BREAKDANCING MIDGETS & TOKYO HIJINKS

Happy New Year from the land of Asahi, Maid Cafes and cheap allnight, all you can drink Karaoke! I`m back in Tokyo for a few weeks on a much needed vacation. It`s been almost a year since my visa expired and I had to leave this crazy town and it`s great to be back. I`ve been visiting all my favourite spots, blowing cash on "essentials" like 50cm tall 1kg mario figures, alarm clocks shaped like Famicom (Japanese NES), ltd edition "I LOVE TOKYO" Adidas kicks and all kinds of other crap in between catching up with a bunch of awesome peeps that I`ve been missing like crazy, drinking as much Kirin Lager & Ebisu beer as my liver can stand, stuffing my face with delicious Japanese food, playing Playstation 3 (which may not be out in Australia until as late as October 07 depending on whether Sony can get their shit together or not) and enjoying the 9th wonder of the world... Japanese TV. I`ve even managed to drop a couple of DJ Sets including a joint effort with my #1 Japanese homebwoy Tetsuya on the cuts at UPTOWN 125, a new club in Funabashi that my friends are managing... click the invisible link for details if yr in the neighbourhood anytime soon.

Anyway, enough about me... lets talk about midgets... breakdancing midgets... Tamil Indian breakdancing midgets and their connection to one of the dopest abstract/underground hip hop tracks I own.

I while back, I posted a mix of dark-ish downtempo/abstract hip-hop and electronica called "MUSIC MELT A FROZEN HEART" <<< click to go to original post (with re-linked mp3`s for download). There`s a track in the mix called "Maintaining Izmatic Degrees" by an MC called IZM DA MAD SOUL that has this really DEEEEP, original production and some really dope, intelligent verses. It was from one of the 2 "CUE`S HIP HOP SHOP" compilations and I always wondered what happened to that MC. So... last night, in amongst all the Nigerian Bank Fraud Spam emails I get this e-mail from a cat named Rolando Chavez...

"how are,my name is Fresh Ro ,I produced that izm da mad soul track years ago that you have on a Cd ,he recently got out of jail from being locked up 10 years and i have a 4 track single coming out with different styles,I am trying to get the word out. you can hear it on my page myspace.com/freshrohis new name is check 1 da ill lyfe"

So... I hit his myspace and I suggest you do the same. 10 years is a big chunk of time be be locked up but obviously Izm, now CHECK 1 DA ILL LYFE, put it to good use because his bars on the cut "MY FLOW" are still dripping with skill and there`s not one fake-ass-gangsta-gun-talkin` cliche in sight. FRESH RO`s production is on the downtempo tip and he definately has his own style and the skills to back it up. His vibe reminds me of some of those Ubiquity artists like "NOBODY"... going from light chilled grooves to some darker places & never resorting to straight loopage. There`s another cut on his myspace called "UNTITLED" with an mc called PENUCKLE that I liked too... his flow kinda reminded me of ROOTS MANUVA but a little tighter. I`d like to hear more of his stuff. Oh... and that midget connection? I got this mind-destroyingly amazing video off FRESH RO`s Myspace page! THANK YOU!!!

Anyway, check back in a couple weeks for a bunch of mp3`s and, hopefully, an exclusive beat throwdown from Brisbane`s most talented beatsmith, AOI. In the meantime, check his myspace for a few mp3s of some beats in progress at myspace.com/aoi

(^-^)/