As Iz... is the debut album by Durham North Carolina based poet Tenal Alston performing as HoODeleCtuaL in collaboration with Conscious Rebel, Paradime and Kunphusiun this album took four years to create and comments on the state of being black in the USA in the last few years. Listening to this in London as an semi engaged onlooker makes some of this album fall way out of my own realm of experience, however listening to this can only make me more sympathetic for all the pointless innocent victims.
The album opens with Speaking HoODeleCtuaLLy that is a statement of intent or an explanation of what it means to be a HoODeleCtuaL living in Durham North Carolina in the 2020's, as abortion rights are under attack, workers rights disappear, guns proliferate, damage is done as Tenal Alston namechecks some of her heroes, while stating she does not intend to mirror there work, but is writing from her own hood perspective, over laid back at times looped beats that fall into a similar category as Wes Da Ruler and Linqua Franqa both musically and lyrically. While trying to find ways to bring about a better society so you can rise out of the hood to go wherever you want too.
Ear Hustl'a is a poem for the sort of loudmouth fool who is always spouting rubbish, never getting to the truth, the useful idiots never learning how to move forwards, or bring effective change, over pared back beats as streams of foolish epithets get thrown at us, to dissect then move on from, trying to avoid babbling while alcoholically challenged, take notes make better choices.
J.O.S. Watch is bass heavy scream of pain at all the police brutality spreading across the You Ess of Aye, as the strings blend with the beats in a DJ Shadow kind of way, all the sorrow of all the random Police shootings of innocents, who happened to look like they might be armed and dangerous wearing a 49's shirt, or changing a tyre, no don't shoot and disarm as many people and police as possible.
Too Many folks have already been killed for being black in America this is a questioning rap about why this is still the case, while asking how you change things to make it feel like you live in a peaceful free country that the USA claims to be, make sure everyone has the same rights and that no one ever gets killed for walking through the wrong neighborhood. This is a call to arms to bring down the current regime including the mainstream media and government.
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Mono2poly Floze is distressed beats rebelling against the prison nation, the incarceration obsession, too many bullets, too many deaths, all the pointless death and destruction, how can this be stopped what beats can get through to the dunderheads who keep repeating the same cycles of behavior, so stop the rot. Stop the Black on Black crime as if things aren't already bad enough.
Melanin Hated 'Merican is a dark poem about the problem of driving while over melaninated, wondering why your hated, not for what you've done, but for the color you are, the sad cry of the deep underclass, the abused and imprisoned, the murdered and the forgotten.
The album concludes with Legacy'z Manifest a power to the people rap trying to make sense of the hatred, those that are hated for no reason at all. All sorts of odd things thrown into the mix that sadly all come from everyday life in the last 10 years, while encouraging more immigration, better treatment for everyone in the underclasses and a total change of regime that from the outside seems long overdue.
Find out more at https://hoodelectual.bandcamp.com/album/as-iz https://www.facebook.com/choclatestonez
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