The Green Seed

July 11 2014, 1:42 PM ET
The Green Seed plant a new D.A.I.S.Y. age on their refreshing, socially conscious debut effort Drapetomania. The emcees R-Tist and C.O.M.P.L.E.T. take turns delivering penetrating lines (and rhymes about Jude Law) while DJs FX and Jeff-C provide rich supporting textures and quaking beats. With an emphasis on boom-bap breaks and sampled soul, the group's aesthetic and work ethic ("We show skills with no frills") pay tribute to classic backback rap. Tackling contemporary issues — as on the anti-Internet stance "Diss Connect" ("So before you send that next text / You might want to disconnect and unplug and give the real world some love") — and universal themes of the heart and home, the multifarious southern hip-hop crew creates a smart, infectious, 13-track LP exuding positivity and self-awareness. Listen to the blend of soul, laughter, and guts that's due July 15 on Communicating Vessels below. - SPIN MAGAZINE

Conscious. This nigga’s not conscious. That brother is conscious. I’m aware of shit but don’t call me conscious. That nigga flip flop on his conscious shit then. See, them down South cats been cooning a long time and the mere awareness of the elements is an oddity. From hick-hop to coon trap, the South’s bamboozled the Art and given the man something trill of ill, but not ill of skill, to sell us to hell. And I got diagnoses on diagnoses dropped on me like I was some hammock, chuleta swallowing, 180 proof guzzling savage past his prime. Never that, but I been had forms of Drapetomania running from devils my whole life but now I be running from dem savage nigga tunes too. Today, a healthier vegetation coming from the South—The Green Seed from Birmingham, Alabama, debuting music with all the elements for a score you can run from genetically modified ciphers, cross dressing trappas and whitey all at once. But we gon stop running through the bush right now, throw some hush puppies on the ground and before we crawl into the Tubman’s railroad lets do the knowledge to this Drapetomania LP…

The four man group is led by two MCs: R-Tist, a lyricist with a live Southern inflection who chases and catches the end of bars constantly and C.O.M.P.L.E.T., a textured verse writer whose articulation and clarity are enhanced by his syllabled syncopation and verbatim richness. The DJs: DJ FX and DJ Jeff C accentuate the bridges, drive the tempo and fill the spaces with momentum and anticipation as needed.

The thematic reality of Drapetomania is not what these brothers are running away from but how mindful they are running into it. The subject matter is sincere because their critiques are justified by their skill. The LP then becomes greater than the sum of its strong parts because they have layered the verses with distinct concepts (i.e. subject matter and character angles) and seasoned formats (i.e. choruses and verse flows and structures) while the music is pure breakbeats with lengthy details of filled snare and high hat combinations, unique drums, greatly DJ’d musical bridges, DJ’d crescendos and eq levels that let us hear it all with the mufuckin bass. As a group, R-Tist’s beat making skill is aided by the Communicating Vessels label production team to make a debut that can’t be a peak of excellence but is the powerful prelude to it.

A major focus of Drapetomania is getting those Hip Hop props by battle. The battle tracks as “Gotchoo” are declarations of their right Hip Hop intentions that we never expected from those lands ravaged by the industry. And when their concepts reach their cleverest as the first person rhyming as a the wack on “Gimmicks” they prove the boasts. “Up It Steps” has C.O.M.P.L.E.T. rep The Green Seed ideally with “…moments of rap brilliance giving you back the feeling/ that y’all lost when you got attacked by rap’s villains/they got you hooked with that first hit/ then you bought the package and found out that the product had severely slipped/these pocket rape-rs/ got your paper/then they dipped…”

The Drapetomania concepts are those actually universally relevant to the South and beyond all approached with cleverness and insight. Immediately the contrast between the two MCs is a jewel to the illness. Tempos are often kept high as their lead single, “Jude Law” yet the approach to liveness differs where R-Tist glides through with fluctuations on the rhyming bar whilst C.O.M.P.L.E.T. enunciates a barrage of select power phrases. On “Diss Connect,” their gifts for concepts are seen from the title to the cleverness of descriptions (“Misinformed and misdirected/travel pathways, a million kids erected/is it oppressive when our spiritual essence isn’t/ mentioned unless there’s a digital reference…”- R-Tist). On that last line, the MC skills are subtle as the pause R-tist uses on “isn’t” to catch it as a bar. Also, the choice of C.O.M.P.L.E.T. rhyming first also shows the right decisions to feature the verse that details the theme the clearest. “Is Where The Heart is” succeeds because the cliché anger and lust is replaced by a well worded declaration by C.O.M.P.L.E.T. and a sharp display of frustrated love by R-Tist. The peak of the LP is the “Town of Steal” finale. Another sharp song title wordplay as Birmingham was also known as a steel town for the many mills there. The pensive verses from R-Tist are layered in retrospect and metaphor while C.O.M.P.L.E.T. builds on the struggle of our Black family here, through their infamous town with the earlier idea as a steel town as a metaphor. It’s an incredible anthem and makes Hip Hop once again the voice of our brethren everywhere today as it is now a voice for Birmingham.

And those voices are laced with filled tracks that are just as layered as the verses. “Town of Steal” acoustically guitars itself into sharp elongated scratches, deep vocal calls and a stamping snare drum through a cascading piano’d bassline. Then there are the deep bass drums and reverberating noises, changing wails, rolling snares on “Up it Steps” amplifying a mid-tempo track to an rpm feel much higher. Then the tambourine crashes, high hat shakes, cascading strings and groove keys on the thick bass’d “Chance2Say” to then be outro’d with a wild smash guitar’d interlude. At their worst they are only familiar to the best of Aquemini’s eq’d brilliance in balanced levels or the live and fresh newness of Do You Want More?!!!??!

Drapetomania is dreaded name given to the natural desire that any enslaved Original man has to escape oppression. For The Green Seed, they redefine it as a natural talent to make Hip Hop that can make all the clichés thrust at our people, particularly down South, that dehumanizes us escape our grasp. They achieve this with this Drapetomania LP of hard worked quality and extra ordinary talents on the rise. The answer is now the question and the inspector now the inspected because we are the listeners that ought to be conscious of this Bama Boom Bap. - PREMIERE HIP HOP

The Green Seed is a three-person hip-hop outfit roaming the streets of Birmingham, helmed by founding MC R-Tist. Their tracks are accessibly melodic and constructed with the sensibility of classic '90s forebears like De La Soul—and, like De La, offer messages of positivity and cultural awareness with deft humor as opposed to wearisome sermonizing. - Oxford American

The Birmingham, Alabama group The Green Seed have a record coming out July 15th called Drapetomania, and they’ve put together an awesome video, directed by fellow Alabaman Kris Daw, for the single “Jude Law,” an ultra-violent cartoon in which the glowing red-eyed members storm a Nakatomi Plaza-like structure, laying waste to guards with razor-sharp green vinyl-record throwing stars. The mood of the clip is a match for the band-of-outlaws energy of the group, who spitball long chains of lyrical-exercise raps over a hard, powerfully chopped horn sample. - Wondering Sound (Jayson Greene)

Yesterday, we saw Kool A.D.’s hand-drawn video for “Word” indulge in all the sexual and violent urges one could possibly imagine and then some. Today we bring you yet another animated visual, this time from hip-hop band The Green Seed. Far less random and sexually charged but more grim and gruesome, Seed’s video for “Jude Law” plays out like a rather cinematic affair; inspired by manga, an artfully designed struggle between the green-eyed good guys and a red-eyed boss figure ensues on screen.

Much like Captain America’s infamous and symbolic shield, a vinyl-like, green disk glows bright in a short film with sentiments as dark as night. Behind the blood smearing and skull smashing is an archetypal story, enacted by a set of characters, and a solid hip-hop record laced with multisyllabic deliveries.

Watch “Jude Law” below. The Green Seed’s forthcoming project, Drapetomania, is expected to release Jul. 15 through Communicating Vessels. - Potholes in my Blog (Alex Siber)

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Description: Crack Kills/Preservation
Label: Communicating Vessels
Director: Robert Burroughs
Featuring: The Green Seed - MTVU

The Freshmen brings you five emerging artists each week from all genres. Synthpop, indie rock, hip hop, trip hop, edm, even pop, we’ve seen it all and welcome all comers. It’s the fans who will decide which artist gets into on-air rotation.
Frank Peters, Jamie Woon, The Green Seed, The Minutes and Trigg Da Kid all fight for a spot in rotation on this week’s Freshmen. - MTVU

Though Alabama has carved out a niche in the current Hip Hop omniverse thanks to the likes of Yelawolf and, most notably, G-Side, The Green Seed (emcee’s R-Tist and C.O.M.P.L.E.T. and DJ FX) have been working individually and as a collective for the better part of a decade. The Green Seed’s songs are as diverse and prolific as their output, taking a Native Tounges-ish approach to topics that include the personal, the political, and the nerdy. They like to skate. They like comics. They like to crush it. AOL Music has recently featured their video for “Crack Kills.” Take a moment to peep it on site or below! - Hip Video