Posts Tagged ‘Hip Hop’
HTMLflowers is the name under which Grant Gronewold operates. At least it’s one of them, anyway. He’s also one half of Brothers Hand Mirror, an act that I’ve championed to death over the course of this year and one that you certainly need to be listening to if you’re not already. More than just a sonic prodigy though, Gronewold also produces some astounding graphic art, the image featured to the right of this text being one of his more recent.
What I like most about Gronewold (aside from his incredible technical creativity) is that he lets his personality permeate his songs. His raps aren’t two-dimensional bootycall rhymes but the outpouring of an embattled soul. More than most any other artist I’ve listened to, Gronewold’s heart is visibly in his music. The most recent personal deluge is ‘Almost Living’, a track that explores life with cystic fibrosis, a condition that sees him spending a great deal of time in hospital. It’ll feature on a forthcoming record he’ll be releasing that will be thematically centred around living with chronic illness. It’s worth taking the time to watch the video if you haven’t already, it’s damn compelling.
Html Flowers – Almost Living from Ryan Alexander Lloyd on Vimeo.
If you’re open to earnest, left-of-center hipster-hop then this is for you. He was recently interviewed over at Crawlspace and had some seriously interesting/candid responses to share with the world. Below is the explanation he gave for the seemingly bizarre moniker HTMLflowers.
“Now, HTML Flowers… I want to become everything I think I can be in terms of an artist. The name HTML Flowers is like – my dad died a while ago and I never really knew him, and we found out nine months after he died via an internet obituary. The website gave you the choice of lighting a virtual candle or leaving some flowers for him, so that’s where HTML Flowers comes from. I picked that name because I wanted a name that reminded me of how pathetic my father’s life and death were, because he was a really isolated person who couldn’t connect with people and he had a lot of addiction problems as well, and he was just someone who was so self-centred and who ruined any chance of family and love for himself.”
Sydney based rapper (don’t stop reading here, I know this doesn’t bode well, but stay with me) Miracle is an 18 year old, Ghanean born character who just finished his HSC. He sampled Pete Murray’s Better Days for a high school assignment (that much I learnt from Who The Hell blog) but it’s his version of Angus and Julia Stone’s Big Jet Plane that got me all frazzled.
Hear more tracks here.
Kanye West has been releasing a song every Friday for the past month and a bit. He’s willing to sell them to you for the reasonable price of your email address (which is valid currency in today’s music transaction system). Each track is pregnant with collaboration with Jay-Z, Raekown, Bon Iver, Justin Bieber and Kid Cudi among the artists that have featured in the five tracks so far released. I had a hard time deciding what track I’d stream but Raekown’s opening verse on Runaway Love won me over. I don’t know how I feel about Bieber’s vocals yet. I’m probably closing to liking them than hating them. He’ll be releasing a new track every Friday until Christmas.
Kanye West – Runaway Love (Feat. Justin Bieber & Raekwon)
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Artists you need to know rn
| 1. 1300 |  |
316 |
| 2. Voidhood | |
259 | 3. jamesjamesjames | |
186 | 4. Zan | |
174 |
| 5. Sesame Girl | |
147 |
