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Tag: LowKey

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The Coldest Winter

Mad Passion was a Seattle record label run by Matt Wong in the early 2000s. It only released a handful of projects, including this terrific 2003 album titled The Coldest Winter by Mista Ock. In the CD credits, Mista Ock writes to Wong personally, “thanks for not only believing, but also giving me a platform to be heard.”

There are a few tracks that don’t quite hit for me. For instance “Come Home With Me” is romantic but trite like an LL Cool J love ballad. “Ride Tonight,” featuring Central Intelligence members Key and Diopolis, is an attempt at gangsta rap but the beat is too basic to capture any real tension or suspense. By contrast, the sound effects and tonal urgency found in “Countdown To Genocide” combine these same violent themes into a more successful track. High-energy club joint “Workin It Out” tries its best, but this is another style which isn’t a natural fit for Ock, who sounds too laid-back and calm here to convey the requisite party/dance hype.

But enough criticism, the majority of The Coldest Winter is top level. Ock’s talent shines when he speaks from a place of honesty about overcoming struggle, and those songs are serious and downright compelling. The line, “S*** was all a joke, but it wasn’t too funny, I remember days, Mom scraping up ends for lunch money,” in “All I Ever Knew” is a descriptive and visual example of the humiliation that accompanies poverty. Tracks like “Changes,” “Through My Eyes,” and “Hold On,” feature Mista Ock baring his soul and his feelings to the listener. On “Forgiveness,” Ock speaks to his deceased father in a moving confession.

Title track “The Coldest Winter” is excellent, probably my favorite on the CD. “You only lose when you stop trying, and I ain’t trying to stop,” he cleverly raps to a solid beat. That’s going to be my new motto. After the success of The Coldest Winter, Seattle trio Cancer Rising signed with Mad Passion to put out their second album Search For The Cure in 2005. Written by Novocaine132

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C.I.

Central Intelligence was a five MC hip-hop group from the 206 active at the turn of the millennium. Their sole album, C.I., was released in 2002. It’s bars upon bars upon bars, handing the mic between Citizen Cain, Dialect, Diopolis, LowKey, and SeaJay, backed with beats from Vitamin D and Bean One Everyone’s at the top of their game here. The track “Handle These Deeds” is a rapped autobiography, detailing how the group came together and how five opinionated emcees came to a consensus. “Dear Poppa” explores a child’s anger at an absentee father. “Real Estate” is a hidden track and a biting criticism of the gentrification of the Central District: “Watch the city rezone my hood and change its name—forced to sell the land we can’t afford to maintain… Waking up to the smell of a new Starbucks smack dab in the CD.” The whole C.I. record is one of powerful opinions, and an urgent call to action, like on “Call It As I See It,” that confronts the history taught in school, voicing that “blacks are often left without a past to trace.” With five emcees trading verses, there’s a lot to digest here. Vita and Bean keep the beats simple so the bars can shine. But it’s also not all life lessons. As the group spits on one track, “When you need that ass droppin’, the beats hard-knockin’, you’re left with one option. Who do you call? C.I.!” The song “Move!” with guitars from H-Bomb is particularly poppin’.

Here’s another take:

Criminally overlooked, Central Intelligence was among the greatest Seattle hip hop acts in the ’90s and early ’00s. Similar in sound and style to Black Anger, Source Of Labor, and Narcotik, these five emcees spit knowledge in styles that were concrete, definitive, and mature. The subject matter on this self-titled album from 2002 ranges from the personal to the political, spoken in 5 distinct, articulate voices. With like-minded beats from two of the major architects of the sound, Vitamin D and Bean One, this album is a hidden classic of the Tribal era. Besides this album, CI also contributed to the crucial Sportn’Life Compilation from 2003. They also were reputed to put on a mean live set. A slim but 100% quality legacy. (This review originally appeared on the Bring That Beat Back blog and was written by Jack Devo.)

C.I. was created in and features appearances from:

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