Monday – November 10th, 2008
w/ Plain White T’s

He is the only rapper with his own music festival. Each album he releases sells more than its predecessor. He toured the world without having a major record deal. So, there’s a reason why independent rap stalwart Murs decided to name his major label debut album Murs For President (Love And Rockets). Murs wants to be rap’s leader and spokesperson, the artist who helps give rap a credible face to fans, the media and critics. After all, the Los Angeles rapper is articulate and well read. He doesn’t use drugs and his platform consists of peace, love, unity and having fun.

“If you’re going to put idiots like Cam’ron on TV, put me on TV,” Murs says, referring to Cam’ron’s uninformed appearance on 60 Minutes in early 2007. “Let me speak for hip-hop. I’m the one guy who is qualified to represent us to the masses — which are obviously tired of us because hip-hop can’t sell records. It can only sell ringtones. It’s become a mockery of itself. It’s become club music. For us to lead back into the marketplace and to be a respected art form, I feel that I’m the most qualified person. It’s time for hip-hop to have a change.”

From front to back, the eclectic, genre-bending, politically charged, musically adventurous Murs For President illustrates a change of direction for rap. The Rick Rock-produced “Dreadlocks,” for instance, is a hyphy song that will surely earn plenty of burn in clubs and on the radio. Murs also adds a level of sophistication to the future smash, name dropping Marcus Garvey and Haile Selassie in his lyrics with the hope of getting his listeners to do some research on the historical figures.

“Everybody has dreads, so I wanted to put out a song to let everyone know what they’re about, and not make it too serious but still slip little things in there,” he says. “So if kids are on the Internet, they’ll know I said Haile Selassie. What is that? From there, they can learn about Ethiopia. I’m still trying to expand and make it practical, not preachy. This is fun, and here’s a little bit of something that can help you expand.”

Thursday – October 16th, 2008

There’s a scene in Murray Lerner’s film (“Festival”), about the 1963 Newport Music Festival, where Peter, Paul and Mary are shown obliging a resounding call for an encore with the protest song, “If I Had A Hammer.” Peter and Paul face each other from the sides and Mary faces the audience of tens of thousands, shaking her blonde hair and bearing down on a song about making change. She would, they would hammer out danger and a warning all over the land. Delta Spirit have five hammers and they swing them the way Mary bobbled her head back in ’63 for her close-ups, the way Mary sang as if her knees were on fire and her mouth was brimming with more ire laced with optimism than she knew what to do with. These Californians have more in common with the dirty haired, dirty fingernailed folk groups of the nascent years than they do any of their contemporaries. They’re suited for reminiscent hopefulness and the gracefully youthful fusion of hostility and all-encompassing passion for all things that can set a smile ablaze or turn the hairs on arms and backs of necks into little beds of nails at the flick of a switch. They make lists of things they like, including all of the people they love, their home, pretty girls, desserts, bodies of water, justice and America. They believe there’s still hope for it and in all of the rooms contained within the hallways of the band’s newest offering, “Ode To Sunshine,” they make you understand that, when it’s all boiled down, what we all ultimately live for is catharsis and a fulfillment of body meeting land, air and sea harmoniously. They’re about bodies meeting bodies, pressing skins to skins. They’re about reminding you to listen more than you talk. They’re about urging you to put stock in the happiness of others, not just your own. They make it obvious that we have to go somewhere to be somewhere. We have to feel something to really live. They sing of the soul searchers. They sing for the soul searchers. They are the soul searchers. – Sean Moeller

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“Delta Spirit should be required listening.”
- Daytrotter

“A hybrid of Americana rock and Northern Soul with boundless energy.”
-mp3.com