Hip-hop is an incredibly diverse musical genre that has a bad reputation no thanks to the American mainstream branch of it. People who write-off hip-hop as idiotic, materialistic, violent or misogynistic are only getting a small slice of what it’s about. Since hip-hop has become international there are a wide array of ideas about what hip-hop should be today in 2009 and beyond. Anyone who has ever enjoyed the music will gladly give you their opinion about what “real” hip-hop is. Truth be told, after 30 plus years of existence, there is no “real” hip-hop. Hip-hop emcees, DJs and producers come from all walks of life. With such a wide variety of backgrounds, there can be no definitive hip-hop sound. Since there can be no definitive sound, there’s no reason to disregard hip-hop music that uses classic New York blueprints as the jump off for something fresh and new. Just as there’s a place for rock artists to try and capture a classic 60s and 70s vibe in their new recordings, there’s certainly a place for hip-hop producers, DJs and emcees to try and capture a vibe that’s widely regarded as classic.

With “Classic Material Vol. 3: UI Radio”, CM aka Creative, his various collaborators and producers all present to you hip-hop that’s both new and classic. Musically it reflects back to an early/mid 90s sound, topically, it captures all that a young, struggling and striving American emcee has on his mind. It’s the 3rd part in a series of releases which began at the netlabel Random Flow.

When it became clear to CM that Random Flow had become inactive, he approached me about releasing Vol. 3 through blocSonic. Having enjoyed both Vols. 1 & 2, I was instantly interested. I hope you’ll enjoy this release as much as I do. If you dig it, be sure to check out the previous volumes.

Thanks to CM for coming to blocSonic. Thanks to you for downloading and enjoying. As always, share this release with anyone and everyone.

Want high-resolution album art, liner-notes or lossless FLAC audio? Check out the blocSonic release page!