MAGAZINE FEATURE

Publication: Uptown Magazine
Date: January 07, 2010
Author: Jared Story

ITS ALL ABOUT BALANCE - Lyrical Militant tempers the conscious with the carefree

Download this Mixtape, indeed. Lyrical Militant's 2008 release, available for free at www.lyrical militant.com, is a heady hip hop hodgepodge, a compilation that's equal parts conscious and carefree. Lyrical Militant, born Omar Zee, looks to maintain that hip hop harmony with his forthcoming first full-length.

"I was hoping to get the album out for January, but 2009 went by so quickly it won't be possible now. Hopefully it will still be ready for early 2010 though," says Zee, 25. "It's not going to be so underground. It'll be a little more mainstream-friendly, more mass appeal. It will still be very conscious, but not too serious. There will be some fun tracks like there was on Download this Mixtape, just trying to make it a balanced album."

Originally from Thompson, Man., Zee's musical interest started in school, where he was trained in classical percussion and jazz drumming. A Muslim, Zee says he wrote his first song at age 11 while attending an Islamic summer camp. At 17, Zee became a DJ; by 19, he was producing.

"I always wanted to just be a producer but I love to write, too, so I combine the two," Zee says. "It's hard to find someone to work with that's on the same thinking plane as you, someone who has the same outlook and creative inspiration."

That said, Zee does work well with others. On Download This Mixtape he is joined by a number of guests, including soul singer Flo, songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/producer Abstract Artform and, on the song Hopes Exodus, local MC SillyWilly and spoken-word artist BuddhaBLADE.

"I made the beat for that one awhile ago," Zee says of the track. "It was a really chill beat and I knew I wanted to make a song about the state of the world in general. I feel like the time that we're living in now has never been seen in history. A lot of people say that there has always been war and disease and hate and religious and political divide, but I don't feel like it's ever been at the point where it is today. When I made the beat, I started chanting this line, 'If this is the best of us, this is hope's exodus, never coming back to rescue us.' It just fit. If we're at the peak of our civilization technologically - and supposedly morally and spiritually - then we're lost. Look at all the craziness in the world and you'll see that this can't be the best we can be. If this is the best we can be then hope is gone."

A serious song like that stands in stark contrast to Four Twenty, Lyrical Militant's rhyme on reefer - a contrast Zee says goes back to that idea of balance.

"It's weird, a lot of people talk about image in the music business and how you have to have a clear-cut, a defined image," he says. "Even in life, you're always forced to choose something, Democrat, Republican, Liberal, Conservative, Muslim, Christian, Jew, creationist, evolutionist, but I think they can go hand in hand. I think a lot of people are a little bit of both and there's always this conflict going on inside people."

CD REVIEW

Publication: Uptown Magazine
Date: December 03, 2009

Rating: B+

Download this Mixtape? Sure - but I'd gladly buy it. The debut full-length from Lyrical Militant is a satisfying synthesis of socially conscious (Hopes Exodus), sensitive (Been So Long) and shindig-suitable (Peg City, Four-Twenty) hip hop. With a strong lyrical flow and boss beats throughout, Download this Mixtape is always entertaining, but especially so when Lyrical Militant raps in an über-smooth style. On Been So Long, which features soul singer Flo, Militant is crazy cool, his suave tone sounding a bit like Q-Tip in A Tribe Called Quest's classic, Bonita Applebum. Can Lyrical Militant kick it? Why yes, he can