#yuthe78er

[ironmoor]

yU "The Drama Episode 1"

[onklsam]

(yUthe78er)

[onklsam]

(yUthe78er)

[soulspitportal]

MARCH ON WASHINGTON, definitely one of 2014's Best albums. DIAMOND DISTRICT are: ODDISEE @ODDISEE yU @yUthe78er UPTOWN XO @uptownxo

[nowscream-hiphop]

...i turn my pen to a gun Ink's the clip, I let it drip to the drum I spit a gem, phelm slip from the tongue...

yU

Apollo Brown Cellophane Cypher

"Freestyle"

[nowscream-hiphop]

Murder you in 8 bars, actually its 7 Keep 1 in the chamber to snipe angels in Heaven Even endanger the reverend, please believe it I read street English then I speak it collegiate

Rass Kass

Apollo Brown Cellophane Cypher

[nowscream-hiphop]

Faking like you don’t have a heart, wit all that violence you talk/It’s like you can’t crack a smile anymore, I guess it’s gotta be war/24-7 weapons squeeze off, nigga nah/That is a plan within a plan, my man/Destruction is in demand and Uncle Sam is a fan

yU of the Diamond District

If You Down

The Earn

[nothingsoundsbetter]

Homicide (feat. yU & Nottz) by Mello Music Group

"Homicide" - yU the 78er

Arizona as a state has a great deal to recommend it, but a burgeoning underground rap scene is not the first attraction that leaps to mind. Rappers may not be emerging from Arizona en masse, but a Tucson-area independent record label, Mello Music Group, is quietly adding rising stars of hip hop to its roster. “Homicide,” a recent track dropped by MMG signee yU the 78er, is evidence of the label’s fine taste.

The smoky atmospherics of “Homicide,” complete with a hazy vocal hook and psychedelic guitar, call to mind Adrian Younge or perhaps a slightly more grounded Madlib. Over this eerie soundscape yU the 78er tells a gritty story of violence with no frills. “I always heard that death do come in threes,” he snarls at the track’s opening, but this streetwise persona gives way to bewilderment and a kind of learned helplessness by the track’s end.

Reflecting on his cousin, now lying in the hospital with a broken jaw after being caught in flagrante delicto, yU remarks that this all seems like “some shit straight out of a TV show.” For yU’s nameless narrator violence occurs in our society with just as little rhyme or reason as the stale tropes of a TV show. But like any good storyteller, however, he hits the point home just hard enough to leave us breathless.

yU’s track will be appearing on a forthcoming MMG compilation to be released in March, called Persona. If “Homicide” is any indication the rest of Persona will be a real treat for hip hop heads. Who knows? Maybe Tucson is destined to be the next underground hip-hop mecca.

- Peter Schultz