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Album Showcase: DATALEAK i - gripp, Ashlee Haze, & curveBREAKERS

Uh, Well hi there. It's been awhile hasn't it? I got pretty busy with at first artfight, work, then loosing my job, school, and then getting a new job. But I finished this year's artfight, school has been more manageable, and I have been adapting to my new job. Starting with my first request. Now, I am semi-open for requests and the reason I say semi is because I have a HUGE backlog but also it depends if I am interested in what is being requested.

I like the cover for the EP, it is eye catching with what looks like a decaying nigh time city but torn into the picture is the sun setting above the water while someone is dancing. It gives off the feeling of there is hope in the world despite everything.

This request was from @sxrgripp and it is eeir first EP. I never really expected someone making music to come to me this early on to request me to review their stuff but hey it's cool regardless. DATALEAK i was released on June 6th, 2023 making this the most recent album I have reviewed so far. The record label for the album is called glassEyeballs, LLC which is owned by gripp, one of the musicians behind the album and the one who produced the album. According to the post ee had been alluding to the making of this EP for six months which I take it as it took six months to make said EP. Gripp is the owner of glassEyeballs, LLC which is not just an indie music label but also a media investment and holding company. It is connected to Construct College of Creative Pedagogy and Philosophy Media Group . According to the about page on Construct,

"The Construct College of Creative Pedagogy is a digital learning community dedicated to offering free educational opportunities to students marginalized from traditional academia. Through online classes and workshops, the college encourages participants to develop skills and scholarship whose utility are born from sustainable material value rather than association with colonial and imperial systems. Construct is anti-bigotry in all its forms. We endeavor to create spaces that resist classism, misogyny, transphobia, white supremacy, and the social structures that support discrimination."

Which I think is super cool and I do notice one of the classes being offered is an introductory course on javascript. In an age right now where we kind of need to know how to work with javascript to CSS when making our own websites since a lot of the big social media sites are falling apart I do like this is being offered openly. Philosophy Media Group which according to their about,

"PMG is a network of southern creators and creators of color committed to creating innovative art and meaningful media."

What started as a way for Ashlee Haze to make art without worrying about access to a stage since Covid19 grew into this group to help promote voices that would not be heard otherwise. You know as I mention gripp and Ashlee Haze lets talk more about the musicians behind this EP.

Starting with curveBREAKERS which at first seemed like their only music experience was on this EP but that was far from correct. They have a soundcloud and they are electro-classical music collab duo made up of gripp as the writer and producer and Dylan Griffith as composer and educator. Within their soundcloud it states,

"The collective has produced several commercially-released recordings, created musical cues for independent theater and short film projects, and taught college-level music production classes. Their work focuses on the juxtaposition of different styles and artistic elements: classical with hip-hop, analog with digital, and oppression with joy."

So far they have one track out and I have been listening to it as I wrote the section about the duo and I like what I am hearing so far. Also, their site having little color blocks to click on which each make their own sound is really cute.

Ashlee Haze is a poet and spoken word artist who was the main person behind PMG but was also a feature on Blood Orange track, By Ourselves, on the album Fleetown Sound. She released the book Smoke, a collection of poems about grief and the strength it takes to sit with it. There is her spoken word album of the same name as well which I wonder if it is meant to be the audio book form of the book. I do want to check out both at some point to see.

You may have noticed I have been mentioning gripp a lot throughout the review so lets talk more about eem. Marshall "gripp" Gillson is a writer, programmer, and educator based mainly online. I have talked about the fact ee is part of curveBREAKERS, works with PMG, is one of the educators at Construct, and is the founder of the label glassEyeballs, LLC. I decided to look more into eeir other musical ventures and I found this site called deezer which I never heard of before. According to eeir page on the site ee has been involved with many different projects which I will check out in the future. From what I have seen gripp goes by ee/eem/eeir pronouns and I ask everyone to be respectful of that. I won't tolerate someone being a dick about that.

Now before I get to the album proper I should state that my familiarity with hip hop is well limited. You may have noticed most of my music reviews so far have been on rock, punk, metal, and such in the broadest sense. That is mainly because I grew up with those genres. My exposure to hip hop was through big hits like Whoop there it is, U can't Touch This, and Baby Got Back. Sure I grew up with the ringtone era I would hear play on the bus' radio to middle school but I only started to go out of my way to listen to rap by the time I was in high school when I would start watching reviewers such as Toddintheshadows and The Rap Critic. Even now I am still learning and expanding my horizons on the genre. So I do hope I can do this EP justice reviewing it with the perspective I have.

Track 1: Greens & Water - Ashlee Haze

First track starts out strong with a nice and catchy beat. It would not be out of place in a club, bar, or a hookah lounge. It can keep the party going and I do appreciate that in songs like this. Ashlee's singing voice is nice and can carry the song. When I started writing this way back in June the only place to read the full lyrics is Spotify which I don't use. Lyric Genius has not made a page on this song as well as I am writing this in November of 2023. Because of such I have to play it by ear about a lot of the lyrics. That and usually me posting lyrics would be easy, however I knew once I would get around to songs that feature the n word I would have to do the lyrics differently. I'm white and I want to be careful when talking about this topic. Some have told me that if I am quoting then I can post the N-word just as they say it since it would be just quoting it. However I am not really sure that is the right course of action for me to do. So I'll go about this to the best of my abilities and PLEASE feel free to like critique me on this stuff because hey I want to improve.

Anyway, from what I can gather from the song on my own and with some help from a friend of mine since I do thinking having a second set of years does help with lyric deciphering. I know this first track is about the narrator in a club setting trying to have a fun time smoking weed though lame guys can’t really keep up or are a bother. The narrator brags about herself which hey good for her. Bad girls have every right to hold themselves up and have a good time partying. They shouldn't have to deal with shitty guys being pissy at them. Though there is a transition within the song that changes with the lyrics,

Eat your greens and drink your water and and keep your third eye open

Which comes off more like a nice reminder of keeping yourself well fed and hydrated as you are smoking weed. At least this way you don't have a bad time while getting high. Especially afterwards talking about floating up and such.

Track 2: Cop the Summer - gripp

What stood out to me about this track was the instrumentals, it has a chill atmosphere yet something about it scratches the right itch in my brain. I began tapping my fingers along with the song as I was listening to it. I think the reason it scratches my brain a bit in the right spot is that something about it reminds me of reggae which I could be incorrect about the music comparison since sadly my knowledge on reggae is rather limited. But I don't know, something about it reminds me of that genre.

From the lyrics it seems like the narrator is enjoying the summer drinking while buying whatever he wants. Like he has something to prove with showing off his wealth. One of my friends also seemed to have also gleamed that as well from it. But the ending line

She's bad for you block her number

It then makes me wonder if he is buying stuff for this girl? That in a weird way they are using each other. For him he gets something physically and emotionally from the girl. While she in turn is just using him for money. Which this would have an effect on the high wealth the narrator has. Or maybe not.

Track 3: Upset (feat. Rhayne Thomas) - curveBREAKERS

This track features blues vocalist Rhayne Thomas which is very fitting for this song. This track stood out to me the most because it is not just slow song but is more grounded being about economic struggle. The first line being,

Oil man gotta bail out, Banker got a bail out, slaver got a bail, and I got debt

What follows afterwards is places such as airlines and Chrysler also getting bail outs while the narrator continues to be in debt. Clearly tired and hurt from the reality of capitalism prioritizing these businesses over the common people.

They're closing down the schools but opening the bars, they'll put you in a cage for getting free

Promise salvation to keep you working praying for a day you'll never see

The line about the schools got to me since growing up I went to an elementary school in a pretty poor area of the city. It's budget was limited and the parents along with the kids there struggled greatly financially. Many of the children relied on free lunches since their parents could barely make enough to feed themselves. That and I know the schools that tend to close down are those in low income areas and those in towns that barely get any funding from the government. Leading to people living there making the choice of either leaving for better opportunities or staying and pushing through it. Bars do bring in the most money from working in food service and while bars do have their place it there are critiques of it from the more negative aspects of bar culture with people using alcohol as a coping mechanism from the pains of reality. Which a lot of those pains are caused by economic strife brought upon capitalism. A lot of unjust arrests happen for just existing be it if you are homeless trying to sleep somewhere or if police think you look "suspicious" outside a store. Within prison you are made to work as basically slave labor with the condition of you'll eventually be let out. Which not all get to see since a lot of prisons have terrible living conditions. All of this has the repeated line, "And I'm upset", throughout the song. Which is an understandable emotion that I feel when I see stuff like that happen.

This EP was a pretty good and fun listen. To be honest, I like all three tracks equally. While the third one stands out the most stylistically since it takes a more blues approach (which is appropriate for the them of the song) and the fact there is a bit of what sounds to be an electric guitar in one part which surprised me. The first track is a fun club song it jam out to while getting high. The second track would be my pick for my absolute favorite if I had to only choose one song. The instrumentals of it really clung to me and I won't forget it.

You can listen to the whole album through streaming such as Youtube Music, Spotify, and Apple Music. You can also purchase the album through Amazon and itunes. I do want it to eventually be put on bandcamp as well since I would think that would help get more the word out about this project but here is hoping! I highly recommend checking this EP out along with all the other projects the artists behind this have done.

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