Jade Fox - Ashes of Another Life

Since setting up the Gov't Names MySpace page last year, I've used it mainly to network with artists I'm already familiar with, but Jade Fox was the first, maybe the only Bmore artist that I heard for the first time on MySpace whose music I really genuinely liked and wanted to hear more of. And in kind of a coincidence, a while after that Mic Life Magazine asked me to do a feature on Jade Fox, and I went and interviewed her for the November issue. So I've had a rough mix of this album for a few months, but it was just officially released in January, and I really liked it then but's exciting to finally hear the finished version.

Baltimore's really got a lot of talented female rappers in the scene right now (ShellBe RAW, G.E.M., Ms. Stress, Golden Seal, B-Fly, Silohette, Nik Stylz) and I really think Jade Fox deserves to pull up a seat at that table. The album is just 10 tracks (the title is a reference to her previous MC name, Phoenix), but it's pretty high quality across the board, thanks largely to the melodic, creative production by Tytanium and Dom P of 2 Minds 1 Soul Productions, and Chris Bentley and Sha Bless. She even stretches out for a couple longer songs, one goes for over 7 minutes and has like 4 verses. Go to her MySpace page to hear some songs off the album, including my favorites "Just Wanna Be" and "Get Up," and there's a link to buy the album there, which is also available at the Sound Garden.

Jade Fox - "Energy Rise" (mp3)
Good strong first track, with yet another one of those "Wildflower" samples that I never get tired of (there was also one on UnReal's last mixtape).

Labels: Jade Fox, Mic Life Magazine, mixtape/album review, mp3