Music
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From page C4 of the Richmond Times Dispatch, Fri. Sept. 21, 2007.
"Live by the Sword"
The use of skillful sword handling as an analogy for being a gifted rapper is one that has been around at least since Wu-Tang Clan genius The GZA released "Liquid Swords" back in 1995 (and like everything else in hip-hop, there's someone who can claim to doing it ten years earlier). For the Richmond rapper Isaac Ramsey, who takes the name Swordplay when performing, it's an analogy that's particularly apt, and not just because it's just a drunken slur away from "wordplay." His words are uncommonly sharp ("If this was a manifesto, it'd have to have a hell of a thesis, 'cuz I got a slingshot full of telekinesis") and even when carried in the most careful of hands, they still tend to draw blood. - Richmond Times Dispatch
From rvamag.com/shared/webRVA3i3.pdf, Vol. 3, issue 3, June 2007, page 47:
Reviews
"SWORDPLAY
Cellars and Attics
Concice Records
Richmond's own Swordplay, known to friends as Isaac Ramsey, takes listeners through a trip of the South's grimiest city on his latest album, Cellars and Attics. This disc is thirteen tracks of truth spun together into a lyrical tapestry of crack addicts and world war in between lessons of love, life, and letting go.
Swordplay is loved for his ability to let his rhymes flow fast and furious but with a sort of harmony that makes it all seem like a beautiful disaster. The gritty back beats and sometimes dark, often open-minded, and always on-target vocals come off as a perfect artist's rendering of Richmond. Swordplay wields a vocabulary on par with an Ivy League English major that buries hilt deep in the ears of the listeners. Just by listening in, you're liable to escape the experience a little bit smarter.
Any longtime Swordplay fans will appreciate the classic track "Said Headies" being included on the new album, and at the same time will be opened up to twelve new favorites. Swordplay shows off shades of sorrow and soul with such heart that suggests he is a poet before performer.
-Ryan Brosmer
- RVA mag
http://www.musiqualite.net/swordplay-the-tilt-ep-chronique-626
by Emilien Ercolani
Attention, ceci est un chef d’œuvre ! Nouvel arrivant de la scène underground américaine, Swordplay livre un premier opus de 5 titres, tous plus ensorcelants les uns que les autres.
C’est de Richmond en Virginie que nous viens ce nouveau groupe hip hop américain. Un MC atypique qui pose ses textes lourds de sens avec une voix toujours un ton au dessus de la mélodie qui n’est pas sans rappeler un certain Doseone, et un producteur déjanté qui sort des instrumentales qui transporte dès la première écoute forme le staff de Swordplay. A se procurer d’urgence. - www.musiqualite.net
Discography
Collaborations with Stranger Day, Domer, MC Homeless, Murk One, Martinnealreamy and more.....
August 2005 - The Tilt EP
May 2007 - Sellers and Addicts single
June 2007 - Cellars and Attics LP
Also produced Murk One's Tricycle EP back in 2006 on Concice Records (more info: myspace.com/concicerecords)
in 2008, Concice will be repressing of the out of print Tilt EP on vinyl.... side A the original ep and side B a remix side featuring producers like swerve 36, stranger day, shortfacedbear, and pierre the motionless.
Photos
Bio
The year is 2007 A.D. Richmond, VA is a post-apocalyptic landscape ruled by corrupt politics, surrounded by suburban sprawl and everywhere you look.... androids.
In an attempt to flip these wrongs into rights Isaac Ramsey has come from the future to fight in the past for the sake of... the future.
Isaac Ramsey, going deep undercover and known only by the codename Swordplay landed in our time around the dawn of the new millennium. Things were just starting to take a turn for the worst. The only problem was, our would-be hero arrived with no memory of his mission. Isaac watched as the androids (known in this era as "Republicans" a clever variation of the word "Replicant") slowly took over.
In 2005 AD Isaac recognized the onset of the future from which he had come and after watching all three "Back to the Future" movies, he remembered his mission.
Once again donning his Swordplay alias, Isaac gathered a team of like-minded freedom fighters who called themselves Concice Records and fought back against the encroaching onslaught. Knowing that only a heavy dose of irrefutable logic could overload the circuits of the androids Isaac created the Tilt EP. These were five tracks of motherboard frying, magnetic high caliber rap music firepower. Concice landed a major victory with Tilt, in what became known to historians as the First Battle of Cap City.
To be continued....
for more info on the immediate future:
http://www.myspace.com/idrop
Links
