oddisee: Press

Showing posts with label Press. Show all posts

Friday, April 5, 2013

Oddisee & I Love Ugly

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While on tour in New Zealand, I hooked up with one of my favorite clothing lines 'I Love Ugly' for a photo shoot. The shoot was for their new line of bucket hats which premiered on Hypebeast.com

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For more photos visit: Hypebeast.com

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Prefix Geo-Tags DMV Locations Mentioned In My Lyrics

View Oddisee's DC in a larger map, and please feel free to add & edit with additional locations.

Looking at this map, there's definitely a few more locations I can remember mentioning. Here's a few more:

Saint Marys County
Saint Marys county is the county in Maryland that half of my family originally come from berfor moving north to DC to find work. It's one of the area's Jay-Z used to hustle in, I've got cousins that remember him down there.
"I'm getting paid like Jay back in the day when he was moving yay round my way, down in Saint Marys" From - "I'm From PG"

Euclid ST. NW, DC
Euclid street is the street I would often walk down to get from Georgia ave to Adams Morgan.
"A Little way up the road, found he gold that they stole, around the next of Salvadorian's off of Euclid" From - "Gully"

Silver Spring
Silver Spring is one of the more well know suburban area's of the DMV. Sitting right on the line to the north of DC.
"My Silver Springs peeps yeah, riding on the Z2" From - "Propa"

Georgia Ave.
Georgia avenue is definitely one of the more famous avenues in DC. It's home to Howard university, the west indian day parade & is an overall center of black culture for uptown DC. It's so famous it's often simply referred to as "The Ave."
"Ery youngin on the ave. got my cised, good goddess" from "Delusional"

I'm sure there are more but that's all I can thing of at the moment. Feel free to leave more references in the comments.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Stereogum Gives Rock Creek Park Mix-Tape Of The Week

Mixtape Of The Week: Oddisee Rock Creek Park

Only two weeks into this column, and I’m already cheating. Oddisee’s mostly-instrumental pastoral soul-rap opus is a couple of weeks old already, and it’s only a mixtape by the most liberal definition possible. There’s barely any rapping on it, it doesn’t use any other people’s beats, there’s no DJ bellowing over it, and, most damning of all, Oddisee’s actually asking you to pay him for it; it’ll run you $8 at this Bandcamp page. And yet I’m taking this opportunity to write about it anyway, mostly because it moves me way more than any mixtape I’ve heard this week.
As a member of the Diamond District crew, Oddisee is one of the most important figures on Washington, D.C.’s underground rap scene, even though he doesn’t come from D.C. exactly, and he doesn’t live there now. Oddisee’s a recent Brooklyn transplant, and he’s originally from suburban Upper Marlboro, Maryland, just outside the District. He named Rock Creek Park after a wooded expanse on the D.C. border where he used to ride his bike as a kid. Which is to say: This is an instrumental rap album about being a kid and riding your bike through nature. If you look at it from a certain angle, it’s practically chillwave.
There aren’t any diffuse underwater synths here, though. As a producer, Oddisee has long been in a the neo-traditionalist boom-bap camp. His beats for Diamond District and other D.C. types owe a lot to Pete Rock; they’re all neck-snap snares and floating horn samples. And more than most of the modern-day producers who work that sound, Oddisee’s got a sense of cinematic grace in his style. The lived-in warmth of orchestral ’70s soul is an actual aesthetic basis for this guy; it’s not just a source of sounds for him to chop up in ProTools. His beats always sound heavy and full, not thin like those of so many other producers, which is the main reason why he’s able to put together a full-on instrumental album without letting things get boring.
Only one track on Rock Creek Park features vocals: Opener “Still Doing It,” which has a verse from fellow Diamond District member yU. After that, it’s all impressionistic drum-ripples and dizzy soul strings. There are samples in there, but Oddisee also used live-band arrangements. The production walks a tight-line, staying away from looped-up monotony on one side and session-player gloss on the other. And so the whole thing breezes by in 43 ridiculously pleasant minutes. Oddisee’s named the tracks after specific local geography (“Beach Dr.,” “Clara Barton”) or specific memory-trigger phrases (“Skipping Rocks,” “All Along The River”). And even though it’s not generally wise to read too much emotional connection into instrumental music, the album really does evoke the beauty and solitude of being a kid alone in a park, and traces of the clatter of the city around it also creep in. It’s a deeply pretty and thoughtful piece of music, and it deserves your $8, or at least your 43 minutes.
Stream and/or buy Rock Creek Park at this Bandcamp page.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Billboard Pro Names Mello Music Group #7 of 50 Best Indie Labels in America

Truly an honor to be among the top 10 best independent record labels in America. Congrats to Mike Tolle & the entire MMG roster.

click on Billboard Pro Logo to read the article

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Mello Music Group Mentioned In Billboard

http://pro.billboard.com/content/50-best-indie-labels-america-part-i

In this issue of Billboard, they list 20 of the best indie labels doing everything themselves as direct to fans as possible. Proud to have Mello Music Group On This list & proud to be acknowledged.