Walker (tenor sax) from Cincinnati/Ohio were greeted with declarations like: 'ISWHAT? are going to rescue hip-hop. The trio are part of a movement that is promising to bring originality back to underground beats.' (STYLUS) and They're all about what's happenin' that a lot of people ain't even hip to yet.' (Rahzel/ The Roots). Since 1997 ISWHAT? are spreading their re-conceptualized vision of their individual generations' musical languages: jazz and hip-hop. While the core of ISWHAT?'s sound is based on human beatbox rhythms and sharp, incendiary horn lines, iSWHAT? haven't turned their back on the improvisational tendencies of their past, but have consciously applied greater focus to constructing durable hooklines. iSWHAT? seized upon the opportunity to question U.S. foreign policy, but also called out the government and corporate America for what they saw as the exploitation of violence and poverty in African-American communities. And while Napoleon Maddox takes on the system, he also questions his peers in both the hip-hop game and his own community.
CD: Big Appetite [discograph/alive 2009]
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