“A lot of incredible and horrifying things happen every day all around the world. So much change, catastrophe, epiphany, joy…and despite the lull of the daily trudge, people do feel it. We dream of it, daydream about it or just stay up at night, wondering why we can’t get to sleep. Maybe we get depressed and don’t know why, maybe we misplace our frustrations…Something’s wrong. Conversely, something electric is in the air. Excitement, wonder, nervous energy. There is opportunity; indeed, there is also despair. What will I focus on? how will I channel my feelings around it? How can I face tomorrow? How the hell am I going to get to sleep?”
- See More Perspective

The latest from SEE MORE PERSPECTIVE’s collaboration with Dameun Strange, as Strange Perspective, doesn’t necessarily answer these questions, but swims in them, as we often do when disaster strikes or we feel the rift of some unknown revelation uncoil beneath the surface. This is electronic, bass heavy, jungle style hip hop. It’s hard and kinetic. It’s also smooth, melodic and catchy. The concept lives in every snare, high hat, rhythm and cadence. It’s frenetic and courses the listeners ears for answers, hope, a little peace and finds the people who give a damn.

Written and performed by Strange Perspective
recorded by and engineered by SEE MORE PERSPECTIVE
at Luv ‘n’ Dedication studio, Minneapolis

For one week only, download “NO CAPES” by Guante & Big Cats! for free.  One of the standout tracks from the duo’s 2010 concept album, “An Unwelcome Guest,” the song takes a critical look at the mythology of the hero; can we look to one person– whether a superhero or an elected official– to save us, or are there real heroes in our midst?  This free download, courtesy of rising indie label Tru Ruts/Speakeasy Records, is dedicated to those fighting for their basic rights in Wisconsin, as well as to those who will continue to fight tomorrow, wherever they are needed.

“NO CAPES” is also a prelude to Guante’s upcoming mixtape, “CONSCIOUS IS NOT ENOUGH 2011,” a collection of brand new songs, remixes and updated tracks based around the power of community and the importance of organizing.  Featuring Guante’s trademark blend of progressive lyrics, poetic storytelling and gallows humor, the full mixtape will be released in March.

Congratulations to E.G. Bailey on his nomination. Presented by the Music Resource Group, with judges including Tom Waits, Seal, Suzanne Vega, Adam Duritz, Gavin Rossdale, Aimee Mann, Andraé Crouch, Toots Hibbert, Vijay Iyer, McCoy Tyner, AAnthony DeCurtis (Rolling Stone), Kathleen Brennan, Pete Wentz, Bettye LaVette, Ozzy Osbourne, Arturo Sandoval, Martin Atkins, Andrew W. K., Shelby Lynne, Kevin Lyman (Warped Tour), Bill Bragin (Lincoln Center), Pat McGuire (Filter Magazine), the Independent Music Awards is an international program that honors top-ranked independent artists and releases. This year, E.G. Bailey’s critically acclaimed and genre-hopping spoken word opus, have been nominated for Eclectic Album category. More information about the Independent Music Awards is located at www.independentmusicawards.com. Fans can also vote here – http://bit.ly/h7M58z. You can listen to the album at Tru Ruts’ Bandcamp page.

Known for celebrating artists that follow their own muse, The 10th IMA Nominees are an eclectic mix of rising stars including Strawfoot (Alt. Country Song), Hemoptysis (Metal/Hardcore Song), and Pokey LaFarge and the South City Three (Amerciana Album) and established talent including telecaster virtuoso, Jim Campilongo (Instrumental Album), experimental multi-genre artist, Flying Lotus (Music Video and Dance/Electronica Song), and indie rockers, Ra Ra Riot (Pop/Rock Album). Perhaps better known as major label acts, this year’s Nominees strutting their independence include former Hole bassist, Melissa Auf der Maur (Indie/Alt./Hard Rock Album), and songwriting legend Jackson Browne with David Lindley (Live Performance Album).

Winners will be determined by a panel of 62 influential artist and industry judges and will be announced in mid-March 2011. Music fans have until July 11 to cast their votes at The IMA Vox Pop Jukebox to determine the fan-selected IMA Winners. Past winners and nominees include: And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead, Cursive, fun., The Flatlanders, Spinerrette, Holly GoLightly & The Brokeoffs, Vienna Teng, The So So Glos, Cephas & Wiggins, The Matches, All That Remains, The Cliks, Oran Etkin, State Radio, Lee “Scratch Perry, The Very Best, Tim Easton, Marco Benevento, Kes The Band, Jamie Lidell, Lacuna Coil, The Trews, Joan As Police Woman; Koko Taylor, Miguel Migs; Speech, God Forbid, Lionel Louekee; Jeff Healey, Johnny Dowd, Chris Whitley, Ike Turner, The Apples in stereo, Mary Gauthier, Jennifer Nettles (Sugarland), The Mooney Suzuki, and Denque Fever among many others.

“He makes language live!” – Amiri Baraka

“There is so much history, culture, and experience packed into American Afrikan that to summarize would be to attempt to summarize all of African American experience.” – Jon Behm (Reviler)

“A powerful testament of bailey’s skill of mobilizing poetry for contemplation, remembrance, and a subtle, but no less insistent, call to action.” –Justin Schell

“No matter how long it takes for bailey to drop ‘da proverbial bomb’, it will have been well worth the wait.” – Dwight Hobbes

With co-signs from Umar Bin Hassan of the Last Poets and the legendary Amiri Baraka, Twin Cities spoken word artist, poet, musician, organizer and educator, e.g. bailey, presents his first full-length album, AMERICAN AFRIKAN, a spoken word concept album that begins in Africa, crosses the Middle Passage, explores America and ends up somewhere that defies easy definition.

Part musical theater piece, part audio chapbook and part performance art experiment, AMERICAN AFRIKAN mixes the beat-influenced poetry of bailey with music that blends hip hop, funk, jazz, electronica and more, creating a sound that is at once progressive and challenging yet smooth and listenable.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that an hour-long spoken word album wouldn’t be much fun to listen to; many aren’t. But as Umar Bin Hassan says in the album’s liner notes, “The sounds on this album are just as important as the words.” Through bailey’s voice, through the Igbo nuns on ‘Oracles of Equiano’, through Aimee Bryant’s rendition of ‘Motherless Child’ and through the album’s diverse sonic palette, AMERICAN AFRIKAN succeeds not just as a piece of literature or poetry, but as a cohesive musical journey.

The project features contributions from Katrah-Quey, hipgnosis, Ben Durrant, Mankwe Ndosi, Ibe Kaba,  Sankaradjeki, Assaad Lakkis + Abstrakt Collision, Aimee Bryant, DJ Limbs, Idris Goodwin, M.anifest, Starskie, DJ Stage One, Sha Cage, Walter ‘Q-Bear’ Banks, Jerry Stearns, Simon Husbands, Andy Shaffer, Karin Odell, Elliot Looney, Uche, Matt Wood, Julian Murray and others.

Mixed Blood Theatre
February 18 – March 6, 2011
Wednesdays – Saturdays, 7:30 p.m.
Sundays at 3:00 p.m.

You will want to see this funny and powerful new work! It’s the story of immigrants in America today, and how their lives intersect under the figurative Big Top. A city subway station is the central point for all the action. A Liberian home care worker, an itinerant busker, a Bulgarian ringmaster and his wife, along with an Indian call center escapee, discover and redefine themselves through the telling of this magical fable. For more information, you can link to Mixed Blood Theatre.

For some time now, Minnesota has been a refuge for immigrant communities displaced from their homes due to a variety of circumstances. One of these communities is the Liberian community, which grew rapidly in the aftermath of a series of civil wars that ravished their country. However the story of Liberians in Minnesota does not begin with these civil wars but stretches back more than 50 years.

In this radio documentary, we look at this history, along with the growth and development of the community. In a series of conversations with a wide-range of Liberians in Minnesota including Wynfred Russell, Abdullai Kiatamba, Piso Tarr, Yeamah Brewer, Mameneh George, Charles Dennis and others, in addition to other prominent figures in the community including State Representative Keith Ellison, professor of history Peter Rachleff and theatre director Wendy Knox, this programs provides an overview of where the Liberian community in Minnesota stands today, the contributions it has made to the state and what the future holds.

The documentary is produced by Liberian-American artist e.g. bailey, and his partner Sha Cage. The three-part documentary will air on KFAI Fresh Air Radio (90.3fm Minneapolis/106.7fm St. Paul) on February 16th, 21st and 23rd at 7:30pm. It can also be streamed online at wwww.kfai.org.

‘Shotgun Soliloquy (Ragga Remix)’ gives you yet another peek into WAKE THE CITY, the budding musical collaboration between Guante and SEE MORE PERSPECTIVE. This “premix” of sorts is a remix of a track that has yet to be released. That’s just how we get down at the Boombox Emporium. The Rube’s simultaneously throwback and forward-thinking production suits the rappers’ boombap tendencies perfectly. Expect to hear more funky concoctions from these three in the future, probably sooner than you think!

SEE MORE PERSPECTIVE moved back to the Twin Cities after an eight-year stint in Chicago as a youth organizer, hip hop artist and all-around troublemaker in 2007. Since then, he’s played the shadows of the TC hip hop scene, emerging here and there to perform with label-mate Guante at the Soundset Festival, produce and record tracks for some of the scene’s top artists, release an indie-pop Halloween album as one half of Strange Perspective, beatbox for KRS-ONE and take part in countless other traditional and not-so-traditional events.

He also worked on his debut full-length, ARCHITEXTUAL DESIGN, a sprawling, ambitious concept album featuring Chicago’s broad-shouldered swagger, St. Paul’s down-home realness and Minneapolis’ forward-thinking drive. Three years plus in the making, that album is set to be released on November 30th, on rising label Tru Ruts/Speakeasy Records’ Bandcamp page and in record stores after December 3rd.

Armed with a raspy, Lyrics Born-style drawl capable of both rapping and singing, a quick-witted positivity that never comes off as sugar-coated or phony, and an unapologetic earnestness that’s so rare in indie hip hop today, See More has created an album that quite literally sounds like nothing else out there. The album flows from heartbreaking storytelling tracks with real lyrical depth to party songs that celebrate hip hop’s roots to Gnarls Barkley-esque pop songs to wildly funky instrumentals to much more. Featuring Chicago rappers and Twin Cities spoken word artists, ARCHITEXTUAL DESIGN is always anchored by See More’s voice—in both the literal and literary sense of the word.

And it’s that voice that makes the album so special. See More Perspective is attempting to bring sincerity back. This isn’t ironic dance pop, tongue-in-cheek underground rap or faux-European synth music; this is a statement about culture as communication—not just the background noise of our lives, but the real foundation and structure on which we stand.

‘ARCHITEXTUAL DESIGN’ is available for download at Tru Ruts’ Bandcamp.

Check out the new video from Guante + Big Cats!. Directed by Tony Perkins, this video is for the song “A Hug From a Stranger” from their debut LP, “An Unwelcome Guest.” The song is a quiet moment in the narrative of the larger concept album, a story that deals with love, radical politics, superhero mythology and yes, zombies. Featuring Haley Bonar, Big Quarters, Chastity Brown, Eric Blair of No Bird Sing and Prolyphic of Strange Famous Records, the album was released in January of 2010 on Tru Ruts/Speakeasy Records and is available for purchase at guanteandbigcats.bandcamp.com or truruts.bandcamp.com. Video shot on location at E Squared Cafe in Brainerd, MN.

“Part Cormac McCarthy, part Woody Guthrie, and part Public Enemy, An Unwelcome Guest is an intricately woven poetic and sonic excursion through landscapes mental, emotional, and physical, cementing Guante and Big Cats!’s status as two of the best emerging artists within Twin Cities hip-hop.” – TC Daily Planet

“Guante could very well follow Atmosphere and P.O.S. in the long-line of outstanding rappers to break from the Midwest.” – CMJ

“Guante and Big Cats! create intelligent, political hip hop that mercifully doesn’t come off as preachy or self-righteous. It’s sobering, demanding your attention like a car crash, yet emotional and alarmingly intimate at times.” – City Pages

ARCHITEXTUAL DESIGN RELEASE PARTY
CD RELEASE PARTY: FRI DEC 3RD
@ HELL’S KITCHEN (80 9th Street South, Minneapolis, MN 55402)
featuring Mayda, Guante, Fresh Squeeze, DJ Rube + More
10:00pm 18+ $5