Fresh off their partnership with Strange Famous Records, Tru Ruts/Speakeasy Records has secured a national distribution deal with Independent Distribution Collective (IDC). IDC, based in the Bay Area, is the distribution home to dozens of labels and artists. They strive to create ‘a whole new avenue for current and next generation artists who are trying to bring their music to the public.’ They have distributed titles for artists such as Lee Scratch Perry, Toots and the Maytals, Bill Ortiz (of Santana), The Future Sound of Breaks, singer songwriters Kim Garrison and Katie Garibaldi, SonicBloom Hip Hop Collective (Bay Area), producer DNAE Beats (Gift of Gab, Mr. Lif, Pigeon John, Universal Records), King Tubby, Bad Brains and others. IDC will begin distributing Tru Ruts titles in January 2010.
Rising indie label, Tru Ruts, recently released Guante + Big Cats! album An Unwelcome Guest, in addition to Start A Fire (Guante + Big Cats!) and The Good Company EP (Chantz Erolin + Cory Grindberg), both of which were chosen as one of the ‘Best of the Midwest: EPs’ (Midwest Broadcast). In genres ranging from hip hop to spoken word to reggaeton, world music and more, Tru Ruts has released a number of critically acclaimed albums and compilations, with a roster of rising artists in their respective fields. For more information, contact Tru Ruts at info@truruts.com.
E.G. BAILEY’S ‘BLUES PEOPLE’
Surprising + Refreshing
blue black and beautiful
are we
many colors
the sun. god’s breath
whispering through song
through wombs, pregnant
with freedom
‘He makes language live.’ – Amiri Baraka
Tru Ruts/Speakeasy Records presents a free download of spoken word artist E.G. BAILEY’s ‘Blues People’, from his upcoming album, AMERICAN AFRIKAN. The free download is available at these links:
‘Blues People’, a call to peoples across the diaspora, looks towards hope for those still struggling in this new world. Bailey utilizes imagery in a skillful and refreshing way in speaking about the multiplicity of the Black experience in America. Marrying it against a jazz-inspired musical backdrop couldn’t have been a smarter choice. It allows the poetry to have a grandeur and resonance. Recorded live in Minneapolis’ nationally recognized spoken word scene, and performed alongside saxophonist Andy Shaffer, of ‘New Orleans Swamp Pop’ outfit, Skinny Longfeet, there is a raw guttural tonality informing the relationship between the music and words. Evoking a call and response, reminiscent of early gospel and blues, the piece allows each to maintain it’s own identity while carefully courting the space between one another.
Bailey’s astute relationship with the rhythm of language, coupled with his academic background as both a student and teacher of poetry, is prevalent in his musical and metaphorical choices. As Bailey has stated, the poem, winner of the Hughes Knight Diop Poetry Award from the Gwendolyn Brooks Writers Conference, strives to tell the history of Africans in America through the craft of writing. It provokes you to connect with the pain of that struggle. A well crafted piece of spoken word, it continues to show why e.g. bailey can be found at the forefront of the art form.
Bailey’s spoken word opus, American Afrikan, will be released in early 2010. Recent spotlights on e.g. bailey:
Strange Famous Records + Tru Ruts
to offer exclusive pre-sales of ‘An Unwelcome Guest’
“Earnestness can go wrong in hip hop. On this album, it goes very right.” –Sage Francis
Tru Ruts/Speakeasy Records’ release of “An Unwelcome Guest,” the hip hop concept album from Twin Cities duo Guante & Big Cats, will be available exclusively through Strange Famous Records until its official release on January 12th, 2010. The indie-rap powerhouse, home to Sage Francis, B.Dolan, Prolyphic (who guests on the album) and other forward-thinking artists, will sell the album through its web-store at www.strangefamous.com.
Following the pre-sales period, rising indie label, Tru Ruts, will make the album available in stores and other distribution outlets, however, ‘An Unwelcome Guest’ will continue to be available via digital download through Strange Famous Records.
“An Unwelcome Guest” tells the story of one man fleeing the zombie apocalypse. It may sound original, but isn’t. The post-apocalypse concept has been done to death. What is original, however, is the way the duo plays with perspective, pushes the boundaries of hip hop narrative and somehow makes a love story about zombies, superheroes, displacement, violence, struggle, and America work.
Big Cats’ beats could almost tell the story themselves—intensely cinematic, the production walks the line between crazy outer-space simmering funk and straight-up hip hop bangers. Guante, part of the championship 2009 National Poetry Slam St. Paul team, writes like a poet but doesn’t rap like one—the songs are hook-driven, dynamic and instantly quotable. Unapologetically political, unflinchingly descriptive and undeniably ambitious, the album is the duo’s first full-length collaboration.
Listeners who buy “An Unwelcome Guest” through the Strange Famous store will receive a signed copy of the album, a free instrumental CD, a limited-edition sticker and a booklet by Guante containing song lyrics, commentary and pictures.
SPECIAL NOTE FOR TWIN CITIES RESIDENTS:
Though the album’s official release (for record stores, ITunes and other retailers) will be in January, Twin Cities residents will have an exclusive opportunity to get it on Dec 12 at the Bedlam Theater during the special Twin Cities release party. Joined by No Bird Sing, Kristoff Krane and the Tribe, and backed by a live band featuring members of Dragons Power Up, Guante & Big Cats will play the album in its entirety and sell physical copies of the album for one night only (10pm, 18+, $7).
More than any other performance art, spoken-word is subject to stereotypes. Everyone knows that spoken-word is read only in dark clubs, only by beret-wearing neo-beatniks who rant and rave about the revolution with pre-programmed flows and unoriginal deliveries. Everyone knows that spoken-word can be austere and preachy or screamingly emphatic…but never funky.
Enter e.g. bailey. Over a fun, stuttering house beat produced by Germany’s Starskie, the Twin Cities poet and educator proves that you can indeed dance to spoken-word. The piece itself refers to Olaudah Equiano, a former slave whose autobiography became a major piece of the abolitionist struggle, and touches on the continuing struggle for justice, the importance of the arts and what “freedom” means in the age of Obama and beyond, for both African-Americans and Africans. It’s neither a typical club song nor a typical spoken-word track, but bailey has never been a typical artist.
The original version of ‘Oracles of Equiano’, featuring a group of Igbo nuns, will be released on e.g. bailey’s debut album, AMERICAN AFRIKAN, in 2010 on Tru Ruts/Speakeasy Records.
Spoken Word artist, E.G. Bailey, will feature at University of Wyoming’s Days of Dialogue, honoring the legacy and spirit of Martin Luther King Jr, and centered on the themes of poverty, politics and race.
Called ‘the ultimate collaborator’, Bailey has cofounded a number of essential organizations and projects, including the MN Spoken Word Association, the Urban Griots Spoken Word Awards, the Verve Spoken Word Grant, hip hop and spoken word label Tru Ruts/Speakeasy Records, and a number of spoken word radio shows. He has developed curriculum, worked in k-12 schools and will be teaching a new course at the University of MN this spring. His work and performance has taken him all across the U.S., and abroad to England, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, Bosnia, and more.
Bailey’s work centers on African and African American historical and cultural heritage. These theme are explored in his upcoming spoken word concept album, American Afrikan, infused with the music of jazz, Afrobeat, hip hop and more. Collaborating with musician Dameun Strange, he will perform selections from this project, in addition to other works. The performance will be followed by an open mic allowing students to showcase works.
Performance begins at 9PM • Free • 1000 E. University Ave, Wyoming Union Lower Level, Rm 12. (The Building is located at 13th Street and University Ave).
Guante (better known to those closest to him as Kyle Myhre) has made big splashes in the Twin Cities both as a slam poet and rapper. His new full-length disc of music is the concept album, An Unwelcome Guest, created in collaboration with Big Cats, a local producer who has served up beats for Sage Francis, Jolie Holland and Haley Bonar, among many others. 3-Minute Egg went to a rehearsal on the eve of the CD release show and spoke with Guante and Cats about their joint effort. [Courtesy of 3-Minute Egg]
The pre-sales promo video for ‘An Unwelcome Guest’ was posted on the always active Midwest hip hop blog, Above Ground Magazine. To check out the post, link here.
Tru Ruts artists included in Justin Schell’s (612to651) highlights from 2009. Highlights include Hip Hop Against Homophobia, Maria Isa Street Politics release party, K’naan at Fine Line, Fong Lee Benefit and more. Link.
Guante & Big Cats at Bedlam: Make your best “big cat” face
We checked out the Guante and Big Cats release show for their new album, ” An Unwelcome Guest” over at the Bedlam Theater, and we asked you to give us your best “big cats” face. Here are our Top 10 as well as pics from the show. PHOTOS BY B FRESH PHOTOGRAPHY. To view the slideshow link to original post on City Pages on 13 December 2009.
Guante, yet another consciousness-raising rapper who calls the Twin Cities his home, commands center stage tonight at the Bedlam Theater alongside his producer Big Cats. They’ll be celebrating the release of “An Unwelcome Guest,” a 15-track concept album about—I kid you not—a zombie apocalypse. The disc features guest appearances by some of the Twin Cities’ finest (Haley Bonar, Big Quarters, Eric Blair of No Bird Sing), but the real star remains Guante’s endless repository of establishment-agitating lyrical insight (“This isn’t patriotism/This is the Stockholm syndrome”). (10 p.m., $5 adv/$7 door, 18+)
