If you’ve been frequenting this site over its almost 6 year history, you’ve likely come across a post or two about Brooklyn-based emcee Shabaam Sahdeeq. Sahdeeq recently celebrated his 20th year in hip-hop — and considering that hip-hop has long been extremely fickle, such longevity, especially as an underground artist, is a rather impressive feat. Sahdeeq has marked his 20th year in hip-hop by being more prolific and hunger than ever as last year he released the Modern Artillery EP, a collaboration with Swedish-born, The Netherlands-based producer Big Ape, and then Sahdeeq followed it up with the forthcoming release of Timeless: The Collection.
Adding to the Brooklyn-based emcee’s prolific nature, he’s collaborated with an incredibly increasing list of producers and emcees including the politically charged, DJ Ready Cee-produced “News at 11,” featuring Spit Gemz and Sahdeeq rhyming about to the current water crisis in Flint, MI; the constant surveillance of our increasing police state; Monsanto selling GMO-produced food to the public without regard to the consequences on public health; how climate change will lead to our eventual demise; the increasing sense that our political and economic system is fixed; the endless divisions and hatreds being fueled by corporate masters and so on. Both emcee’s capture the contemporary zeitgeist over enormous boom-bap beats, some adept scratching and a Chuck D. sample, which interestingly enough ties the song into a lengthy tradition of real emcees spitting fiery truths to power.