GSF Reviewed In The Daily News

source: The Daily News
by Jesse MacDonald

By the time you read this, it will be Thursday, and you will have either missed or taken your chance to see Ghettosocks release his new album, Get Some Friends, at the Seahorse last night. I will have been there, and although I didn’t buy a copy – I’m a big shot and get CDs given to me in hopes that the expression of my valuable approval will encourage my devoted readership to go out in droves and buy them – I will have seen one of the latter-day Halifax greats do his thing once again.

As I write, I am in Ottawa. I’ve had a good weekend here, rapping in pubs and doing readings in Venus Envy (sister shop to ours in Halifax) and running around the Hill taking pictures for www.status report.ca. Ghettosocks came to Halifax from Ottawa in 2003. I believe I met him not long after he arrived, down at CKDU’s Canadian hip-hop show The Maple Mothership. He stood out in his rice paddy hat and big empty glasses frames and he stood out in his witty freestyles and overall air of hip-hop the right way. His rap personna was already notable for containing plenty of humour, but no mockery. Ghettosocks is a wag, but not a buffoon.

Within a few days, I faced him in an MC battle. We went a round further than the customary two because apparently we were closely matched. Personally, I don’t believe that Socks and I are closely matched as battle MCs. This year, he defeated incumbent Kid Quake for the DJ Olympics MC battle championship – I couldn’t have done that.

Open season

Socks is a vicious battler. He’s been physically assaulted on stage more times than any other rapper I know. Suckers run up to punch him like they run up to kiss Morrissey. I don’t know where the Ghettosocks “Season: OPEN” signs are posted, but they must be lit up brightly.

His new album is branded like all Alpha Flight Crew releases, with a solid colour background and a stark black and white photograph. This album’s photo is of a little dog wearing sunglasses. Local photog Kelly Clark says they made a deal with a vagabond for the privilege of shooting his decked-out pooch. That’s the sort of expense for which our province’s cultural export grants exist – that, and the professional mastering and manufacture of not only the album itself, but a promotional vinyl 12-inch single. If only more local artists – well, rappers – would take advantage of the programs in place to assist with making Nova Scotian records as commercially viable as possible!

‘Just like the good old days’

OK, Count Sockula (Esq.) didn’t grace me with a promo so I could tell you about his pet portraits and business acumen. The record is slamming! All beats save one are created by the man himself, and that one is by his AFC crewmate Bix, so the majority of the record is as truly solo as any singer/songwriter with a guitar and no friends. The only guest rhymes come courtesy of Bix, Ottawa’s Loe Pesci and Halifax’s hip-hop megastar Classified. DJs Josh, Y-Rush and Jabba the Cutt lace the record heavily with scratches that lend atmosphere and conceptual support to songs about hip-hop orthodoxy, shoplifting from Wal-Mart, finessing ladies, literacy, how Socks is responsible for inventing everything, and my personal favourite: the perils of getting lippy with a “Tyrannosaur.”

Get Some Friends is a Halifax hip-hop release for the ages. Just like the good old days – home produced, unfettered by concessions to trends or commerce, unabashedly b-boy, and complex, but not too cerebral for the casual listener to assimilate. The hint of a social message here and there never distracts from the central issue of who’s the baddest MC or who’s getting awfully familiar with your mom and/or girlfriend.

Solid rap.
If you aren’t convinced yet, request it on local radio. If you are convinced, either comb the stores downtown or keep an eye on local listings until you see Ghettosocks or the Alpha Flight Crew playing anywhere in town – then, run into the place and make a transaction. The only way to regret it is if you hate stuff that rules.