New York, NY (Top40 Charts) The enigmatic Los Angeles emcees Fatlip (The Pharcyde) and Blu (Blu & Exile) released the Knxwledge-produced "
Street Life" ft. MC Eiht, the latest preview of their hotly anticipated album, Live From the End of the World Vol. 1, (Demos), out April 29 via Los Angeles/Tokyo-based label Guilty By Association (GBA).
Atop Knxwledge's knotty beat, this is the sound of two veterans linking up and combining their rap superpowers to create something that will undoubtedly last. It follows a pair of singles from earlier this year - the Madlib-produced, ode to golden age West Coast hip hop "
Gangsta Rap" and "Good For The Soul," featuring Hemlock Ernst (Future Islands' Samuel T. Herring) and Rass Kass.
Featuring production from some of the most forward-thinking beatmakers in existence, Live From the End of the World is one transmission you won't want to miss-even if the sky is falling down around you. The album was executively produced by GBA head Chris Shaw who first met Fatlip backstage at Coachella when he was a backup dancer (not the sexy kind) for Spike Jonze's little brother, Sam Spiegel.
Following an impromptu jam session, "Good For The Soul" emerged and shortly after that, Blu and Fatlip got to work on a real-deal album, culminating in Live From the End of the World's ten speaker-knocking cuts. The album then, offers a chance for fans to hear rare new material from Fatlip, as he and the ever-prolific Blu surround themselves with hip hop vanguards like Madlib, Del the Funky Homosapien, Gift of Gab, Chali 2na, Exile, Slimkid3 and more.
Further anchoring Shaw's personal connection to the album, Live From the End of the World will arrive accompanied by gorgeously impressionistic cover art courtesy of his grandfather-in-law and late abstract painter, Harold Anton, whose work lends a sense of calm that belies the album's foreboding title.
Speaking of: The album title itself was actually decided upon well before modern life felt like, well, the end of the world-but when Blu and Fatlip's creative juices combine, any anxiety about the future simply slips from your fingers. It's music to guide listeners through a host of global catastrophes and beyond, a reminder that even when the ground seems to disappear from under us there'll always be music to keep our feet planted on terra firma.
Chris Shaw, a content and music executive producer based in Tokyo, first established himself in Los Angeles eventually producing global TV campaigns for Apple in the Steve Jobs era after a fateful game of pickup basketball. He also produced the music for such projects as the ESPN 30 for 30 film When the Garden Was Eden and Adidas' 2016 "Your future is not mine" campaign featuring the unknown at the time DAISY (Steve Lacy, Tyler, The Creator) - the latter earning him two Cannes Gold Lions. In 2016, Shaw founded Guilty By Association, through which he set out to foster a global creative community in art, music, and film - producing both independent and branded projects with brands such as Beats by Dre, Nike, and Netflix.
