| Item Summary | SHARKEY AND C-RAYZ WALZ CREATE AN INTROSPECTIVE SONIC GEM on SHARKEY & C-RAYZ WALZ ARE 'MONSTER MAKER'
Babygrande Records are set to release Sharkey & C-Rayz Walz are'Monster Maker July 31st, 2007.
Renowed producer/DJ Sharkey and indie hip-hop stalwart C-Rayz Walz have teamed up to deliver a concept record that speaks to the Monsters within us all.
The breaking point/threshold of personal cacophony is the general idea behind the Sharkey and C-Rayz Walz collaboration album Monster Maker. Sharkey breaks down the concept further: 'I feel like the world is the monster maker and I feel like everyone, no matter how good of a family you've been raised by, or how good of a person you are, is capable of being that person that is sitting in the middle of bumper to bumper traffic for an hour one day and on the verge of going out and blasting people. Everyone has that seed in them where they're capable of doing something monster-ish.'
Sharkey's debut album, Sharkey's Machine was embraced by the media far and wide. Featuring the likes of Grand Puba, Jean Grae, Cannibal Ox, The Pharcyde, Cherrywine (of Digable Planets), and many more, Sharkey's Machine was named one of the top 10 albums of the year by the Washington Post, amongst numerous other accolades.Definitive Jux released Walz's Ravipops, in 2003. The EP We Live: The Black Samurai appeared in 2004. The full-length Year of the Beast hit the streets in 2005, 1975: Return of the Beast, was released on Draft Records the following year.
The birth of Monster Maker sets the stage for tracks which range in emotions, highs to lows.
'This Ol' Twisted World' propels us into soul driven good time straight into 'My Way,' in which the mantra ''if you kick me down, I still rise up'.' reflects the common thread amongst both artists' personal and professional struggles over the years. As Walz explains: 'Sharkey's a maaaad underrated producer, arranger, concoctor the same way I'm a maaaad underrated artist, composer, performer, thinker. We both put in a lot of work and have had long careers in this music industry and I don't think that we really got that good weather, it was a lot of gloomy days, but I now think the world is definitely gonna see something.'
A diverse and often moody offering, Monster Maker is introspection at its best. 'Pain to the Picture' makes the dark corners darker, while 'Jumping off at the Jump Off' is a summer party anthem that demands to be played at volume 10.
After completing Monster Maker, Walz unequivocally feels that Sharkey is 'the best producer I've ever worked with. Sharkey beats are everything,' Walz explains, 'they're rock, they're synth, they're techno, they're Hip-Hop, boom-bap, they're everything. So he killed all those fuckin' producers, he made a monster and now he's here to bite everybody's fuckin' head off man.'
Sharkey is indeed ready to do damage, in that he aspires for his music to be an outlet for others. 'For the most part it's about giving somebody something that's maybe an outlet for them, just like music's an outlet for me.'
Sharkey and C-Rayz Walz have tapped into their creative geniuses to create that something and what they've created is, simply put, a monster. |
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