Lee Bannon

Let’s keep it on the producer tip today. Lee Bannon is my  favorite up and coming producer. His style is very experimental and is a breath of fresh air in a market of over-saturation such as rap music. Based out of Sacramento, CA he has worked with a lot of emcees from that area, namely Chuuwee and C Plus, whom Bannon has produced full length albums for. Lee Bannon and Chuuwee’s  2010 album Hot N Ready was recieved with widespread praise. Since then, Lee Bannon has been very busy. Bannon has now become Joey Bada$$ and Pro Era’s tour DJ, and has started producing many tracks for the group. Bannon also teamed up with Chuck Strangers of Pro Era and Kwame to form Super Helpful, which released their debut EP at the beginning of 2013. He’s produced for rappers such as Talib Kweli and Ab-Soul and many more. Bannon has also released some instrumental albums and 2012’s Fantastic Plastic, but I admittetdly didn’t like those albums much. He recently signed to the UK indie label Ninja Tune and will release his new instrumental album Alternate/Endings on January 13th, 2014 through the label. Although I don’t like his instrumental albums much, he is my undisputed favorite producer of rap songs. I check for anything he produced because I know it will be mind-blowing at best and very intriguing at least; He is set to take over in a major way. Check out some of his gems below.

Find out more about Lee Bannon and his music here: http://leebannon.bandcamp.com/ and here https://ninjatune.net/release/lee-bannon/alternate-endings

Mello Music Group

Mello Music Group is one of the best underground hip hop record labels doing it right now. Underground hip hop labels are a fickle thing. A new label will crop up out of nowhere and be dominant for a few years before fading into the background. It happened with Tres Records in the 2000s, and it happened to Def Jux before them, with many more coming and going in between. MMG is at the top of the pack along with Dirty Science. I’ve covered both labels briefly in the Oddisee and Dag Savage posts, respectively. MMG is a heavy hitter consisting of quality emcees and producers such as Oddisee, Apollo Brown, L’Orange, Has-Lo, Castle, and many more. The most recent album from their catalog, L’Orange and Stik Figa’s City Under the City, is garnering album of the year discussions in many hip hop circles. Check out a microcosm of the MMG catalog below.

Find out more about this label here: http://www.mellomusicgroup.com/

Hopefully this is a label that will be around for awhile.

Chuuwee

Chuuwee is already an extremely prolific rapper at the age of 23. He is from Sacramento, CA but has recently relocated to San Diego. He has worked with many high profile artists, including Sean Price, Planet Asia, Statik Selektah, and Lee Bannon. Chuuwee’s style is reminiscent of the golden era of hip hop, and his style is described as a throwback to 90’s rap. While that is true in a sense, that is only a narrow scope of his music; he is extremely versatile. He has already released over 20 mixtapes and EPs and they are all very independent of each other. On 2012’s Wildstyle, he pays homage to the golden era of hip hop by rapping in the throwback style, whereas on 2013’s Thrill, he opts for the trap style. It is impossible to pigeon hole his skills or style through his massive catalog. The knock on him at the moment is that he is only a “bedroom emcee” that only releases mixtapes and no official albums. Even still, you can’t deny his talent or work ethic. Be on the lookout for him to take the rap game.

Here is a great track off his 2011 album Be Cool:

And another gem off 2012’s Wildstyle:

And here’s the intro off his newest release, The Great Gatzby. Even though it’s an intro it is an extremely strong track, and it gives a glimpse into the laid back, jazzy/smokey production on the album.

Check him out here: http://allchucaneat.com/home/ and here: http://soundcloud.com/chuuweeoftus/tracks