Royal-T
Wierdo Music for Elitist Aliens
By Thomas Quinlan

Although a little raw, Royal-T’s first legit release, Wierdo Music for Elitist Aliens, reveals the most potential of this newest generation of Canadian rappers. Representing for Thunder Bay, ON, Royal-T is at his finest when he’s rocking double-time over funky, up-tempo productions. The best is his hometown ode, “Baron Wasteland In a Bay of Thunder,” which combines a funky bass line and pitch-shifted choral singing with simple, jungle-influenced drums for Arit Harvanko’s sole production contribution on the album. Back it up with the electro-rocking “The Importance of Being Jiggy,” featuring and produced by Fat Chicano, and you’d have a classic twelve-inch. “Syntactic” and “Chaos” are also good body-movers. The darker beats, like “Turning Left” and “Everything’s OK,” also work well for Royal-T. In fact, except for the occasional mumbles on some of the double-time raps, he’s more than capable rapping over a variety of sounds: sweet soul with hooks and all (“Success”), experimental sound clashes (“Hugh Grant’s Hooker”), and solid street bangers (“Some Now Shit”). Lyrically, Royal-T covers a lot of ground, speaking candidly about politics, society and himself, as well as taking time to drop some battle raps and abstract rhymes. Most impressive is his rare ability to make it all work on one album. Hopefully this is one muthatrucka capable of accomplishing the feat again in the future. (Sub Zero)
Thesis Sahib - Wartime Theme Songs for the Modern Ego
His first solo since The Adventures of Thesis Sahib & Friends may be missing the harmonising vocal layering that he and Selfhelp perfected for their Bending Mouth project, but Thesis sounds so confident with his rapid, staccato raps and sing-song flow that he demands attention. Lyrically, Thesis pre ...Read More
Cee-Lo - Cee-Lo Green…Is the Soul Machine
If Andre 3000’s The Love Below had a logical precursor it was probably 2002’s Cee-Lo Green and His Perfect Imperfections in which the former spiritual centre of pioneering Southern group Goodie Mob exhibited his sprawling creativity, singing in his raspy gospel-fuelled voice way more than delivering ...Read More
Madvillain - Madvillainy
This collaboration between MF Doom and Madlib suffered from an early leak on the internet as well as the mediocre Jaylib release — another pairing that was also subjected to extreme amounts of hype. Two of hip-hop’s most talked-about figures were left in a spot of high expectations that not many wou ...Read More
2Mex - 2Mex
Amp Fiddler - Waltz of a Ghetto Fly
Divo - This Iz Biziness
DJ Rhettmatic - Exclusive Collection
Front - Signs of Life
Good Brothers - Project Blowed Presents
Illogic - Celestial Clockwork
KMD - The Best of Kmd
Marvel - No Streets EP
Passage - The Forcefield Kids
Remark - 3 Fold EP
Royce Da 5’9 - Death is Certain
Sankofa - The Rosetta Stone
Sweat Shop Union - Natural Progression
Tangle Eye - Voices From the Past, Grooves for the Present
Taxi Chain - Smarten Up!
Twista - Kamikaze
Various Artists - Beat Generation
Inception Dir. by Christopher Nolan
Hearing about someone else's dreams might be the most boring form of storytelling, but living in someone else's dreams ― at least in the hands of star writer/director Christopher Nolan (The Dark Night, Memento, The Prestige) ― makes for the movie event of the summer.... Full Review
Crackdown G20
Crackdown 2 was pretty fun when I first played the demo. But before I got my thumbs on the final code, the G20 summit tore apart downtown Toronto — including an incursion of 300 riot cops into my neighbourhood to raid the protestors' Parkdale headquarters — and shook my faith in Canada's police services.... Read More
Books - The Way Out
After a quick succession of albums on Tomlab in the first half of the '00s, Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong took a five-year break from recording to do family stuff and recharge. The Way Out shows no superficial changes in methodology: odd found speech samples and folksy acoustic instrumentatio... Full Review
Social Networking
• Be our friend on MySpace
• Be our fan on Facebook
• Tweet us on twitter
Viewing the April 2004 Issue: • Contents Page • News • Click Hear • Articles --> On the Cover  •  Front Five  •  Points  •  Comics  •  Point of View  •  Questionnaire  •  Research  •  Timeline • Music Reviews --> Recently Reviewed  •  Aggressive Tendencies  •  Beats & Rhymes  •  Frequencies  •  Groove  •  Pop Rocks  •  Wood, Wires & Whiskey  •  Concert Reviews  •  CMW Reviews • Motion Reviews --> Recently Reviewed  •  Dvd Reviews  •  Film Reviews  •  Music DVD Reviews • Music School --> N/A • Contests • Contact --> About Us  • Advertising  • Distribution  • Getting Reviewed  • Getting Published  • Letters To The Editor  • Partnerships  • Subscriptions • Exclaim! Radio --> Aggressive Tendencies Radio  • Beats & Rhymes Radio  • Frequencies Radio  • Destination Out Radio  • Groove Radio  • No Future Radio  • Pop Rocks Radio  • Wood, Wires & Whiskey Radio • Exclaim! TV • Home & Latest Issue • Browse Issues