Bristol's Finest - Skateboarding + Hip Hop

Sidewalk magazine are featuring the best of skaters from the Bristol area in the December edition. The magazine will come with a FREE DVD of footage with the accompanied by a soundtrack of Bristol music artists. Artists included are Stig of the Dump, Tough Touch Productions, Lowercase, Jon Kennedy, Se Fire, K*Ners, Sir Beans O.B.E and Malakai. There will be 53,000 cover-mounted copies available with December’s edition of Sidewalk Magazine (the U.K’s leading Skate-culture magazine).

You should be able to pick up your copy from all good newsagents, 50-50 stores and Skate Cafes Nationwide. To order your copy on-line: http://sidewalkmag.com

Showing at the Watershed – Bristol – 12th December 2009

Bristol’s Finest a scene DVD from Fifty-Fifty, Bristol in Bloom and Skate cafe is premiering at Bristol’s Watershed Cinema on Saturday December 12th. With footage from Matt ‘Boyo’ Williams, Andy Makepeace, Nicky Howells, Korahn Gayle and many more from Bristol.

On The Radar Artist Profile: Chattabox & Lowercase

Name: Chattabox & Lowercase

Age: 23

From: North East and South West

Track on ‘On The Radar’: 'The Rugged Brothers'

Tell us the story behind the track: Me and Otis from Lowercase wanted to make an absolute pig ignorant battle track. I met Otis and Sober at a gig in Bristol, I like the idea of a monster mash of regional accents so we formed like Voltron to create ‘The Rugged Brothers’ a 2 headed arrogant s**t bag fuelled with piss and cider. After the track was completed we did enjoy a lovely tea and a bourbon to celebrate our success.

Record Label: The Swamps

Who you roll with: Chattabox of the North East crew Dialect, Samuel Otis of the South West crew Lowercase, Sober of Sober & Dribbla, Milestone of The Cohorts, Mr Monk of Fat Club and DJ Rogue - together we're collectively known as ‘The Swamps'.

Favourite album(s): Dain't have one.

Describe your style in three words: mint, belters, cushty

Past/Present/Future projects: The Swamps have an album coming out later in the year called ‘Hard Graft’ featuring some all-star guest from all different parts of the country. Expect sick flows and regional accents! Lowercase are also working on their album, and Dialect's album 'D.Day' will be dropping in March and it features Vast Aire, Copywrite, D Strong of The IRS, Mic Assassin and more…

www.myspace.com/chattaboxdialect

What? You haven't downloaded the whole thing yet? 19 more tracks of UK Hip Hop? Do it!

'The Audio Workout' - Vee Kay (album review)

Vee Kay’s producer album ‘The Audio Workout’ is a perfectly cut gem. At 11 tracks and 34-ish minutes long it’s short but incredibly sweet. Vee Kay himself said “I don't listen to music to bring myself down, I listen to it to try to cheer myself up” – this album makes it evident he makes music to please himself; whilst in no way soft it’s cheery stuff.

The chosen samples are funky, soulful and uplifting. The productions don’t just fall back behind the voices of the MCs – they have their own presence (an area where producer albums often fall). It’s the pure musicality of this album that’s made it one of my most played in the last month or so.

The guests are a well selected mix of known names and the skilled up-and-comers. ‘Lok Dat Remix’ is just that, a version of Vee Kay’s track from Wordsmith’s forthcoming LP (Vee Kay has other beats on there too) and it features Dubbledge and Micall Parknsun – in my world that’s star studded! Stig and Syntax rear their double-time heads on ‘Goldwings’ and Dead Residents own ‘Bogey Homecide’ – a hilarious ode to flicking snot. Wordsmith features a second time on the tuneful ‘Bring Me Down’ – it gets me in sing-a-long mode!

Dialekt, Lowercase, Yosh and Cariz provide the other vocals, holding their own on the bangers courtesy of Vee Kay. Of the 7 MC-fronted tracks here there’s no stinker, it smells just rosy.

‘Third Child’ is an awesome demo of skill – a Hip Hop show tune if I ever heard one. The ‘Intro’ and ‘Outro’ are also worth a listen, they bookend the album nicely making the whole affair comprehensive.

‘The Audio Workout’ is one of my favourite releases this year and it’s released digitally on November 24th on Sweatbox Sounds.