I’ve detailed my feelings on Champaign-Urbana hip-hop before, but over the past year, a marked improvement by both emcees and those in the local music community to support hip-hop has been inspiring to say the least.
First, we had Mother Nature’s explosive performance at Pygmalion, followed shortly thereafter by T.R.U.T.H and her crew Paradigm Shift’s tour kickoff show at Mike N Molly’s earlier this month – and slowly but surely, it seems like the music community is coming around on this new generation of emcees that call Champaign-Urbana home-base.
Today, the trend continues, as Jay Moses releases his most impressive track to date, “The Thirst.” The track features some old-school boom-bap production from TheGr8Thinkaz associate Rokmore, followed by a short outtro on the keys. As a piano enthusiast, I couldn’t be more down.
Pay attention now, because if this trend is any indication, C-U hip-hop is going nowhere but up. Stream below: