Oklahoma & Underground News
Around the regional underground, Jabee dropped a really smooth cut called “Hot Sauce” that features one of the best coming out of Houston: Fat Tony and Chopps. It’s produced by E-40’s son and member of The Pharmaceuticals, Droop-E. It’s one of my favorite verses from Jabee and a great preview of his joint EP with Droop-E. Another cool track comes from Wichita’s Dxc-T. His track “Nothing” gives off Ratking vibes and is worth checking out. The definite highlight of OKC’s scene in terms of content would be Deus Eyeslow’s video for “Eyes“. It has really stood up well and serves as a great starting point in a young career on the right path to success.
April is a huge month for Oklahoma with the ever-growing Norman Music Festival taking precedence over nearly everything on the music front. In years past, I — among others — had been critical of relegating the hip-hop stage to a spot behind the festival that almost didn’t look like it was a part of the same entity at all. That was not the case this year as the Bacardi stage was dedicated to hip-hop and EDM artists and took place outside on Gray Street for all festival goers to take notice and find easily. The lineup was incredibly strong with artists like Jabee, Josh Sallee, Frank Black, Deus Eyeslow, Roosh Williams, Dewey Binns, L.T.Z., Ronnie Harris, Militant Mindz, Ja’ Porter, aDDLib, Beetyman, and Knoble Savage with some great EDM acts to close the night out. Ronnie Harris did an excellent job emceeing the event, and everything about the stage was wonderful. Johnny Polygon played on the Main Stage with local band Bed People backing him up. It was fantastic to see hip-hop represented well at the festival and echo the state of the strong scene here, so job well done to all those involved in making it happen.
Artist to Watch: Tunji Ige
Why you should listen: He sounds like early Cudi and Drake at times but has a refreshing sound that mixes up a variety of melodies and flows. His song “Day 2 Day” got remixed by Michael Christmas and Makonnen and is rather enjoyable
Where to start: The Love Project (“Ball Is Life” and “Red Light” are great)
Oklahoma Spotlight: Zie
Formerly known as Zone, Zie is usually the biggest guy at the show. He’s from and resides in Norman, but has a very strong presence on the OKC scene and is starting to emerge in the region as someone to take very serious as well. He recently dropped his E.A.T. Reloaded project with DJ Drama after working with him on it in Atlanta. If anyone is going to get a club song out of Oklahoma, Zie has as good of a shot as anyone. It’s great to see someone take their own success into their own hands with their work ethic, and that’s exactly what Zie is doing. He has an undeniably loyal fan base that you will see rocking assorted E.A.T. gear around town. E.A.T. stands for Eliminate All Troubles and that’s exactly what Zie has set out to do wit his career. With the continued support of his fans and the state, there’s no reason he couldn’t rise as a solid national representation of what is coming out of Oklahoma.
May Preview:
Shows:
Post Malone – May 9th at Kamps
JMSN – May 12th at Kamps
Lil Boosie May 28th at OKC Farmers Public Market
Bobby Raps & Josh Sallee – May 29th at The Speakeasy
Albums:
May 12th
A$AP Rocky – At Long Last A$AP
Snoop Dogg – Bush
May 19th
Jamie Foxx – Hollywood
Any day now: Chance The Rapper – Surf
Read on to see what Gray’s favorite songs and videos of the month were:
