THE HIP HOP & LOVE TOUR featuring MURS
On sale: Friday, July 29 at 12:00pm CST
MURS
West Coast veteran MC Murs has been sporting his signature dreadlocked hairstyle for some time now. Now the Living Legend can freely sport a baseball cap again after hanging out in the East Coast working on his new album and visiting Lower East Side barbershop institution Frank’s Chop Shop where he got the big chop. In a short video clip recording the whole event, Murs offered at the end, “Frank’s Chop Shop, you changed my life. Now I’m gonna get laid, and paid. It’s all because of you,” says Murs of his new ‘do. “My name is Murs, you may not recognize me, I’m hot!”
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Murs spent a few weeks working with celebrated Hip Hop producer Ski Beatz on the east coast, preparing for his new album coming this fall with the fitting title Love & Rockets, Vol. 1: The Transformation, set to be released on Dame Dash’s DD172/BLUROC label. With six solo albums, six collaboration LPs and a host of EPs, the prolific rapper has emerged as one of underground Hip Hop’s most well known and loved artists. Murs will also be heading on a sixty-day tour in support of the DD/172/BLUROC release alongside Tabi Bonney, singer and DD172 co-founder McKenzie Eddy, and producer/musician Sean O’Connell. The “Hip Hop & Love Tour” will begin in Phoenix, Arizona September 27 and end October 26 in Tuscon. This past April, Murs spearheaded the sixth annual Paid Dues Independent Hip Hop Festival that featured an eclectic mix of artists including Bun B, E-40, Lil B, Mos Def, Talib Kweli and more.
A longtime friend of Definitive Jux leader El-P, Murs first appeared as a solo artist in 2003, after nearly a decade of working with various groups in the underground. Based in Los Angeles, his first single was released in 1993, and came from a self-released album by his first group, 3 Melancholy Gypsies. The track barely made a dent, but it did catch the attention of indie hip-hop fans in the area. Through time, the group members became friends with Mystik Journeymen, who asked 3MG (their shortened name) to join him when he started the Living Legends collective in 1996. But Murs, still the people’s champion of Los Angeles hip-hop, is probably best known through his continuing collaboration with equally legendary North Carolina producer and DJ 9th Wonder.
TABI BONNEY
Rappers are often deemed products of their environments. What then of an MC born Tabiabuè Bonney in a little-known West African nation, and who now splits time between LA and Washington, DC? From the country of Togo to the land of go-go? From a childhood sans indoor plumbing to a jet-setting, globetrotting lifestyle? Sounds incongruous, even implausible. Yet Tabi Bonney has made a career of doing what others won’t or can’t.
SKI BEATZ & THE SENSEIS
Ski Beatz is a record producer, musician and MC originally from NC and was discovered in NYC by DJ Clark Kent. Ski was originally known as “MC Will-Ski” and in the 1980s, he was a member of the group Original Flavor, the first group managed by future recording industry executive DAMON DASH . In the mid-90′s, Ski was working on duo CAMP LO’S debut album UPTOWN SATURDAY NIGHT when Dame called him in to work on the debut album of his own artist, JAY-Z. Jay’s album, REASONABLE DOUBT, was released in 1996, marking Ski’s first major production placement.
MCKENZIE EDDY
McKenzie Eddy is a double agent: businesswoman by day, musician by night. She is one of the original founders of DD172 along with Damon Dash and photographer and graphic artist, Raquel Horn. The current president of Bluroc Records, McKenzie A&R’ed 2009’s Blakroc, a project featuring The Black Keys and a number of hip-hop acts including Mos Def, Jim Jones, Raekwon, to name a few.
SEAN O’CONNELL
Sean O’Connell is a musical extremist. Similar to a method actor in film, Sean completely devotes himself to the demands of his projects and treats each album as a singular piece of artwork, to be dutifully worked and re-worked from beginning to end, with each song telling its own unique part of a larger story. Sean’s latest release Free At First Light is journey that begins amidst a mess of hardship & confusion and ends in a place of optimism & resolution.
DA$H
Darien Dash, aka Da$h, has hip-hop in his blood. The nephew of DD172 CEO, Damon Dash, Darien has been learning from respected musicians his whole life. Only 18, Da$h already has an impressive resume under his belt, working with Curren$y, L.E.P. Bogus Boys, Mikey Rocks, Trademark Da Skydiver, Young Roddy, Rugz D. Bewler, Nesby Phips as well as fellow Bluroc artists Sean O’Connell and McKenzie Eddy and producer, Ski Beatz. Da$h along with fellow Bluroc artist Sean O’Connell introduced Damon Dash to Curren$y back in late 2008.
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