Ever since we absolutely fell in love with Apollo Brown’s production skills from his part in rap collective The Left, we’ve been hooked and always anxious to hear what he’s got next on the menu. 2011’s instrumental record of the year (for us) called “Clouds” definitely confirmed for us that he’s a part of royalty behind the boards. Let’s face It in 2012, “traditional hip-hop” is not in its best state but Apollo Brown is here to confirm that the boom-bap approach isn’t dead.
Now, what do you get when you combine AB with the legendary OC from the D.I.T.C crew? Well, apart from a shit load of letters, you get one of the best records of 2012 which is called “Trophies” and thankfully not ABOCDITC.
The album is 16 tracks strong with absolutely no need for featuring MC’s or guest producers. In the great tradition of dynamic duos like Pete Rock & CL Smooth this is an album that you listen to in headphones and it just takes you places. The pairing couldn’t be better: Apollo Brown is just on fire and OC hasn’t released a record since 2009 so it’s a very strong comeback. It was also a very nice surprise to see that a couple tracks from “Clouds” were used for this project. It’s a good thing because a lot of those beats were just begging for a good MC to jump on.
Along with the Quakers record and the Action Bronson record this is up going to be up there for our favorite hip-hop record of the year!
Buy TROPHIESDownload: Apollo Brown & OC – Peoples Champ (Single)
Purchase Music by Apollo Brown
Purchase Music by O.C.
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