S/O2 Elus on the recording, mixing and mastering!

This is the first installment of A Work in Progress; a collaborative effort by Benjamin Starship & AK Vell with the multipurpose of introducing listeners to a new sound in Rap/Hip-Hop, hopefully creating a fan base that would appreciate versatility and lyricism; to try and replicate proper evolution of rap/hip-hop music within the series; to resurrect and perpetuate the artistic form of music within HipHop; and to entertain and educate/remind listeners that money, drugs, weed and sex are minutae.

Cop it, Chop It//Crush it, Roll it

Scooby Doo

Paradise Lost

Breeze

Musical Allegory Feat. Pinto & Theory

[Bonus] Mene, Mene

Outro

Orpheus

I'm a... Extra Terrestrial running over pedestrians.
Thespian mask on, raps form like clouds-licking the sky
Slobber all over the bricks. Drip-drip-SPLASH!
Zipped and button up every last-hit-last.
Wrapped in tobacco leave. Eye's smothered in Tabasco
Dropping jewels like Donnie Brasco dropping dimes.
And we climb, cliff-hanger, the rhyme strangler
Bang a beat break-drums, speak to the soul- oh!
You must've for-got lost, trying to whet the appetite of the flesh
Releasing stress defeating death daily so...
We could live on. Nothing less, nothing more barely savant.
You see I'm only trying to learn! Got a couple trees to burn!
And plant a seed, he on a mission. Graffiti on the instrument
Images take over visuals if you listening or not. 
Subliminal criminal plot jigging them, digging a fox hole
Drop, throw a grenade at the lot, go into shock 
But I ain't... selling out like Ewing the paint. 
Bounce-in like an asylum room patient restrained.
Waiting on medication again and again she-
"Keeps Passin' Me By," with that look in her eye.
Life is a bitch! but death is a slut! Sucking Dick in the su-
Burbs, the Country, City and Slums... even the villages
Rape and pillaging, non-discriminate business. The cycle won't stop!
Relativity, blinded to the motion crossing infinity over Zeno's Epiphany
Divinity shot!
So don't pretend to be... blinded for the moment
You not!

Benjamin Starship & the Arsonist collaborate over a Griselda Instrumental to bring you the "Cross Bronx." The first track off their upcoming mixtape entitled "YERRRR !!!!!!!:"  An homage to calling for attention using New York slang.

†Bronx

Traveling Monk feat. Cave17

Government Name: Raymond C...... II
Stage Name: Benjamin Starship 
Alias: Benjamin Blanco; Matches Malone

In the year 1990, Ray received his first breath of life on December 28 at the Bronx Lebanon Hospital. The brother to two older and one younger sister, he grew up within the Castle Hill Housing projects. His father worked as technical support for Ikon Office Solutions while his mother was submerged in the kids' academic and social life. Following the traditional upbringing of maintaining child innocence and scholastic excellence, Ray was not exposed to the elements of raw rap and hip hop culture until he reached the fifth grade, when he had been in the same room with his older sister and her then boyfriend watching MTV videos one afternoon. The life changing visuals and audio from Dr. Dre's single feat. Eminem, "Forgot About Dre" were a gateway to the plethora of new artists and ideologies in a world he had been oblivious to. From that point on he had become obsessed with music, especially the hip hop genre, writing and reciting lyrics as if they were his own.

It didn't take long for Ray to begin writing his own material. Midway through High School he was the undefeated reigning champion of the lunchroom cyphers and dubbed the Most Lyrical at an award ceremony held by the institution. After graduating, he started to take the possibility of a music career more seriously. Having put together two CD's, he released his third, "The BBQ Lyrix & Beatz" in 2009 which helped gain a small and short lived buzz on the internet and in a small town next to Jacksonville, Florida.

An abrupt shift in momentum left Ray with no producer, a fraudulent employee for a major recording company and no where to turn but school and a job in order to stay healthy and productive. However, his creativity and ambition did not die out, and as he learned more he began to pay more attention to the sort of words he used, topics he discussed and workings of various literary devices and techniques as he constructed each verse. 

Ray is currently a Herbert Lehman College student, majoring in Literature with a double minor in Education and Philosophy. Viewing music as an art form, he strives to constantly create timeless material and bring back the evolutionary progress of words spoken rhythmically to an instrumental. Self labeled as an artist/lyricist, not a rapper, Ray is versatile and prepared to bring his artistic and intellectual intelligence to any event, venue and genre.

Benjamin Starship

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