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Album Reviews: Coolzey – Dark Mantras

Coolzey must be very wicked, since it’s clear he gets no rest. Sandwiched in between all the other musical activities he’s dropped Dark Mantras, which contains 13 short hip-hop instrumentals. This is more a beat tape than an album proper; each track is a live performance on his Akai MPC1000 Sampler… […]

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Live music preview: Mobb Deep, Coolzey, Bleached and more

Coolzey

The duo Prodigy and Havoc are legendary rappers from the golden era of hardcore hip hop. Hailing from the Queensbridge Projects in New York City, Mobb Deep’s seminal sophomore album The Infamous was a realistic tale of the street gangsta. Rather than glorifying the lifestyle, Prodigy’s poetic rhymes and Havoc’s minimalist, bleak production presented a life full of misery, violence and paranoia. This album cemented their legacy as one of the great hip-hop groups to come out of the New York hardcore scene and built a legacy for the area’s future rap crews like Dipset. Anyone who has an interest in hardcore rap or likes the grittiness of New York rap should be at this show. […]

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Album Review: Coolzey – Hit Factory

Coolzey

The only reason Coolzey isn’t the most productive Iowa musician is that Sam Locke Ward has whatever’s the pop songwriting equivalent of Tourette Syndrome. Still, I think he may have the edge on Sam for stylistic range. One moment he’s an indie rocker, the next he’s a soul singer and then he’s some sort of goofy corn field Kanye West. […]

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Iowa City Weekender: June 7-9

Welcome to another edition of the Weekender. In addition to our usual Thursday through Saturday coverage, I’ve extended the weekend by a few days in order to cover a super awesome Monday show. But let’s start with Thursday: THURSDAY CJ […]

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Iowa City Weekender: January 12-15

Welcome to the Weekender! Come on in and get comfortable and see what we have in store this snowy weekend. Temperatures have dropped and we’re seeing our first frozen precipitation after a freaky streak of wintery warmness. I usually try […]

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Iowa City Weekender: December 29-31

Hello there and welcome to this year’s final Weekender column. Many of us who skipped town for the holidays are back in Iowa City and ready to get out there again. This week features all musical events as other venues […]

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Iowa City Weekender: March 11-13

Last week I stopped by the Summer Camp Battle of the Bands at the Yacht Club and was reminded that, every now and then, you just need to be in a sweaty basement full of smiling hippies on drugs.  High […]

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