PROFIT feat. SEROCEE, MYSTRO & ZOE EVANGELINE: Electric Smile (2015)

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CUT LA VIS feat. MYSTRO & MR MELODY: Little Way Different (2013)

Cut La Vis covers Erroll Dunkley’s reggae classic Little Way Different on the latest Irish Moss drop and like all good covers he changes it a bit because – well – every man do his thing a little way different right? Out goes Dunkley’s skipping reggae drums and any sense of the track being a stoned late night swayer and in comes a punchy 88 bpm break and rapper Mystro with a rhyme extolling the virtues of individuality. And the icing on the cake? The fact that there’s still room for the…READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM

Feature Breaks Vol. 4: CMC & SILENTA Remixed 2 (2013)

It’s a game of two halves for Roca Records label owners CMC & Silenta on this fourth volume of Feature Breaks where they first soften you up with three cuts off last October’s album Get It On Now and then go in for the kill with three album track guest remixes. Things kick off with moody dancefloor botherer Yeah That’s Right, the skankin Ragga Twins-featuring This Is How We’re Rollin’ and house-crew friendly Where We Started From. Then, before you can say ‘I say – anyone for half an orange?’ The Phunk Junkies tackle Yeah That’s …READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM

DIRTY DUBSTERS: ‘Fire It Up’ album (2013)

Please don’t adjust your seismographs – all that intense activity is just the Dirty Dubsters‘ debut album. Fire It Up finds the boys who put the ‘dub’ into Dublin lighting up the bottom end bong to finally make (split infinitive intentional) their first full-length journey into outer bass. Production crew are the Dubsters themselves of course while vocal crew are guests: Mystro, Leiko Tola, YT, Clinton Sly, Turbulence, Danny Red, Burro Banton, Sista Quanna and the mighty Blackout JA and Bass Nacho. I don’t know about you but I think it’s time for a ‘Byron Crawford’ track by track analysis – haven’t done one of them in a while. Here goes:…READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM

DJ ROAST BEATZ feat. MYS DIGGI: Pour Me (2013) Video

Pour Me is Roast Beatz’ latest joint and contrives to be both an anthem for partying hard and a plea for sympathy for partying too hard. The first of these aims is achieved by making excellent use of a sample I last heard on Speech Defect’s Superfuture and putting UK rapper Mys Diggi a.k.a. Mystro in charge of rhymes. According to the PR, “We made sure it wasn’t just about getting pissed.” Which is true – near the start there is instead about ten seconds footage of mans getting high on aerosol fumes while graffitiing and some studio footage of …READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM

DIRTY DUBSTERS feat. MYSTRO: Fire It Up (2012) Video

In Fire It Up Mystro (that’s ‘maestro’ not ‘mist-ro’) a.k.a. Mysdiggi (doesn’t rhyme with Miss Piggy) proposes a radical solution to violence on broken Britain’s streets. Legalise weed! Yep – let everyone smoke a bit of green. Even the pigs. Chilled vibes all round, and giggly queues for munchies at your local community-business-undermining Tesco which would give a much needed boost to a tanking economy. Well…maybe if everyone smoked natural...READ FULL POST@MONKEYBOXING.COM

CMC & SILENTA: Get It On Now (2012)

The trickle becomes a stream and the stream is shortly to become a flood. I’m on about albums that broadly (let’s not get bogged down in genre politics) fall under the ‘ghetto funk’ heading. The proto ghetto funk LPs were arguably Badboe’s bass wobble free Break The Funk from 2009 and Basement Freaks’ second LP Something Freaky from early 2011. Then young upstarts Morlack and...READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM

THE BEEKEEPERS: Queen Bee – Single (2011)

THE BEEKEEPERS: Queen Bee – Single (2011)
Queen Bee is the latest single off the recently released Beekeepers LP Apiculture and a bit of a banger. Musically coming off like a collision of The Freestylers and The Heavy, it finds rapper Mystro exploring the growing distance between him and the missus (“Oh I should have put a ring on it?/ Well, you’re lucky if I even put a fake bit of bling on it”) and one of the album’s highlights. I was going to continue the monkeyboxing embargo on bee-related gags (not because I’m above such cheap journalistic tactics
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