Swayze Jones has been top of the list of my favorite female North Carolina emcee's for a few years now. She has this unstoppable drive in her that refuses to let her give up, on anything! "SwayzeNation: The Mixtape" has been evolving since she first started working on it well over a year ago, and as trials entered her life, she put them into her music. Born in D.C. and raised in Maryland, Swayze found her way to Greensboro, North Carolina and went to work! Most recently, earning her Business Degree from NC A&T. She's not "just another rapper", she's known to pull out her keyboard and beat machine while live on stage, and don't be surprised when she jumps on the tables and starts deejaying during her live sets either. Swayze's lyrics are educated, life-lived and honest.
"SwayzeNation: The Mixtape" includes her in house producers, The Graduates and Blahzae Beats (who also features on a few tracks), Lonestar Beatz, Boonie Mayfield and Flight 125. Features include Poet Dasan Ahanu (on both the Mixtape Intro and Outro), Young Dirt (GHSL founder, on "My Way" and "Strip Club Muzik"), Durham bred J. Gunn ("Rocket Ship"), King Kun, Ashley Alexander, Raheem Kashon ("Love Jones") and singer Chantaul Williams ("Hustla"). This project is solid from beginning to end with Swayze's aggressive and confident delivery on the club sounding tracks, the smooth flow and instrumentals in "Love Jones" and the vulnerable side exposed on the "Tribute To Cordelia Ross" (Swayze's Grandmother who passed away a few months ago). "SwayzeNation: The Mixtape" released today to iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and all other music outlets.
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Raised in New Jersey now residing in Los Angeles, CA, by way of Raleigh, NC, is not necessarily a "new" artist, but may be unknown to many, Esko Robinson. The August 2012 release of his album, The Seed, metaphorically relates his life of chaos into a new life of growth. Even though he felt that the limitations of a small town like Raleigh wasn't a good fit for him, he lists production credits to his North Carolina A&T University classmate, Sean Lane (who's also credited for work with Eyezon and J Ross Parrelli). Production credit also goes out to Q-Smith, CAV3 and J-Kits.
The Seed is the first of 3 LP's that Esko is using as a musical documentary of his personal growth through a tumultuous decade of trials, events he experienced in North Carolina and the decision to move West. Influenced by MCs such as Andre 3000, Method Man, Eminem and Busta Rhymes, Esko's style is described as multi-dimensional and introspective. Check out the album, along with his previous work at www.EskoBTS.com
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