Brother Reade
Brother Reade One MC and one DJ: It remains the most elemental group set-up in hip-hop. Plenty of classic acts have sprung up from this duo design: Eric B and Rakim, LL Cool J and Cut Creator, and DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince are but a few. As the great art of hip-hop has evolved over the years, however, the pairing-up process has become more identified with studio collaborations: RZA scoring Method Man’s immortal first album, and Timbaland’s future-forward productions for Missy Elliot. Now a group has arrived that combines the best of both. Meet Jimmy Jamz (MC/lyricist) and Bobby Evans (DJ/producer), purveyors of both body-rocking live shows and recorded creations that repay headphone-strapped scrutiny. Together, the two are known as Brother Reade. And the fresh fruit of their labor is the album you hold in your hands: Rap Music.These days, Brother Reade make Los Angles home. But their shared roots go back to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the NASCAR-and-nictotine-stained southern city where they met in adolescence. Jamz was a singer in a punk band in need of a drummer. Enter Evans, a natural born rhythmatist who’d just seen the movie Juice for the first time. Discovering their mutual passion for hip-hop, the pair began to develop their skills in secret, a self-imposed apprenticeship that they now agree may be the smartest thing they ever did. “We always communicated well,” Jamz says, “even while our friends made fun of us because we spoke our own language. Our similar senses of humor and style were there from the get-go, and our natural chemistry has continued to deepen.” That chemistry supersaturates the grooves of Rap Music. “Back to the beginning/ rap’s first inning/ penny on the needle with the turnstile spinning,” Jimmy Jamz flows on the album’s explosive opener “Let’s Go.” Meanwhile Bobby Evans combines rib-rattling snare hits and bass kicks, flying in a sonic hook that sounds like a spaceman’s thermos boiling over on the sun. The song is notable for introducing the album’s underlying theme: If you know your history, you can take the hip-hop to its next evolutionary step while keeping the essence intact. Or to put it another way: If hip-hop had its own Truth-in-Labeling Award, it would go to Rap Music. As Brother Reade’s full-length debut for the Los Angeles-based Record Collection label, Rap Music solidifies strengths first flexed on 2006’s The Illustrated Guide To: 9 to 5 EP. Missed out on that EP, you say? No worries. Start here: Rap Music’s beats and rhymes are harder to get out of your head than a bumblebee who’s just leased your inner ear. “Life Ain’t Easy For Ya’ll” compares pole dancers’ problems to the woes of those rooting for perpetual NBA also-rans the L.A. Clippers, while “Like Duh” makes like the Tijuana Brass tricking out “Big Pimpin’.” It’s on that latter track that Jimmy Jamz pokes fun at himself and the city that for the past four years he’s called home: “Here comes a young man in Hollywood/ James Dean complex/ I ain’t got the car, the cliff to drive it off yet/ they all hollerin’, ‘We know Jim, he kick game in the form of La vie boheme!”

Rap Music’s centerpiece is “The Marcie Song.” Evan’s layered keyboard and electric piano parts provide equal portions elation and dislocation, while the stomp-clap beat lingers in the memory much like the subject of his partner’s story. “By the wayside was where I found her/ she was subtle in the face and eyes/ and she clever in the waistline/ body like a bass line,” raps Jamz, beginning a chilling tale worthy of the finest rap narratives ever committed to record. “‘That was one of the first beats I did that was succinct,” Evans says, “and it was the first time we succeeded in distilling ourselves, while still putting in everything we wanted.” Jamz picks up the thought’s thread: “It’s real easy to get away from your point when you’re trying to be creative. Instead it sounds pretty, but if the message isn’t clear, you’re not saying shit. I know we can make elaborate stuff, but really what we want is to make music that makes no apologies for itself. From there we can go In The Court Of The Crimson King if we want to.”

Such heady destinations exist within the instrumental interludes interwoven across the album, pure proofs of Bobby Evans’ musicality. Evans believes that his talent for making sound mosaics may derive subconsciously from a chance visit when he was 17 to the home of the co-creator of the hugely influential “Lesson” records. Bobby Evans: “For spring break senior year of high school I went up to New York City, and happened to visit a friend’s dad’s friend. I had only been DJing for a year, but when I got into the guy’s apartment he had all these records. He introduced himself as Steve Stein and he said, ‘Anything you want to listen to, go ahead, there’s a turntable.’ A year later I saw a picture of Steinski and I was like, ‘Oh my god, that was the legendary Steinski!’”

For Jamz’ part, a punk rock past came paired with a genuine passion for modern R and B kingpins like Devante Swing. While Jamz is not on stage today doing either Bad Brains-ian back flips or crooning “Forever My Lady”, his command of microphone and crowd clearly has cross-hatched roots. Then there’s the fact that he loves talking about rap almost as much as he loves rapping. Luckily there are moments like on “Let’s Go” when he does both at once: “We used to listen to Kane/ now cats just spittin’ the ‘caine/ and on the other hand cats complain that rap’s changed/ whatcha hatin’ on man, it’s a beautiful thing!”

Brother Reade will spend the better part of 2007 touring to promote their album; attendees will witness the truth. The pair began honing their routines during a grueling 48-date Warped Tour in 2005. (Of their mid-day tent performances, Jamz says: “It was like trying to farm inside a mountain full of rocks.”) Since then Brother Reade’s stage show has grown tighter than Tupperware lids. They’ve performed with acts ranging from Wu-Tang Clan, Clipse, and Chuck D to Spank Rock, A-Trak, and Erase Errata. Jimmy Jamz sums up Brother Reade’s in-person experience thusly: “We make things that we’d listen to, and what we listen to is visceral and exciting and loud and crazy, and when we perform it live, first the girls but then everybody starts going nuts.” And that, in a nutshell, is the power of Rap Music.