What I'm Watching ... House of M "The Initiative"

Check out the new video from House of M, "The Initiative", directed by Grown Man Collective

Check It ... House of M “The Alternate Reality of …”

Around the time that this blog was reborn earlier this year, we seemed to find Milwaukee's (and Wisconsin in general) hip-hop scene. I can’t recall how we stumbled upon it but we haven’t looked back since. I’ve never been to Wisconsin nor did I know people there before but I’m happy to have found some of the hip-hop cooking up in the area.

As one of my favorite female Milwaukee emcee, Melissa Czarnik, said to me recently, “we are most definitely brewing something other than beer here in Milwaukee right now.”

It’s such a true statement. They are brewing up some great hip-hop. The House of M is one of those examples.

The homie Dana Coppa hit me up a few weeks back with the early release of this House of M project. It sat on the desktop for a few days but once I got the chance to listen to it, the joint impressed me immediately. House of M The Alternate Reality of … is true hip-hop! The crew straight out of Wisconsin is made up of producers D’Matikk, Trellmatic, Dylan Thomas and Lou-Tang; emcees Gambit, Ecko, A.P.R.I.M.E. and Dana Coppa; emcee and producer Raze and DJ DeadBeat. Together the crew creates a powerful sound, rich with classic hip-hop influences and a style of their own.

Their tracks are dope! Production is tight! The flow is great! The interludes are amazing! Every track is great as a solid standalone but come together nicely to tell a story of the “Mutants” that form the House of M.

What really impressed me, outside of their flow and story telling technique in tracks like Superhero Shorties, The Initiative, Superman Ain’t My Name and In Your Mind – were their interludes. Their interludes, which are thought out and well executed, poke fun at the word swag (so many variations) and some of the mainstream radio trash (including shots at auto-tune). Very few albums include interludes anymore and to me, they’re important and help make a project well rounded and complete.

The House of M delivers a complete package of well-delivered hip-hop. I strongly suggest you check out House of M The Alternate Reality of …

AVAILABLE ON iTUNES

For more information on House of M:

www.myspace.com/houseofmutants

www.unifirecords.com

Superman Ain't My Name


In Your Mind

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What I'm Listening to Right Now... Dana Coppafeel

"No guns on your waist like it's 88..."

I guess like wine, sometimes the rhyme gets better and better with time. Perhaps that's the case with 32-year-old Dana Coppafeel. He calls himself an old head, in his second child hood. Originally from Rockford, IL he moved to Milwaukee, WI in the 90s, then Madison, WI for school and back to Milwaukee.

“I would say Milwaukee is where I grew up because it just feels more like home to me,” he said.

I reached out to him after checking his video for the track 88 (check it out below). You got to love that dude shot a video at a laundromat. That’s multitasking – get a load done while shooting a video and delivering real hip-hop. 88 is definitely a dope track (there I go using the word dope again). Immediately that beat takes you to another place. 88 is one of those tracks you need to listen to a few times and each time you’re like “ooooh” when you catch something you overlooked the time before. After checking the video, I immediately went on a hunt to check out more of his tracks. Impressed! There’s just something cool about his lyrical flow and it’s not just on one track. It carries.

“I’ve always free-styled ever since I first heard hip-hop music,” he said. “Even before that my mom used to take me to guitar lesson but I sucked pretty bad but she just knew music was my calling.”

“It’s kind of funny though because I told her I should sing or something like that,” he continued. “Hip-hop was filled that void.”

But he’s been seriously doing music since 1995/1996.

I reached out to him via email and this is what he had to say.

Is music your career or do you have a "day job"
“I like to think music is my career. I spend so much time out of the week in just music alone. At least four days, about 40 hours invested into music. There is really not a lot of money to be made it seems. It’s just endless grind sometimes just to support what you love. It’s my love and whether money is coming in from it or not I just want to perfect my craft. I always end up giving my music away free on the Internet anyways. But I flip burgers part-time (hahaha) for real. I don't even eat burgers.”

How would you describe your music?
“My music is just that real hip-hop you know I'm an older head. I like that gritty street shit but there’s a real message in the mix of it all. I'm from the Wu-Tang era, you know knowledge born. I study the 120 for a few years in my life but at the same time I'm a real big Dilla head and I'm talking about Jay Dee before Dilla died type of fan. So I really like the mixture of those elements.”

What projects are you working on?
“Right now I'm working on a CD, which is almost done called "Coppa's Welfare Foods" it should be done by summer. Also I'm working on a pre-album with the songs that are left over. I’m going to drop that first, but no name right now. I'm in two groups in the Milwaukee area. The first one is KingHellBastard. We are working on a summer release on 12 inch featuring SADAT X (also check YouTube for the KingHellBastard and Sadat X video) and STRICKLIN from EMC. Right now you can download our newest EP called "Y’all got excuse we got reason" (Click to download). The other group is like a super group with like 10 members called the House of M and we are right now working on a LP and a mixtape. So it busy, busy, busy...”


Alpha Sessions~Dana Coppafeel from Darren Cole on Vimeo.

For more Dana Coppafeel, check out:
www.myspace.com/danacoppafeel
www.reverbnation.com:80/danacoppafeel
members.soundclick.com/dana+coppafeel