THE MECCA MISSION Issue #3.15 March 2015 Opening Editorial

THE MECCA MISSION

The Nation of Gods & Earths

Through

Allah School in Mecca

FOR

The World

Issue #3.15 March 2015

Opening Editorial

by Sunez Allah

Editor-In-Chief

In the idling of this March, much manipulation of all seemed to be the rule of motion. There is a root to all things that demands the preservation of truth and the expectation of innovation out of it.  We present to you a Nation, one different than any other and muddled by so much confusion that surrounds us. It is exactly what one would expect in a society where the root of oppression is an un-taught truth.  That there is no mysterious being, energy or force and that you Original man, whom we shall reveal Black, Brown and Yellow brother are indeed the Creator within your own Creation.  That alike sister, you are that Earth, that truest embodiment of all Creation from which all creating supremacy shall manifest from.

This 5% Nation of Gods and Earths names it's creators as it is our birthright we scientifically engage in exploring as opposed to the expansion of a land we took and continue to take. So in fact under that name, all humanity who learns of their birthright and sincere humanity, that ought and must be lived, are in that name. However, there still remains merely a few, five percent out of a hundred as a loose metaphor of statistic of real consequence. We work to become family but we are not necessarily bound by blood but a truth, that although may genetically bind us, is often reduced to a mere fact. The sky is above, the Sun shines, we live on Earth and the Original man is Creator whilst the Original woman is Creation itself. Facts, a family it does not make.

So with a mere fact and a history of teachers from Allah, who willingly actualized and shared the truth from 1964 on blatantly, through his First Borns to us today, that work to share with all. And this work frustrates, it finds men seeking to win with it as opposed to being it. It sees our oppressors and reduces our freedom to a culture of vengeance.  So we will see those who cannot understand the more difficult insights of Allah as being neither pro-Black nor anti-white.  We will hear our liberation reduced to heinous methods in fancy language as positive eugenics (literally the separation of actions taken to promote the chosen superior ones versus the actions taken to attack the undesirable) that only temporarily masks a future that will be based on choices of destructive like and dislike to scientifically promote alike versus unalike.

Our truth is a scientific quest but it is a culture applied with the mathematical logic of principles.  That the right genes will still be the principles of integrity, honor and sincerity merged into a culture that lives out understanding rightly ever more.

This month I have seen the roots pulled for a false preservation and a cheap innovation. One where those with no tree, no way of showing their tree back to the First Born and thus Allah, seek to indoctrinate. I have seen failed cosigners who refuse to accept the failings of weak inspection. I have even seen satires lose disclaimers and turn into tricks. Only to see the tricksters gloat by quoting our refusal to take things on face value whilst they forget to personally mull over their place in Ezekiel chapter three, verse eighteen. I have seen angry reactions to stop it all provoke wasteful fighting and even the refusal to accept apologies that have left Mecca in a wilderness of cold pressed forrest of rotting olive branches. Best knowers are reduced to old follies and the new way is becoming a spiritual mixtape of today's angry reactionary movements. Quite a month of bizarro'd building.

So Creator within our own Creation is a living experiment with high explosives, those charged truths of great potency. And we must go back to our root if we are to innovate.  We need to leave the fanfare of events that merely appreciate, though we still engage and enjoy, and truly root ourselves in the Earth's replenishing sincerity and reawaken our supreme wellness. Let us embrace our mistakes, construct life lessons and see the roots of our tree. For those with real roots, they will understand and honor the Earth far greater than any fanfare of prancing parades, chivalry charades and escapist escapades.

For now, knowledge the best part in these pages, respect the mission of sincerity and share with us. We also have so much to learn. Peace.

THE MECCA MISSION will represent the foundational principles and core membership of the 5% Nation of Gods and Earths through a preserving yet innovating presentation of its message taught and developed at Allah School in Mecca, towards the immediate Harlem community, the outer NYC boroughs and the entire world.

Subscribe to 

The Mecca Mission:

12 issues a year

$22 a year or $40 for 2 years 

Mail check or money order payable to: 

The Nation Publishing Company, LLC 

and mail to: 

Attention: Latik Allah, Publisher 

Allah School in Mecca 

2122 7th Avenue New York, NY 10027

or PayPal $22/40 for a year/2 year subscription to: 

thenationpaper@gmail.com

R.I.P. DUMAR WA'DE ALLAH

The wake of God is a remembrance of what he has awakened in us—a portrait of truth that Allah, himself, has mastered himself equally.  It is a celebration for his peers, those who spent intimate moments of struggle for food, clothing and shelter whilst elevating their inherent nature to supremacy.  For the student it is no such celebration but an honored retrospection of acknowledgement.   It is said that a warrior should mourn the death of war, be they victorious or in defeat.  As warriors in an uncivil civilization, these letters then mourn of the essence that has returned.  An essence that goes with so much of themselves they have left behind that we are forever bettered.  This surely so, Dumar Wa’de Allah was one of those men we know as God, and all must have known as a supreme being.   Dumar Wa’de was a wonderful teacher, a brilliant lecturer, a masterful writer and a forthright builder.   So this eulogized scroll is to lend my respect to an extraordinary influence in my life.

My immediate teachers, my enlightener Knowledge Me Allah and Savior Knowledge advocated I place him inside the curriculum of my studies.  In my treasured moments with First Born Prince Allah, he expected me to listen to him before others.  Dumar was to be placed near the greatest pedagogical texts, along the most influential plus lessons and at the top of the video cassettes compiled of dynamic orators.   Thrusting myself into teaching every week at Allah School In Mecca, I made the school on every non-Thursday night, an internship of Allah World Manifest.  There must be something special that I share, experiences of my own, insights dear to me and guidance that may direct the young.  Dumar often would be there to lend his hand in that direction.  While he never uttered a word of what I ought to do, needed to teach or an approach I should take, he would present his work to me.  In this work, I understood the nature of the manner to raise minds from ignorance, illusion and savagery with real sciences and sincere guidance.

Dumar, to us of a younger generation, had an air of brolic elegance in his way.  A confidence of accomplishment and the strength to force a platform to prove it.  Yet he would approach me with his latest build, The National Statement, restrained.  As the self-proclaimed and absolutely earned title of National Spokesman, his plus lessons were sufficiently trademarked The National Statement.   These stapled collections of loose sheets filled with themes, ideas and builds of knowledge of self through Supreme Mathematics, using 120 Lessons,  were no longer a mere plus lesson to guide the newborn or re-indoctrinate the quasi-g.  They were builds that used degrees as puzzle pieces of archaeological clues to his excavated mind.  Understanding could be taken from any degree like the 4th degree in the 1-40, the mere square mileage of the Earth.  The entire summation would not born a number as 2, but be the wisdom that sends us his way on how we may roundly refine the Black woman who’s culture is still not free.  That if we just knowledge (1) what is born (9) equally(6), then we will see that it is our own self(1+9+6=7) who is to born (9) the freedom(4) of each and every cipher of culture(0,0,0,0) that is available in this entire planet (196,940,000).  Alike that he would place one degree into an idea that would be exposed in the detail of another, all for a particularly clever and most high idea of understanding of our infinite potential.  These understandings would be as famous in depth as in character.  And he would detail every last bit of these builds to me, throwing every sheet back excitedly as he covered them.  My head would overload with a million numbers and I would have to spend three dollars to rewind the paragraphs.  He always cared that I saw them as well written and I always made sure I had three dollars to buy them.

As an orator, his character took center stage. Took it completely.  In retrospect, I think every Parliament he sized up the crowd of family.  Where are the young?  What do they need?  What is blocking their progress?  What can further it?  So the moment for Nation Business became Dumar busy-ness.  He’d say he only had a few pertinent things to say during Parliament.  If it took a whole hour that was only an illusion of the mind left behind in the wilderness of your own laziness.  Remember, he was no elder but the youngest, most experienced young brother that ever captured devilishment in his palm and was ready to smooth, slick stride and slap it 6,000 years ago where it came from.  Before you see the Gods of the 60’s to 70’s, Soul is only an ill sample.  Dumar would walk up with a stride of nonchalance and then his arms would not flail but project swift cuts and serve as overhand pointers to his invisible floating chalkboard.  He would gallop from one end to another, one degree to the next and resurrect Johnny Neckbone to Justice Now Allah.  He was so skilled transition new thoughts he saw relevant merged right in and engaged us with a sharp fury of articulation we followed point to point while he built cipher to cipher.  He spoke of principles in action, the fruit of a righteous work and offered a logic that made laziness selfish and the offered corruption of the world a silly pursuit.  There was never trauma in his projection or a horrid trial making him a survivor of hell.  He was a natural champion who met his A-Alikes -- Allah and the First Born--and could not help but be as them and would only accept that we be as him.  Such an influence that it resonated confidence in me to share in a designated classroom with attention to a dignified approach in dress, in class structure and offered supplemental materials presented with a measure of tact others can rely on.

Dumar’s life of work borned building as he worked to earn the privilege of being great, yet not so obsessed with being known as great.  As a writer, he brought honor and respect to the writings of our Nation and inspired us to write again.  As an orator, he showed us more of the unlimited ways a brilliant idea can be reached with our language, Supreme Mathematics.  As a builder, he constantly pitched new plans to highlight the young in projects and reward them for excellence with the tools to reach for it again.  Today, I am honored to even hold a moment of a child's time or a teen's hours every week with the small measure of discipleship I freely received from our great elder. As saddened as I am with his return to the essence, we must be honored that he manifested exactly what the Father, Allah, himself wanted. To educate oneself immensely, to share enormously, to work overwhelmingly and be himself, Allah.

Peace,

Sunez Allah

June 16, 2013

THE REAL OF 2012 @ PREMIERE HIP HOP

THE REAL OF 2012, my year end review is @ Premiere Hip Hop

Do the knowledge: REAL OF 2012

Much thanks.
Peace,
Sunez

N.W.A. Vs. N.G.E. : The Cipher for the Best Part

[ Note: As published in The Nation of God and Earth 5%er Newspaper October 2012]

Only one is real.  Awkward, a nation with no citizens, only holders of birthrights.  Impossibly sexy where the loveliest of women are soiled by understanding then bloomed by the culture, beyond the power of plucking to  the deep nourishing of equality’s seeds.  Honorably disrespectful in minding oneself to build a Nation, to then mine past the borders of every country of the world.  All to mind all the human families with offerings, guidance and leadership. 

41 years of the most dastardly, defiling and debasing acts done to devilishment in the name of Allah.   All from a time with ideals and principles conveyed via the fist as often as the word.  When poor was not perceived as poverty but the valiant intent to share unconditionally.  Now, there are far more pages to click leaving the leaflets of the returned and aging sages to wither beyond the reasons of their broken grammar.

Wherever our destination, the swine of its doorman and the putridness of the halls are telling.  That the smell of intoxicated escape battles the invigorating aroma of learning children is a script of hypocrisy.  It is played by actors that come in the name and rarely lack in the rambling of their information, masquerading as knowledge.  If I find solace in the embrace of this cipher to share ideas, it is that the Nation itself is not saved from the hells it loves through for right.   There is honor in a knowledge of self when it survives its fad of membership and is a way of life in any era.  So we must war through hypocrites, devils and ignorance not as the chores for the grand title of Allah but as the lived history of those with sincere intent (Love) of (conscious or unconsciously) chosen work (Hell) that borns all for more righteousness (Right).  For us, it must be real to be, not merely to be with.

And as I have the honor to share at the root, Allah School in Mecca, I see a people I must speak of, a place our mind must be at and a thing that we ought to live.  The cipher of people are not mere African Americans but the entire population of Original people throughout the world.  The knowledge of self extended throughout the United States by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and understood by Allah, the Father, was formatted for the masses of African American oppressed here.  Elijah warred against Christianity with its own weapons pitting himself as the evangelist of truth with a rivaling institution that could protect the people better.  Yet, throughout the history this G has studied, no one has shared the truth of God, as man, to the young until Allah, the Father.  It is on this poor part that Mecca exists again and where all the human families collide for the truth.  We must teach this way and know the Ecuadorian, the Mexican, the Vietnamese as we know the so-called Negro.  We must understand 9,000 miles of water is not all swam or drowned in the same manner.  There are no Original people of Black.  All Original people are Black, of the 16 shades from Black, Brown to Yellow.  Our Original people have only suffered differently but we are all biochemically and mentally supremely a-like at our core.

The place our mind must be at is in the Real.  Who can learn who God is if they have not let go of the mysterious being, energy and/or force that they actively believe in.  The student is in the perfect equality when they are willing to be wrong about anything at any moment.  They now can learn at all times.  So as they have a comfort in being wrong, even as they do wrong, they will develop the willingness to be right, even if they are alone.  The Real is in living a life of learning beyond necessity and just for the love of it.  A poor righteous teacher, sacrificing what they have to teach all that they have to those who may use it.  Those willing to prepare for the separation of inner enlightenment and societal success if they can only be merged hypocritically.  Here, the teacher performs unconditionally in a full school but prepares intensely as the student in his empty classroom.

All for that thing we ought to live, a life of innovation.  Innovation that honors the truth of what must be preserved.  Innovation that is as dynamically unique as the preserved root it came from.  Mere preservation produces an enforced tradition whereas proper innovation applied promotes a writing of a rejuvenated history.  The babies are the greatest through our mere offering of forums.  A forum for them to experiment with their explosive ideas, challenging thoughts and precocious insight.  Showing them the honor in consistent principle as well as the universal change they may instill as creators. 

Without this cipher fulfilled, we could be left with kids of the worst part.  Peddlers of truth, Kings of tiny corners and gods that pray for...just some weak Niggas With Allah.

Peace,

Sunez Allah

Kevlaar 7 & Woodenchainz – Sophisticated Movement Album Review

An immediate return by Kevlaar 7, who just released the opus Die Ageless (http://lavoerevolt.blogspot.com/2012/05/kevlaar-7-die-ageless-review.html) in May, continues the legacy of Detroit’s Wisemen with Sophisticated Movement, an effort of the toughest Blues you can find.  Sophisticated Movement is a classically cohesive, short LP that is beautified by the wonderfully crafted worried notes of Woodenchainz and verses from one of the most poetic hardcore MCs in Hip Hop today.

The sophistication of this album is its focus on Kevlaar’s greatest MC gifts- that poetic engagement of detailing our oppression, viciously brutal battle rhyme phrasing and insightful love for our people.  Many greats have these sentiments but cannot transform them to acetate as easily as Kevlaar.  The movement is in the track by track surge of such clear anthemic material that is bedded lovely by Woodenchainz’s sample choices and arranging along with great Boom Bap programming.

Thus S.M. is a duet where the best addictions of the former feed the addictions of the latter promoting a new Wiseman top for the junkie listener.  From the title track with the horns punctuated by snapping high hats and sandy snares of which become a defining element to Woodenchainz’ superior work here.  Kevlaar then introduces the progression of the movement as that dream for the people isn’t being waited on but grabbed for.  With “Detroit’s Agony,” a brutally wailing track with bass drums punctuating throughout Kevlaar is wildly pissed spitting, “Eastern promises/ felonious for commerce, students stroll the school and made them come out their Converse/ converse with my daughter while I sip a Corona…resurrect dead presidents/ impressed at the decadence/ celebrate no evidence…,” as he is on “Ask About Me,” where funk stabs, clipped lady soul wails and a reverberating guitar lick let Bronze and Styles P grind rugged militancy with Kevlaar leading with “Ask about explicit life like writtens laid back between reality and carnivorous intentions/ unshaven heathen spitting live on location scraping bones with a blade with the turntables blazing…Godly heathen shoppin’ out in Sweden/ autograph seekers seeking/ validation, vintage dreaming…hell is empty and this is where all the devils live in…”

There is also the beautifully Womack’d soul of “At Last” to the roaring vocals spilling on the incredibly sharp drums on “Life’s on the Clock,” Woodenchainz promotes Kevlaar’s lyricism just as much as he zombies the listener with the cacophony of massive snare tricks he employs.  The features are all well done (from Wisemen's June Mega & Illah Dayz to Willie Waze, S-Class Sonny & Shake C) with the future spotlight clearly being on Rain The Quiet Storm with a dynamic verse on “Life’s on the Clock.”

 Kevlaar is an MC with tons of ideas, themes and manners to convey the struggle with the answers.  On Die Ageless, he gives a deep portrait to offer himself while here on S.M., his thematic concepts are deliberately narrowed but exploration is broadened yielding beautiful line after line.  On S.M., his annunciation and lyrically dexterous phrasing continue to excel offering a greater mastery of the track.  Ultimately, the entire LP is quotable because there is his obsession with saying all, even “Fuck You,” in the illest way.  That greatest peak is on “Why” where Kevlaar’s timing is supreme from acapella to beat drop building and destroying vividly with, “Brush my life on the canvas/touching the Earth cuz life’s so candid/ inundated both  will never understand it/ perfect planning just off the papel/ burn a plantation question everything…” With Sophisticated Movement, Woodenchainz emerges as one of the new producers to immediately listen to whilst Kevlaar 7 continues to be one of the great lyricists of this era.  

-Sunez
http://kevlaar7.bandcamp.com/album/sophisticated-movement

INNOVATIVE THOUGHTS: WILLIE COLON is the RZA of Salsa!

Willie Colon, performing this Saturday night, August 18th at the Bronx Lehman Center, immediately conjures thoughts on innovation.  Hip Hop rooted, I immediately think of The RZA's classic and superior albums with Wu-Tang Clan then with Method Man, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Raekwon, GZA, Ghostface Killah and himself as Bobby Digital.  That Willie has the same track record with Hector Lavoe, Ruben Blades, Celia Cruz, Ismael Miranda, Mon Rivera and himself, the wonder of their innovation is evident.  Rooted in the essence of their genre yet their work propelled the genre by its frenetically intent experimentation. 

 

There are great bandleaders that have the legacy of countlessly successful albums with others from Tito Puente to Celia Cruz yet, for Willie, the genre continued to be explored and expanded in his collaborations.  A major difference is that studying the diversity of albums as say, Lavoe's debut La Voz from 1975 and Ruben Blades debut Metiendo Mano of 1977, there isn’t an application of a set band sound to a new Sonero; rather, Colon is constructing a sound for the artist, drawing out their greatest techniques, accentuating their most melodious pitches, adjusting to their inflections and offering backdrops that propel the character of that Sonero.  Other great bands have made superior works with new Soneros (i.e. Ray Barretto's Indestructible after the departure of Adalberto Santiago and other band players, Tipica '73 after Adalberto Santiago using Tito Allen, Jose El Canario Alberto, etc.) but when Colon had a new artist he explored the depth of their character via content, charisma, delivery, cadence, vocal power and intentions.  It's why the classic Willie & Lavoe albums of the early 70's capture the perfectly executed rawness that exemplified Lavoe's vocal strength and uplifting brashness and style in being a rooted Boricua, despite being here in New York, uprooted.  Then as Lavoe goes solo, there is an epic elegance brought to his presentation by the strings and layered production that graduates Lavoe to the deserved title as a legendary Sonero representing the peoples' hopes, yet still reflecting their character without compromise (i.e. the signature classic of Lavoe's catalog, "El Cantante" off the 1978 LP Comedia).  

To add to the RZA comparison, there is the diversity of the two volume Maestra Vida albums he did with Ruben Blades telling the story of a family through generations. Larry Harlow's grafted Hommy off the Who's Tommy was earlier yet mainly respectable because of the lineup of singing characters from Celia, Cheo Feliciano and Adalberto. Still, Maestra is so much more well written and composed, where the story is dependent on the music guiding its sincerity and furthering the sensitivity we feel for the characters.  It has an insight in approach that is reminiscent of RZA’s Afro Samurai soundtracks where RZA uses classic Soul, Rock and Hip Hop to represent the killed father samurai, the villain and the avenging samurai son, respectively.  While RZA achieved a classic score with the great indie film Ghostdog, Willie’s 1977 El Baquine De Angelitos Negroes could be made into an intriguing movie.  

 

As an MC, RZA is often criticized for his flow and limitations dexterity wise.  However, he may be the deepest and most intelligent lyricist of Hip Hop’s history.  The entire direction he took Wu-Tang Clan is one that can be studied as the peak of Hip Hop lyricism from storytelling, abstract lyricism, arcane ideas, spiritual insights and pure science to just elevated battle raps.  With Willie Colon, the expansion of his compositions allowed for expanded lyricism of the genre from the very beginning.  Lavoe merely needed a forum and direction to speak on all things and the stylings of the great Jibaro singers (i.e. Chuito) and Ismael Rivera’s stylings, dialect and rhythmic mastery to Cheo Feliciano’s technical superiority, all catapults Lavoe to really become the icon of his generation and a historical great for us all.  Willie also molded Ruben Blades from just a precocious songwriter, yet vocally a Cheo clone, to a Sonero of his own command and cadence.  Siembra, the 1978 sophomore album of the Colon/Blades union, is noted as the greatest selling Salsa album in history.  Opening up Salsa to being overtly acknowledged as a listening music (though this writer feels musically it always was) where Blades himself noted fans just watched them perform; Colon is really just projecting the Bomba, Plena and Latin folk genres of lyricism to the forefront.  Throughout Colon’s solo career, he would be not only one of the deepest, socially conscious lyricists but one of the most cleverly lined and dynamically inflected.

It actually may be an understatement to only compare Willie to the RZA.  With the impact of Willie Colon (along with Eddie Palmieri and others) making the root Son (and its tempos guaguanco, guajira, etc.) into Salsa (the improvisation of Jazz) with all of the merging and inclusion of genres (i.e. PR Bomba, Plena, Colombian, African styles, etc.) and the freeing up of the actual Puerto Rican New York experience at its peak (i.e. Lavoe) he really is also like the Marley Marl of Salsa.  Just as Marley Marl isolated drum samples and really propels the Boom Bap sound, the ideal Hip Hop track, so does Willie from his heavy trombone sound (with great credits to Mon Rivera and also Barry Rogers of Palmieri's La Perfecta band) and exploration of genres do the same.

Focusing on Colon as the solo artist, thought turns to one of the greatest composers in American history, Miles Davis.  Miles never stayed in one sound and constantly blended genres as new ideas into the structure of his compositions and the stylistic variants of his tempos and lyrical presentations.  It isn't a consistency of sound but a consistency of experimentation that has propelled both Miles’ and Colon’s music.  Willie's solo career incorporating English Pop sounds, new digital techniques, explored singing formats and new lyrical ideas, went from huge orchestras (i.e. 1979's Solo), diverse worldly orchestras (i.e. 1989's Altos Secretos) back to the perfection of the pure Salsa record (i.e. 1993's Hecho En Puerto Rico). If the genre of Salsa is now stagnant, it is the lack of excavation into Willie's music, the blueprint for the resurrection of it.  Uncovering the Willie Colon catalog is to better understand creativity in all its forms.  While the popped ears fatally seek to pick a sound, the point lost is that perfection of the song is by expressing oneself completely with great vigor.  

Willie Colon’s catalog also gives insight to a time just as records by Bird, Diz, Billie, 'Trane and Miles can.  Salsa, the first urban genre of New York City has a captured realness that is classic in recovery just as Rakim, KRS-One, Gang Starr or Wu-Tang is.  The respect for Willie Colon is immediately noted as not merely being an incredible champion for the preservation of the music.  Latin music, particularly everything that is from the family of Son, is often preserved with excellent musicianship but none of the character of an oppressed people, a people with blatant subcultural contributions and powerfully subtle and most relevant counter-cultural ideas, insights, experimentations and revolutions proposed and demanded.  The edge to Salsa, and any genre of our Black/Brown peoples, is lost with cover traditionalism, where young bands just harken the acceptable styles, techniques and lyric ideas of the past.  True innovation is far more balanced, with a preserved ethic and wildly experimental dynamism that is ultimately necessary to our music.  Our music that keeps being the voice of our very real people.

Peace, Sunez

KEVLAAR 7 – DIE AGELESS Review

Now, this music done right you could lose your hand gambling on the real when the time’s reading famine o’clock.  Someday passes again and again with federal reserve notes selling out more tracks.  So are we wrong for trying if this is life then we gon, then we gotta make it breakout?!  Still, if it stays like this solstice to solstice, there’ll be nothing else my people got to get them open.  No more ill changes like lyrical duels of the mind, stories of fallen angels or the metamorphosis of kings into sons of the most high.  Lately, it seems like the Wisemen are of the few to heed the final call to keep this Art to the lean-not traditional rap-just Hardcore Hip Hop.  Far more than a wet pen moistening a glittered scroll but a liquid sword through the mind that dies ageless.

So to Die Ageless, Kevlaar 7 has the intention to leave a poignant work that lasts.  The audacity in that daring is achieved with a very carefully crafted debut that loudly yells a wakeup call to our people as one of its sufferahs. As the first Wisemen solo album to be released not from Bronze Nazareth, it also makes the Wisemen movement official, a movement that prospers from its extraordinary talents as it is also hurt by its lack of proper coverage.

The Wisemen are the Hip Hop ghetto dwelling Blues builders, reppin’ Detroit and they are their own entity.  Due to the Bronze Nazareth being named a Wu-Element producer by the RZA, their a-likeness to the Wu-Tang is acknowledged.  However, unlike the immediate Wu-Fam generation, not one Wisemen-affiliated album has ever been officially produced, executive produced, presented or even overseen by RZA or Wu-Tang Clan.  Yet, it is the Wisemen that have mirrored the spirit of the Wu the most as they have elevated street lyricism and beat making uniquely.  They have earned everything making and growing their albums from the beginning.

Die Ageless becomes an ideal representation of this as throughout he displays a complete portfolio of his many developing techniques and varied sounds they have been prospering with since their last collective effort in 2010, Children of a Lesser God.  This isn’t the exhaustive debut of all that an MC has left but literally a long sampler of how diverse Kevlaar is and where his growth will take place.  Kevlaar’s themes are his most powerful gift as an MC, where he constantly rhymes verse after verse as a soldier in the field taking shots at the fakes, snakes and devils, always showing you his wounds.  His stories suffer setbacks that push us all back (“Solstice,” “Fallen Angel”) and yet line after line there is exposed artistry that paints for us the “beautiful nightmare” he triumphantly comes out of (“Sons of the Most High, genuine article/ blow apart my crown, you better cop a particle/ turn a page/ autobiographical stage/ raw realness/ my soul speak in the zenith…” – “Sons of the Most High”).

The cornerstone songs (“I’m Open,” “My People”) of the album that call out to our Black and Brown people suffering are sincerely delivered and simply stated (“We was built from grains of sand, born from the base of pyramid lands, it was never in our plans/we caught in a concrete war/gun stores and liquor on all corners…My people, let’s learn confederate flags burn/My people, let’s uplift, knowledge of self’s the gift” – “My People”) setting up the sculpted scrolls that close the album (“Now,” “Final Call”).  Yet before Die Ageless’ closing, we have that complete package portfolio to bang out too.

Sonically, this is obsessive Boom Bap where the Blues, that tone of soulful warring in song, that every Wiseman release has furthered, becomes a unique sound for Kevlaar.  While the aforementioned cornerstone songs are slow tempo, hand clap, soul grinders, the majority of the production (most by Bronze), bangs breaks and snares and is arranged to drum stutter and roll to refresh and recharge each verse.  The arranging exposes the real time taken on this album as they catch Sha Stimuli perfect on the snare on the Kevlaar produced “Sons of the Most High,” Bugsy da God’s verse on Bronze’s “Famine O’Clock” rolls and cymbal crashes him into his smooth, up tempo flow or the conga tumbao and lady wail on “We Gon Make It” from Central Intelligence that seems inspired by a monk out of Sabu’s Afro Temple.

As an MC, there is a major technique displayed dominantly on so many songs.  We can shift from the rugged stream of conscious phrasing of “Kings,” (“I bleed a hard road to follow, swallowing shadows/ the past left me hollow, xylophone sutra.."), the metaphor of female gaming extended on “Losing Hand Gamble,” the build on the corruptive legacy behind money (“Federal Reserve Note”) or the rapid fire battle beasting on “The Lean” (“…Compose notes from hunger and bungalows and froze deserts with blessings from natives/originating the making of molecules/ consume melodic skills/ and robbed and killed Emmett Till’s killer’s spirits on bleeding hills…”).  All to include one of the most beautifully soulful and poetically mastered Hip Hop songs in years with “Someday.” Here Bronze’s lead verse is guided by a long held churched organ note and vaulted by the precise beat crescendo.  The verse is pure poetry that is literally greatness relived as Kevlaar shadows the verse with his own that is identical in rhyme structure, theme and both are at the same exact bar for the summative line (“when Granddad died I felt a little less alive” – Bronze, “when Tyler died I cried and felt less alive” – Kevlaar).  June Megalodon’s binding bars in the center will become another of those wonderful subtleties to explore that the Wisemen work offers.

Die Ageless will live as such because it is the work of a writer with heavenly thoughts, right out of hell.  As the album closes with “Now,” Woodenchainz gives a straight Blues belly with that ol’ guitar plucking coupled by an elegant piano touch and a sharp swishing snare.  This Blues literally adapts to Hip Hop before our ears as the drum stutter reloads it ready for some of Kevlaar’s best verses, if not his most summative of the entire work.  Lacing three verses from the hell he is fighting through (“I’m a descendant of masters raping slaves…navigating on elevated thinking, swing my fists... ) to embracing the knowledge of self and getting the fatigues on (“ink from my pen bleeds, blink some, my pen falls asleep, deep history, Peep the Black sand ministry/modest man dealt an honest hand, awaken my inner mystery…”) he eventually works to march us into victory (“But we survivors from Black bottom to the top of the mind cuz we accomplish plans of Sudans and yachts, exotic amounts, we open business accounts, no losses, just ain’t hit the Forbes yet,..Today begins forever…”).  Hard work done, Die Ageless will be key to the Wisemen movement that innovated Hip Hop music in its fourth decade of industry warfare.  It’s also another great, honorable work in music for the people.
--Sunez