Sten & Lex

Italian street artists Sten(Rome, 1982) and Lex(Taranto, 1982) have been working together since 2001. They have often been referred to as the Italian stencil pioneers. 

Their halftone stencil portraits are based on personal photographs and can be admired in metro poles such as Rome, London, Paris, Barcelona and New York. 

In 2008 the duo participated in the Banksy Cans Festival and the Power and Currency show at the Factory Fresh Gallery in New York. 

In 2009 Sten Lex started to develop a new durable technique to produce Stencil Posters. They inventively combine collage, painting and stencils, resulting in highly original linear works. 

Since 2011, the artists have shown their pieces at MACRO, Magda Danysz Gallery and the Carandente Museum. They were invited to the Living Walls show in Atlanta and the Open walls in Baltimore. 

More information: 
Eleanor Mathieson and Xavier A. Tàpies, Street Artists, the complete guide, London, Graffito Books, 2009, ISBN-13: 978-0956028419 

http://stenlex.net

Murs and 9th Wonder The Final Adventure

American MC Murs (1978, Making Underground Raw Shit) mostly rhymes about relationships, faith and beliefs on his final collaborative album with 9th Wonder.

Their fifth LP The Final Adventure after Murs 3:16: The 9th Edition(2004), Murray's Revenge(2006), Sweet Lord(2008) and Fornever(2010) features ten tracks. 

Tracklist

1. Get Together ft Rapsody
2. Dance with Me
3. Whatuptho
4. Holding Hands
5. Walk Like a Woman
6. Tale of Two Cities
7. Funeral for a Killer
8. Better Way
9. Wherever You Are
10. It’s Over

http://mursworld.com

9th wonder & Buckshot The Solution

Brooklyn emcee Buckshot and grammy - award winning producer 9th Wonder previously released Chemistry (2005) and The Formula (2008). 

Their third joint album The Solution(Duck Down Records) explores the concept of self-determination, the solution to all success and problems to be found within oneself. Their newest creation includes guest appearances from DyMe-A-DuZin and Rapsody. 

Buckshot Shorty began rapping in 1992. The leader of Boot Camp Clik released a solo album entitled The BDI Thug (1999) and led the gritty Black Moon crew.

Both gentlemen are most fond of the nostalgic old-school vibe, complete with soulful samples and memorable lyricism.

Tracklist:
01 – The Big Bang
02 – What I Gotta Say
03 – Stop Rapping
04 – Crazy
05 – The Feeling
06 – SAM
07 – Pat Em Down
08 – Keep It Going
09 – The Change Up
10 – Shorty Left Ft. Rapsody
11 – You Ft. Dyme-A-Duzin
12 – The Solution

Apollo Brown and Guilty Simpson Dice Game

Mello Music Group released another Detroit production: sixteen track Dice Game, featuring Torae and Planet Asia.

Tracklist

1. Freezing Dice (0:21)
2. Reputation (3:11)
3. Let’s Play (3:13)
4. One Man (3:28)
5. I Can Do No Wrong (3:21)
6. Potatoes (2:51) Ft Torae
7. Change (3:14)
8. Dear Jane (3:17)
9. Lose You (3:02)
10. Ink Blotches (3:04)
11. Never ending Story (3:15)
12. The Cook Up (3:46)
13. Truth Be Told (3:26)
14. Nasty (3:44)ft Planet Asia
15. Wrong Hand (3:18)
16. How Will I Go (3:58)

The non conformist way of Haring's walk

Copyright Charles Dolfi- Michels

After passing through the New York School of Visual Arts American visual artist Keith Haring became a prominent subculture figure, leaving his spray painted mark on subway walls. 

Born in Reading and raised in Kutztown, Keith Haring(1958-1990)  grew a passion for drawing at an early age, learning basic cartooning skills from his creative father. While attending the Ivy School of Professional Art in Pittsburgh, he realized he had no interest in becoming a commercial graphic artist. 

In 1978 Keith Haring moved to bustling New York, where he developed his own style of abstracted figures. While attending the SVA he experimented with performance, video, installation, collage, painted plastic, metal and found objects and exhibited in Club 57. 

In 1980 Haring decided to draw cartoon-like pictures on the large amounts of unused black subway billboards. These recognizable white chalk Subway Drawings allowed direct communication with the public, whose attention he very much enjoyed while performing. 

His black outlined pictures of vital human and animal figures expressed powerful social messages of life, birth, drugs, AIDS, death, sex, war and unity. Vividly colored stereotype imagery of dices, dollar bills, barking dogs, wormlike babies, flying saucers, Mickey Mouse were successfully used in his 1980’s graffiti creations which soon caught art handlers' attention. 

Following his neon drawing on Times Square(1982) and a popular one-man exhibition at Tony Shafrazi’s gallery Haring’s intense worldwide career took form with shows at Documenta 7, the Paris, Whitney and São Paulo Biennial, ... 

An urban artist at heart, he continued to paint public murals: in Melbourne(1984), New York(Crack is Wack), Amsterdam, Paris, Phoenix, on the western side of the Berlin wall(1986).

Although the elite paid towering prizes for his works, Haring still believed art should be for every one. His hand painted Soho Pop Shop, the ultimate example of the artist as a brand image, sold affordable merchandising such as T-shirts, caps, toys, magnets, buttons and posters.

Embracing advertising as a medium, Haring designed for Swatch, Château Mouton Rotschild and Absolut Vodka. He furthermore painted in Grace Jones' I’m not perfect video clip, created a jacket for Madonna, theatre sets, posters, logos, held art workshops for children and generously painted to benefit health centers.

Diagnosed with AIDS in 1988, the artist established the Keith Haring Foundation which provides education to children in addition to the prevention of AIDS. This virtuoso pioneer of contemporary mass culture died at the age of thirty one. 

www.haring.com
www.haring.com/kh_foundation

Zevs is brought to light

Parisian street artist Aguirre Schwarz (1977) named himself Zevs after almost being hit by a Parisian regional train line coded ZEUS. 

When he was twelve years old, he already enjoyed expressing himself by tagging on his way to school. The artist befriended Invader and André, with whom he often collaborated in the 90's. 

During the late 1990's Zevs developed a project based on street objects' shadows. His enchanting Urban Shadows series drew attention to objects in urban space by outlining their shadows to make them more visible at night. The silhouettes of city fixtures such as traffic lights, mailboxes, benches and bins were detoured with white paint. 
( Public Bench 2000, Paris; Subway, Electric Shadows series, Paris )
Around that time Zevs also started working in the reverse graffiti technique. 

His Liquidated Logowork, a unique treatment of advertising logos of corporations such as Nike, McDonald's, Chanel, Google and Louis Vuitton, spread his name. By dripping the logos with paint, he creates the illusion that they are dissolving or liquidating. He visually assaults corporate culture by showing that the power of the logo can be reversed against the company. Following a liquidated Chanel logo on a Hong Kong Armani store, Zevs ended up in jail for a couple of days because the authorities didn't believe the paint could be easily washed off.

His Visual Attacks series(2001) targeted advertising boards and light boxes with dripping bullet-wound style spots of red paint between the models' eyes. 

Another one of his provocative projects was his Visual Kidnapping of a Lavazza poster in Germany, with demand for a ransom of 500.000 euros ... Another reverse strategy: he kidnaps an advertisement which is meant to kidnap the public's attention. The ransom money was given to a good cause: Palais de Tokyo in Paris.

Experimental and inventive, the artist creates Invisible Graffiti with a self created paint, invisible during the day but visible at night. This invisible ink technique is a method he also uses for his gallery work, in addition to UV printing.

Signs and the light remain Zevs' trademarks, be it graffiti illumination, a spray painted lightning strike or a shadow effect. This prominent French street art figure simply loves playing around in the street.

http://www.debuckgallery.com

http://www.patriciadorfmann.com

Karriem Riggins Alone Together Stones Throw Records

Karriem Riggins' debut album Alone Together has just been released by Stones Throw Records. The producer's thirty four track instrumental hip hop project was recorded in Los Angeles.

Detroit native Riggins grew up in a jazzy family: his mum collected records and  his father played the piano and organ.

A man of great talent... no wonder Riggins was asked to complete Dilla's last album The Shining, worked with Madlib and produced tracks for The Roots, Common, Erykah Badu, Slum Village, Dwele, among many others.

Riggins is trying to be the best he can be. 

Fantastic Flying Lotus' Latest Until The Quiet Comes

Experimental producer Steven Ellison, known as Flying Lotus has been known for exploring the wide array of musical genres be it hip hop, jazz, electronics, ... The Los Angeles native stemming from the Coltrane jazz musicians family has often been compared to Jay Dilla.

His debut album entitled 1983(2006) was followed by Los Angeles in 2008. Whereas his previous jazz inspired Grammy award winning(Dance/Electronica Album category ) Cosmogramma(2010) record sounded restless and hard to access, Until The Quiet Comes sounds quite the opposite. Although his busy tour schedule made it hard to find the right creativity enhancing mindset, he easily succeeded in producing an ambient fourth album.

The new course in the underground hip hop scene inspired him to create Until The Quiet Comes, a delightful cosmic journey towards unconscious dreamlike states. Enchanting female voices invite the tribal drum intoxicated listener to enter an atmospheric nocturnal universe. 

Dazing streamlined break beat hip hop, dreamy soul and down tempo electronics to loose yourself in and day-dream upon. 

Tracklist
1 - All In
02 - Getting There feat. Niki Randa
03 - Until the Colours Come
04 - Heave(n)
05 - Tiny Tortures
06 - All the Secrets
07 - Sultan's Request
08 - Putty Boy Strut
09 - See Thru to U feat. Erykah Badu
10 - Until the Quiet Comes
11 - DMT Song feat. Thundercat
12 - The Nightcaller
13 - Only if You Wanna
14 - Electric Candyman feat. Thom Yorke
15 - Hunger feat. Niki Randa
16 - Phantasm feat. Laura Darlington
17 - me Yesterday//Corded
18 - Dream to Me

First of a Living Breed Homeboy Sandman's fourth

New Yorker Homeboy Sandman(born Angel Del Villar II, 1980) released his fourth album "First of a Living Breed " on Stones Throw. 

Sandman deserved his solid non conformist reputation with debut full length album Nourishment(2007), second album Actual Factual Pterodactyl (2008) and The Good Sun(2010).

Former law student Sandman uses wit to convey thoughtful messages. He clearly wants to be a plausible role model, lectures about right and wrong as a true teacher. However the song lyrics of "For the Kids" might be perceived as tritely annoying.

Still... listen closely to Oddisee-produced "Watchu Want From Me?".

No-nonsense Homeboy Sandman is capable of writing clever rhymes, delivers them in a nice flow on soulful beats. Let's hope his entire next album will refrain from clichéd moral advice. 

Tracklist

1. Rain 
2. Watchu Want From Me 
3. Couple Bars (Honey, Sugar, Darling, Sweetie, Baby, Boo) 
4. Sputnik 
5. Illuminati 
6. 4 Corners 
7. For the Kids 
8. Cedar and Sedgwick 
9. Mine All Mine 
10. Not Really 
11. The Ancient 
12. Eclipsed 
13. First of a Living Breed 
14. Let's Get 'em

www.stonesthrow.com/homeboysandman 
http://newpro.homeboysandman.com/
www.homeboysandman.com