Articulate - The Slave For This Dollar EP (Articulate Entertainment/Mad Thinkah Productions)

Early last year, I got contacted by Articulate, a rapper with roots in both Baltimore and D.C. who I'd heard guest on a Born King project, and he sent a few tracks that he said were a sampler for a mixtape called Slave For This Dollar that he was going to be dropping. I never heard back from him for a while about whether the full mixtape ever dropped, so I just kinda sat on those tracks and didn't post about them, but I saw the potential there, and around the same time posted a track by Rickie Jacobs, who produced a song on the Artic record. So I was glad to hear back from Artic more recently that he was releasing the Slave For This Dollar EP, which was longer and had a whole bunch of different tracks from the sampler of the same name I heard before, as a download on his site slaveforthisdollar.com. He's got an option to donate money on his site, or pay what you want for the EP, but it's also available for free all over sites like DatPiff.com. Anyway it's a pretty dope record, kind of on a conscious tip and his voice reminds me a little of someone like Lupe Fiasco but with a more hoarse or raspy tone. He also dabbles in Baltimore club, and has a club track on this called "Hungry" and a whole mixtape of club music called Bombs Over Baltimore.

Articulate f/ Patrice Curtis - "The Way It Is" (mp3)
This beat is fucking gorgeous, tight snapping drums and warm basslines and elegant flute and keys, even it's just a sample from some record it's still beautifully put together by D-Tox, who produced most of the tracks on here. This song also kinda sums up Articulate's whole working class perspective, which is one of my favorite things about the record.

Labels: mixtape/album review, mp3