Freebie of the Day: Rukus & J-Slikk – Chasing Cars EP
One of TRU’s favorite known unknowns MC RUKUS recenly teamed up with producer J-Slikk to bring us an EP of raw lyrics over dusty beats. The first thing that drew my attention to Chasing Cars was the album cover. It’s like a lo-fi version of the sort of artwork you’d expect from The Roots. Pop the lid for a detailed breakdown of the concept from the horse’s mouth. A download link awaits ye.
Says RUKUS:
The whole concept was pretty simple…J-Slikk put out a beat tape about a year ago called the “Slikkstrumental Beat Tape”. I heard the beats and thought they were aight, but too dusty…too hip-hop for today’s music ears.
In the meantime it seems like music got real soft, too many synths, and R&B and hip-hop kinda began merging. I’ve got no issues with the music evolving, but I wanted to do something different…take it back to dusty samples, hard-hitting baselines, and just spitting. So I dug Slikk’s beat tape back up a few months ago and worked on crafting it into something people would want to hear.
It’s called Chasing Cars because I’ve been to India twice in the past year and the slumdog kids chase your car and bang on your window just wanting a chance for you to hear them out and possibly get their dream – a few dollars, or maybe a lot of dollars. In the same way I feel me and Slikk are coming from the same place…bangin on car windows trying to get people to hear our craft…so we can get our dream which is to get as many people out there to hear good music.
