Archive for Wednesday, February 15, 2012

R.I.P. Lamont “Big L” Coleman (May 30th, 1974 – February 15th, 1999)

Posted in News with tags , , , on Wednesday, February 15, 2012 by Tim Althaus

February has always been a tough month for the art form of Hip-Hop; not only did J Dilla and Big Pun pass in February, but this month also saw the demise of Big L: one of the greatest emcees of all-time. It seems like the youngest people with the most amount of talent are always the first ones to go, and in Big L’s case, it’s no different. Although he didn’t have a long illustrious career in the rap game, many people still consider him to be one of the greatest emcees to have ever graced the mic. At the time of his death, it was rumored that Big L was in the process of signing to Roc-A-Fella records with Jay-Z and other members as a group called The Wolfpack.

There’s no telling what would have happened if Big L would have never been killed; would Jay-Z still be considered the greatest emcee of all-time? Would I be considering Elzhi the sickest rapper in the game? Who knows… but I can assure you that Mr. Coleman would be amongst the ranks of the most relevant rappers in this or any generation. Big L only released two studio albums while he was alive, and to this day, they both remain classics in the eyes of Hip-Hop heads around the world.

“Everybody keep your L up like that, and it don’t mean lazy motherfucker either”

Artist Interview: Jacob Hemphill of SOJA

Posted in Interviews with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on Wednesday, February 15, 2012 by Eric Gilardi

So I found myself interviewing Jacob Hemphill the lead singer and guitarist of SOJA on Valentine’s Day. If you would have told me this a month ago, I would have said there is no way but yet there we were sharing a conversation.

Eric from Mind Inversion (E of MI): First off, I would just like to thank you for taking the time to sit down with Mind Inversion do this exclusive interview.

Jacob Hemphill from SOJA (JH of SOJA): Sure, sure.

E of MI: Secondly, I would like to congratulate you on the success of your new album, Strength to Survive. Did you guys expect this much instant success with this album?

JH of SOJA: We really didn’t know what to expect, it’s reggae you know? And it’s not even Jamaican Reggae, its American Reggae. We expected our fans would like it and we hoped people would feel like the things I was talking about were what was on their mind or if it wasn’t on their mind we hoped it would become one of the things they would be thinking about. Those were kind of our two goals and then it jumped to #3 on all of iTunes and we were all like, “Holy crap, what’s going on?”

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