70 Elevators
celebrating lyrical mastery
RAPPERs
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Read This First: An Introduction
Where does hip-hop music truly live and thrive? On which continents? In which languages? Since the music industry spotlight is still mainly aimed at the most shallow, narcissistic and destructive manifestations of the rap genre, I felt I had to play my part in drawing attention to rappers who are elevating the art form. Of course I…
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Elevator 34: Akala
The hip-hop culture that formed in the 1970’s has splintered. There are arguments and counter-arguments about the sorry state of the culture and it’s future. One piece of evidence for this fragmentation in my city and in many cities around the UK is the gulf between rap artists born before 1985 and those born after…
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Elevator 33: Anton Serra
Here are four definitions of the term cipher or cypher: A code often created by an encryption algorithm A secret language A zero A circle made by a group of hip-hop performers especially rappers, in which each member is given time to rap, beatbox, break, etc. The density of slang within a lot of North…
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Elevator 32: George the Poet
For the first time in a long time it’s cool to be poet in the UK. You have the license to speak a six-minute stream-of-consciousness verse and people will actually listen intently. There are now 12 regular poetry and spoken word events in my city alone and most of them are packed. George Mpanga started rapping at…
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MUSIC BY ME & MY FRIENDS
SXXTSTORM (released Sept 2022)
PANDÜZIMA (released Oct 2022)
UNEARTHED (released Dec 2021)
ABOUT the blogger
Joel Wilson is a film maker, writer, rap lyricist, Alastair McIntosh quoter and Afrofuturism enthusiast. He believes we’re living in rap’s golden era right now.
70 Elevators 