Anyone can release a single, but it takes a singular effort to catch the ears of DJs and tastemakers across an increasingly fractured musical spectrum. With Telo/Shiftin – out now on Crazylegs, Bristol-based producer Gage did just that, earning praise and spins from both the new school of producers reinventing forward-thinking club music, and from […]

Son Raw’s arrival in London is imminent. It’s been a hard couple of years for London emcees. For every P-Money launching his career there are 10 no-names spitting bars on Youtube and for every German Whip, there’s 10 bait trap tunes that do little but replicate the Atlanta sound with a different accent. Throw in […]

The New York rap trio Ratking (Wiki, Hak, & Sporting Life) ran up through the Cosmic Zoo shortly after their Coachella performance. We discussed their excellent new XL album, “So It Goes,” taking inspiration from grime, Big Pun, and Dipset, the Eminem comparisons, Kurt Vonnegut, and how New York factors into their aesthetic. In addition, […]

Son Raw is the French Connection Some people go on vacation to lie on a beach, I end up in Parisian basements mixing records. In between listening to Future’s Covered in Money at Versailles (your move, Kanye) and eating enough French food to give Action Bronson pause, I visited Rinse France co-founder Azamat B’s weekly […]

See Son Raw driving a German Whip Believe it or not, despite my ever vigilant trawling of the Internet for the freshest in Grime and Bass music, even I sometimes miss stuff and need peoples to watch my back. Geng Grizzly from Fresh Out the Box Radio and the now defunct Purple Tapes Pedigree, is […]

Instant Son Raw – just add beer. I’ll spare you the Rakim line – suffice to say that since I last wrote a round up post, a whole lot of releases and mixes have grabbed my attention and now you get to reap the benefits. The theme this week is dynamic opposites: artists, labels and […]

Son Raw will get no sleep till Brooklyn. For Grime/Bass heads on our side of the Atlantic, this week’s big news is going down in Brooklyn as Keysound Records’ Wen, Beneath, Parris and Dusk & Blackdown touch down for Reconstrvct. I’ll be in attendance, and will likely be very, very drunk. Until then, a shameless […]

Son Raw saw the signs. Before we talk about Wen, let’s talk about Keysound, a label that’s officially having its moment in the sun. Born of the same mid aughts explosion that gave us Hyperdub, Tectonic, and Deep Medi, Keysound’s early records weren’t just left of center – they were left of everything. While future […]

We’re living in the Golden Age of Son Raw No “1 DJ and 1 MC” nostalgia here – strictly up to the minute vibrations. While I’m a big fan of the adlibs, multiple flows and harmonizing that go on in contemporary Hip-Hop, there’s a tangible energy that you only get through live rapping and hour […]

Son Raw will be in the UK in May and in Europe early June. He is willing to DJ something that isn’t Techno or Deep House for a reasonable fee. Contact him on twitter if you’re interested. I was actually thinking of skipping my column since I’d already covered this week’s big releases, but there’s […]