I found your guy's music a few years ago and absoluty love your shit! Been a fan for years

As Chicago winds up another long, hot summer, plagued by violence and riddled with tragedy, Typical Cats lob in another time bomb, a Qwazaar solo slab entitled "Reflections from the Porch." Anchored by a Natural beat awash in harmonies, bittersweet guitar, and, as always, dust-covered knocking drums, "Reflections" is a two and a half minute masterwork, a miniature history, and a meditative moment from one of the premier MCs of his generation. Described by Hip Hop Renaissance man Kevin Beacham as "one of the best natural Rappers of this era," Qwa is in excellent form here, leaning back into the stories, sipping from a jarful of memory.

"I remember beating on the tables / no interest from the majors / high school talent shows / booed us off stages... / wardrobe busted up -- couldn't afford the labels / cheap-ass backpacks -- sneakers that'll match that." In 4 bars, Qwa time-travels us decades back, digging into pre-TC lore and further, inviting us to examine the soul topography of a quintessential survivor.

Reflections From The Porch

As summer approaches, Typical Cats return with another gem, a blistering slab of frosted lunacy entitled “Bitter Cold.”  One of a constellation of Qwel solo shots from TC’s latest (3, G4), “Bitter Cold” marries a sinister Natural beat that swings like a gypsy funeral with inspired verses from TC’s resident embedded journalist.  Qwel rasps like a man knocking at the lid of his coffin.  He examines the rampant nihilism of post-Keef Chicago while sparring pugilistic drums and a swirling zydeco sample. 

“It’s all love so they say / but it don’t cost and it don’t pay / somehow he lost his way up in this maze / and the world turned him cold…”  With another long hot summer looming over the city, TC aims for the antidote. 

The Bitter Cold

On My Square

For more stuff like this peep - http://www.mixcloud.com/djnatural/

Peace good people. As promised, we bring to you another gem from the TC vaults. Live on WHPK, May 31st, 2000, Qwazaar and Qwel are heard here doing what they were doing just about every week at that time on DJ Natural & Kid Knish's Wednesday Night Rap Show. 

Typical Cats had just coalesced, and the members were spending all their time chilling together in Hyde Park, smoking their brains out, and working on the songs that would eventually make up their first LP. 

A few days before this show was recorded, DJ Natural gave Qwa the beat for "It Won't Stop" for him to write to. Little did Nat know, the verse that Qwa would spit live on air the following Wednesday night was destined to be pared with it. Even though he defied just about every mandate in the prevailing rulebook for rapper self-presentation, Qwel was definitely the "it" dude back then. Everybody was either quoting his punchlines, praying that they'd never face him in a battle, or just standing next to him, hoping dopeness would rub off on them. 

Thankfully, what could have been just a passing moment turned out not to be. As always, a super big shout out to DJ-Algoriddim for digitizing Natural's tapes and for being dope ass reggae DJ... enjoy

Typical Cats - WHPK Classics - May 31, 2000; Qwa & Qwel

Better Luck

Buy A New Perspective - http://smarturl.it/ANewPerspective

You Know ft. The Grouch

Sims "15 Blocks" (Original Album Version)

An unreleased track produced and performed by A-Plus. Happy 420

All I Brought - A-Plus of Hieroglyphics

"Graffiti Writer Killed" is the first single from Blueprint's upcoming Vigilante Genesis EP, produced entirely by Aesop Rock. Vigilante Genesis is out May 27th. Preorder here: bit.ly/VGpreorder

Blueprint "Graffiti Writer Killed" (prod. Aesop Rock)

dollar green is a patented color made from crushin pigment from insects...there we go

04 Patent Green

In the final years of the last millenium, two native New Yorkers added a page to Chicago's hip hop history with the advent of the WHPK Wednesday Night Rap Show. Although short-lived and never formally christened, the Show had heads from Roosevelt to the Hundreds stuck on 88.5 FM midweek. In the show's aftermath, from the ashes of countless vinyl crates and echoes of chaotic show-closing freestyle sessions, Typical Cats was born. 

Featuring MCs Qwazaar, Qwel and Denizen Kane, producer/dj Natural and media assassin Kid Knish, Typical dropped a self-titled full-length on Galapagos4 Records and began a relentless campaign to restore a fallen hip hop world to its former promise and glory. The talent assembled was unmistakable, the sound created was formidable. Firmly planted in tradition, unorthodox in invention and possessed of a strength only earned in the furnace of experience, their Sound is the Future that hip hop's Past would have had if its Present weren't held hostage by the uninspired and unrepentant. A flurry of solo projects later, Chicago's prodigal sons return. Hip hoppers rejoice. Suckers duck and cover. Typical Cats come to conquer. Battle champs, hotline legends, poetry circuit kings. 

Tuck Your Pride In 'Cause All Lyrics Connect At The Soul. And it's on and it's on and it's on. 

QWAZAAR - A native of Chicago's gritty Low End, Qwazaar strikes from hip hop's essence. Whether the subject matter is inner city or interplanetary, the flow remains untouchable - a percussive yet fluid attack that evokes South Side rain and helicopter blades in a single breath. The content is heavy- "After the dust settles, witness the blood puddles..." Lights out, kids. The Q-W-A is here. 

QWEL - You first seen his name dangling a quarter mile up on a suspension bridge from your scratch-bombed window on the Orange line. You first heard that distinctive melodic/abrasive storm of syllables on old Nacro and Scam Artist tapes with inserts printed at the Kinko's. Now the heat's been perfected-and this nasty North Side revelation music rebel is out to wake the sleepers. From Ted Turner's devil ass to the so-called competition-everyone and their mama gets dealt with when the kid laces up his boots. 

DENIZEN KANE - From the rum and coke rumble of Chicago's North Side flow spots to the celluloid veneer of Def Poetry Jam's main stage, Denizen Kane rips the party with a poet's heart and an outsider's eye. Journalistic, impressionistic, real-life and drastic, young Kane's late night Red Line revelations turn into heathen hymns on tape, capturing the moody face of the metropolis in color. How long can a lost one roam until he finds his way home? Listen to your city fall apart through the muddy mouth of an immigrant.

On My Square

Typical Cats

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