Qwazaar

& He.llsent

Oh and you know what, while I’m at it, I never posted this here

If I’m forgetting any G4 videos that are still floating around out there, hit me with a reminder offwheezy@galapagos4.com

Photos from Galapagos4 Mid-Summer Party on July 1, 2011 by Jam One jam1photo.com

Click here to see the whole album

Such as the Qwazaar & Batsauce – “Style Be The King” EP, a pre-album release available now from Fifth Element Online

Or some footage from his recent tour through South Africa

Or some pics

Gallery: “RedBull Studio Session w/Ill-Literate-Skill & Mingus” on Qwazaar’s Facebook page

Gallery: “@ the Woods March 2011″ on Qwazaar’s Facebook page

Gallery: “Qwazaar @ Zula Bar in Cape Town S.A.” on Qwazaar’s Facebook page

What else can I say?? He’s a hard worker. Check for his full-length, official album with Batsauce dropping soon. And you can also check This interview with him on SYFFAL.

Also:

QwazaarMusic.com
Batsauce.com
Galapagos4.com
http://stonedgiantsnetwork.com/
@QWAZAAR
http://vimeo.com/qwazaar
http://www.youtube.com/user/QWAZAAR919

Big ups to Chicago-based online mag Ruby Hornet for this insightful interview with Qwel & Maker.  A couple mp3 snippets are included. Check it here:

Qwel and Maker – Road Warriors

(Photo courtesy of Jam One)

The story for this entry begins here, at an inconspicuous grey building on West Lake Street in Chicago, just outside the Loop. Back when our Art Director JASH and I were students at UIC, we lived here in a loft with 7 other people – mostly graf writers and emcees, including G4 recording artists Serf400 and Dr. Spliffen. It was an eccentric crowd, and we definitely had some great times at 657B.

That was ’96, before anything related to Galapagos4 had even begun to happen. Or had it? In my opinion, it was a time when the independent hip hop scene in Chicago was becoming more defined. When thinking back to what Chicago records were in rotation for me at that time, E.C. Illa’s second album and the Talent Fest compilation are two that come to mind. I remember listening to Rhymefest’s “How We Chill Part 2″ for the first time just inside those second story windows. Those times, and the events that filled them, would personally influence my own music, and ideology of music, for years to come.

Fast-forward to the present day.. and I guess fate would have it that this small stretch of Lake Street remain significant to our crew. Across the street from the old loft, at 650 W Lake, is Crosstalk International, one of Galapagos4′s largest distributors.

Crosstalk is both a distributor and a label, and their latest vinyl release is definitely noteworthy – Tokimonsta‘s debut album, Midnight Menu. Crosstalk is the exclusive distributor of this record, so act fast if you want to own a copy.

The company has been housed at this location for about 5 years now, and along with house and electro, they continue to move some of the best hip hop the city has to offer.

One cool thing about the office is that it has direct views of both the Willis Tower and the John Hancock building. Chicago skyline represent.

You may also find The Molemen’s DJ PNS and Galapagos4′s own Dallas Jackson up in the action around here.

I used to freestyle on top of that roof across the street. Now Galapagos4 ships its catalog of 70+ releases to destinations all across the world, from here. So in fact it has been quite a long journey moving from one side of this street to the other, and there are many analogies that can be made from it – youth to adulthood, playtime to business, South side to North side? haha

Any way you look at it, Crosstalk gets much respect from our camp, and not only because they move Galapagos4′s records, but for staying true to themselves as a solvent independent business with integrity. There are definitely some businesses in the music industry out there that could take a cue from these guys. Keep up the good work, fellas.

Our earlier post about the Midwest harkened back to the earliest days of Galapagos4 road life. Here, in the second installment of that series, we take a look at the crew’s maiden voyages to Iowa CIty, Champaign-Urbana, and Milwaukee.

Why is this considered a milestone? For one, we are all from the Midwest. Put simply, to perform in these nearby cities was to perform for our own kind, and hopefully to people that would understand us. And secondly, I want to stress that these were the first “out-of-town” shows that anyone had ever asked us to play, outside of Chicago, ever. I’m not going to lie – we were pretty stoked about going to these places, and why not? It was all uncharted territory as far as we were concerned. During those early days of us trying to find our first outlets for expression, in our attempt to forge an identity for ourselves and our label, these Midwestern cities were there for us.

We start our story off with a quick glimpse into the world of over-anxious promoters. A guy by the name of Tack-Fu from Iowa City started calling me up right after Squints by Offwhyte came out. I remember on the phone he had a booming voice, and responded to everything with a big, bellowing laugh. He brought out Meaty, Robust and myself to do a show at a college bar called Gabe’s. We didn’t know what to expect, but we headed out there for a night.

One cool thing about going to Iowa City was that you had to cross the mighty Mississippi River to get there.

It turned out that this Tack-Fu character ended up putting on pretty good shows. We ripped it that first night and sold out of CDs at the booth. We ended up coming out to rock Gabe’s a number of times that year and next, along with Qwel and even Qwazaar when he was with the Frontline camp.

Throughout all those shows, Tack-Fu remained his enthusiastic self, and insisted that all artists have backstage passes, even though Gabe’s was really just a one-room bar venue.

Another overzealous promoter at the time was a college dude named Matt Harsh down in Champaign-Urbana, home to U of I and the Fighting Illini. Illinois is the biggest college in the state. Most of my high school friends went there, and if I wasn’t so bent on the Chicago hip hop scene, I probably would have gone there too.

Although he didn’t insist on backstage passes, Harsh was a guy who hustled, and he also ended up bringing us down repatedly to perform at venues like the campus center and the legendary Canopy Club.

There were even a couple Iowa City-Champaign combination trips in those days. Those required a lot of driving. It was our first foray into the world of all-day drives, hotels, and early-morning checkouts.

Lastly, of all the early cities to welcome us, Milwaukee deserves a mention. It’s only an hour and fifteen minutes North of Chicago, yet you rarely hear of it. DJWL landed us our first Milwaukee gig, where I opened for live band combo Nordic Mistress, consisting of Meaty Ogre on drums, DJWL on bass, and Qwel on vocals. During the first show in Milwaukee, electronic artist Collin Olan lent them a hand.

Shortly after that, Mestizo moved to Chicago, and we were brought up to Milwaukee again to play another classic venue, Thai Joe’s.

Here’s to beginnings, to knowing where you’re from, to venturing amongst your immmediate vicinities before spreading your wings and expanding your boundaries. Here’s to the Midwest, its harsh weather, its humidity, and its sweet smell of grass in the air. Thank you for the support. I miss you dearly.

Dreas – Long Days End

N.E.B. & Open i – Metamorphic Proportions

In the past month we have seen new releases from three of Galapagos4′s own super producers – Maker, Dreas and Open i. These are not official Galapagos4 releases, but they are very worthy of picking up. Support G4′s own masters of the beat!

The Deejay OM ‘Reheated Naan & Curry‘ album came to G4 initially in 2004. Om had been working on the concept and some of the music before that point, but when I moved to the Bay Area in ’04, he presented me with the idea of putting the album out on Galapagos4.

I was intrigued by his ideas, not that using Bollywood samples in hip hop beats hadn’t been done before, but he was looking to do more than that. He was looking to make a record that would not only appeal to hip hop heads but to people such as Yoga teachers, soccer moms and fans of real Indian music also. We succeeded in exposing the album to those people, getting placement in Starbucks’ short-lived ‘Hear Music’ stores as well as being played at Yoga studios in Om’s home of San Francisco.

This album also got licensed for release in Japan on Easel Records, with a bonus track and different packaging. It was also the first Galapagos4 release to be carried by renown e-tailer TurntableLab.

Outside of this shine, and some love from G4 fans, the album itself was and is highly slept-on in my opinion. It’s a great concept executed perfectly, which is rare in music. I would urge anyone interested in innovative musical styles that culminate in 60 minutes of hard hip hopdrums, rolling psychedelic soundscapes and heart-pounding breakbeats to check it out…

On to the point of the post, after many years of constructing the album, we finally celebrated the release of Deejay OM’s ‘Reheated Naan & Curry’ in May 2007 at a time when both Qwel & I were living in the Bay Area (Richmond to be exact), which made it easy to gather some of the crew from Southern Cali to come up for a big G4 event… It was a Monday night at the Elbo Room, with Qwel, Mestizo & The M.O. opening up for Deejay OM in front of a healthy crowd in San Francisco’s Mission District… check out a photo retrospective here… Photos by Colin Hussey

In a random fluke sighting yesterday, Dreas pointed out the appearance of a Galapagos4 T-shirt in NBA Live 2010. This was found in the XBox360 version of the game and the guy appears in all home crowds. Someone at EA Sports must be a fan. A nice surprise to start off the new year. If you play NBA Live, check for it!

Jeff, Qwel and I have all made our way home from the “Black Rain” Tour in Japan. It wasn’t the first time G4 artists had been to Japan – other artists had ventured before (Maker, Denizen Kane, Mestizo & Mike Gao) – but this tour was still a G4 milestone nonetheless. Pictures from the tour can be found here. Back with more posts in 2010.