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iSWHAT?!
Don't adjust the speakers. That is the legendary riff to Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" skronking on tenor saxophone underneath the spitfire rhymes of Napoleon Maddox. Busting out of the Midwest with their 2004 debut, You Figure It Out, on HYENA Records, Maddox and avant-jazz sage Jack Walker (tenor sax) from Cincinnati/Ohio were greeted with declarations like: ISWHAT?! are going to rescue hip-hop. The trio are part of a movement that is promising to bring originality back to underground beats.' (STYLUS) and They're all about what's happenin' that a lot of people ain't even hip to yet.' (Rahzel/ The Roots).
Since 1997 ISWHAT?! are spreading their re-conceptualized vision of their individual generations' musical languages: jazz and hip-hop. While the core of ISWHAT?!'s sound is based on human beatbox rhythms and sharp, incendiary horn lines, ISWHAT ?! haven't turned their back on the improvisational tendencies of their past, but have consciously applied greater focus to constructing durable hooklines. Their second album The Life We Chose is a fierce, modern hip-hop statement. And concurrently, it's a progressive, forward-looking jazz record.
Over the course of those 200-plus shows in the U.S. and Europe, ISWHAT?! played to sold out audiences with the likes of KRS-One, Sound Tribe Sector Nine and Saul Williams to name but a few. But they also performed at smaller, more intimate gatherings comprised of politically and socially charged heads looking for true community and purpose from music with co-conspirators like Ursula Rucker.
And if spreading their sound to the furthest corners of the world was the immediate goal of their relentless touring, ISWHAT?! often found that playing music to a vastly divided country in the throws of a highly contested war took on a purpose greater than they could have ever imagined. They seized upon the opportunity to question U.S. foreign policy, but also called out the government and corporate America for what they saw as the exploitation of violence and poverty in African-American communities. And while Napoleon Maddox takes on the system, he also questions his peers in both the hip-hop game and his own community.
In fall 2010 ISWHAT ?! will present their upcoming release in Europe: Maddox' spitfire rhymes and mouth percussion will be supported by catchy grooves of Cochemea Gastelum on sax, Hamid Drake on funky drums and Brent Olds' kick ass bassline. In the spirit of one of Jack Walker's heroes Rahsaan Roland Kirk, the music of ISWHAT ?! is meant to celebrate 'B-l-a-c-k-n-u-s-s'.
CD: Big Appetite // Discograph, Alive // 2009
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