Tunnel Rats Present... Underground Rise, Volume 1: Sunrise/Sunset | ||||
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Compilation album by Tunnel Rats and Various Artists | ||||
Released | April 25, 2003 | |||
Genre | Christian hip hop, underground hip hop | |||
Length | 68:00 | |||
Label | UpRok | |||
Producer | Dert, Donovan Luke Henry, Jermz, Raphi | |||
Uprok Records chronology | ||||
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Tunnel Rats chronology | ||||
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Tunnel Rats Present... Underground Rise, Volume 1: Sunrise/Sunset is a 2003 compilation album by Uprok Records in collaboration with underground hip hop collective Tunnel Rats. Around thirty-five rappers appear on the compilation, which features, in addition to the Tunnel Rats, numerous other underground hip hop artists and groups, Christian and non-Christian, including LA Symphony, LMNO and 2Mex of The Visionaries, Remnant, Mass Reality, Sekou the Misfit, and Deepspace5 members Playdough (also of Ill Harmonics), manCHILD of Mars Ill, and Listener. Production was handled by Tunnel Rats members Dert, Donovan Luke Henry, Jermz and Raphi (a.k.a. Shames Worthy). Most of the album was recorded over a single weekend. CCM Magazine noted that on the song "One Voice", the entire Tunnel Rats and LA Symphony crews come together, with seventeen rappers appearing on the same track. [1] Critics received the album well, noting that, it offered a diversity of musical styles and showcased the many talented artists in the underground and Christian hip hop scenes.
Underground Rise was designed to highlight up-and-coming emcees in the underground and Christian hip hop scenes. [2] [3] Both Christian and non-Christian artists contributed to the compilation, and Rapzilla noted that it features around thirty-five rappers. [3] [4] Most of the Underground Rise was recorded in a single weekend. [2] [4]
Thomas Quinlan of Exclaim! praised the album's diversity, with artists representing the West, East, and South, and producer Dert offering a mix of sound. [4] Brenten Gilbert of Rapzilla drew attention to the project's lyrics, stating that "Lyrically, the album provides plenty of food for thought. Some standout lines include Macho's opening line ('20 years from now...'), Playdough's 'eject knows your crew' line, the Listener's 'lawn gnomes' lyric, and plenty of other gems along the way. There's even a six and a half minute 'cypher' that showcases some of the talent that you'll want to hear on solo projects." [3] Josh Marihugh from The Phantom Tollbooth found Sekou the Misfit's song "Devil's Advocate", on which Sekou argues with God over the existence of suffering, as the high point of the album. [5] Tim Lavenz of RapReviews.com also highlighted the song, writing that "Devil's Advocate", along with songs such as "Ladder" and "Suffocation" "do best to actually educate the listener about God, instead of just self-proclaiming religious battle raps." [6]
Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
Cross Rhythms | [2] |
The Phantom Tollbooth | [5] |
RapReviews.com | 7/10 [6] |
Rapzilla | [3] |
Andrzej Legierski of Cross Rhythms praised Underground Rise highly, rating the compilation eight out of ten squares. [2] He highlighted the tracks "Intro", "How We Get Down", "Southern Brutality", "Kick Kick", "One Voice", "Remember this Day", and concluded that "'Sunrise/Sunset' is a powerful statement made in what is becoming a very diverse hip-hip scene in the States. Though little time was given to record this album it does not compromise the quality of the production or indeed the songs. A great overall feel that will make this hip-hop project a sure classic!" [2] The Phantom Toolbooth provided two reviews of the album, both positive. Len Nash in an unrated review considered the compilation a phenomenal combination of hip hop artists that evidenced the growing impact of Christian hip hop, and said that "A person can finally find a good lyrical CD with a sound that doesn't disappoint. There is good Christian hip-hop out there." [5] Josh Marihugh gave the album a four out of five, calling Underground Rise "a tight collection of nineteen tracks that combine fresh beats, clever hooks, and outspoken lyrics." [5]
Thomas Quinlan of Exclaim! was highly favorable in his review of Underground Rise, considering it the best Uprok release to date, even better than Deepspace5's The Night We Called it a Day . [4] He felt that the diversity should appeal to a wide variety of audiences, and expressed that the tracks "Doing Life" and "Lost" "are the only low moments on this superb collaborative project". [4]
Tim Lavenz of RapReviews.com scored the album seven out of ten, praising the Underground Rise for drawing attention to "many of today's best known Christian rappers". [6] While he considered the compilation's production well-made, he found that it at times becomes repetitive. Lavenz viewed the album's high points as coming "when the most experienced rappers serve up innovative verses that spread the message." [6] In particular, he highlighted Sekou, manCHILD, Propaganda, and Raphi, writing that "These are the best artists featured on this collection..." [6]
Brenten Gilbert of Rapzilla rated the album three-and-a-half out of four, stating that "the TRz crew creates a platform for up-and-coming heads in the game. With more emcees stepping up than your average compilation CD (somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty-five come through), it's easy to forget that this is a Tunnel Rats release. But once the music begins, the identity shines through." [3] Like RapReview.com's Tim Lavenz, Gilbert found that the production at times grew repetitive, but that there are "enough bangers mixed in to keep you on board." [3] However, he concluded that "when all is said and done, the Tunnel Rats hit their mark and made 'Underground Rise' a project worth copping. A genuine snapshot of where hip hop is at, and a glimpse of where it's heading." [3]
No. | Title | Producer | Length |
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1. | "Intro" (featuring Jamie) | 1:37 | |
2. | "How We Get Down" (featuring Macho, Propaganda, Reconcile, Griffin, Elsie and Sev Statik) | Dert | 4:01 |
3. | "You Don't Want That" (featuring Manchild, Playdough, Jurny, Raphi and Macho) | Dert | 4:07 |
4. | "Southern Brutality" (featuring Dokument, Reconcile, Neogen, Lazarus and Propaganda) | Jermz | 4:38 |
5. | "Kick Kick" (featuring LMNO, Dax, Knows, Zane, Dezin8ed and Sev Statik) | Dert | 3:56 |
6. | "Devil's Advocate" (featuring Sekou the Misfit) | Dert | 2:28 |
7. | "Concentrated" (Listener, Sev Statik and Dezin8ed) | Dert | 3:44 |
8. | "Lost" (featuring Raphi, Macho, Neogen and Zane) | Donovan Luke Henry | 3:59 |
9. | "Real Money" (Dert and Macho) | Dert | 3:55 |
10. | "The Knack" (featuring Propaganda, Griffin, Drastic and Raphi) | Dert | 3:43 |
11. | "Ladders" (Propaganda, Knows and Raphi) | Raphi | 3:40 |
12. | "Interlude" (Knows and Propaganda) | 1:09 | |
13. | "One Voice" (Tunnel Rats and LA Symphony) | Dert | 4:14 |
14. | "Suffocation" (Dokument, Drastic, Jurny and Raphi) | Dert | 3:33 |
15. | "Mission Pen Possible" (featuring LPG, Mass Reality and Raphi) | Dert | 3:56 |
16. | "Cyphers" (Elsie, Propaganda and Dax) | Jermz | 3:38 |
17. | "Doing Life" (Drastic, Raphi and Elsie) | Dert | 4:01 |
18. | "Remember This Day" (featuring Dax, 2Mex, Neogen, Dert, Reconcile, Professor Who, Dokument, Chosen1, Griffin, Lazarus, Raphi, Drastic, Propaganda and Macho) | Dert | 6:27 |
19. | "Outro" (featuring Jamie) | 1:14 |
Alejandro Ocana, better known by his stage name 2Mex, is a rapper from Los Angeles, California, United States. He is a member of The Visionaries and Of Mexican Descent. He has collaborated with underground hip hop artists such as Jel, Omid, Thavius Beck, Factor Chandelier, Radioinactive, and Isaiah "Ikey" Owens.
Deepspace5 is an underground hip hop supergroup formed in 1997 and currently composed of Beat Rabbi, Manwell?, Freddie Bruno, Listener, Mars ILL, Playdough, Sintax.the.Terrific, Sivion, and Sev Statik. Deepspace5 also previously included Illtripp and The Recon. Since its formation, the collective has sold over 100,000 copies of its recordings, and has performed with KRS-One, Atmosphere, and MF Doom, among others.
Raw Material. is a Mars Ill album released in 2000, on Sphere of Hip Hop Records.
Joseph T. Evans, known professionally as Sev Statik and Stu Dent, is a hip hop musician and promoter from Albany, New York. Active as a rapper since the early 1990s, he has performed and recorded both as a solo artist and as a member of the hip hop collectives Deepspace5 and Tunnel Rats. Evans has also been a member of various Albany-area hip hop groups, including All Bully, Master Plan, Body Language, currently fronts the rap rock band Goldtooth, and is active in Pitch Control Music, a musical collective and arts movement he co-founded in order to promote and develop hip hop in the Albany area. Evans is a freemason in East Greenbush, New York.
Jason Emmanuel Petty , better known by his stage name Propaganda, is an American Christian rapper, spoken word artist, and poet from Los Angeles, California. He has released seven albums as an independent artist, including one collaborative album with Odd Thomas and one with Derek Minor, and has performed and recorded as a member of the underground hip hop group Tunnel Rats and associated act Footsoldiers.
Tunnel Rats is a West Coast underground hip hop collective founded in 1993 in Whittier, California. Named after the tunnel rats in the Vietnam War, the mixed-gender, multi-racial collective consists of some seventeen individual members and incorporates four affiliated groups, LPG, Future Shock, Foundation, and New Breed, which have recorded both within Tunnel Rats and independently. Several members also formed two additional side-projects, Footsoldiers and The Resistance, which recorded one album in 2006 and collaborated with KRS-One. Pioneers in the Christian hip hop genre, Tunnel Rats often met with resistance from church leaders who disliked the collective's aggressive style and felt that Tunnel Rats praised their rapping skills more than glorifying God.
The combined discography of Tunnel Rats, a West Coast underground Christian hip hop collective founded in 1993 in Whittier, California, is three studio albums, a collaborative compilation album, several compilation appearances, one guest appearance, one music video, and a collection of unfinished material. Named after the tunnel rats in the Vietnam War, the mixed-gender, multi-racial collective has included twenty individual members and incorporated six affiliated groups: LPG, Future Shock, Footsoldiers, the Foundation, New Breed, and the Resistance, which have recorded both within Tunnel Rats and independently. The collective has released three albums under the Tunnel Rats name: Experience (1996), Tunnel Vision (2001), and Tunnel Rats (2004). They also collaborated on a compilation album released through Uprock Records, Underground Rise, Volume 1: Sunrise/Sunset (2003). Though currently on hiatus, Tunnel Rats has not disbanded, according to a statement by member Peace 586.
Tunnel Vision is the second studio album by West Coast underground hip hop collective Tunnel Rats, released on October 25, 2001, through Uprok Records. Featuring a brash, aggressive sound, the album drew admiration from critics and proved highly influential for the Christian hip hop movement.
Tunnel Rats is the third studio album by West Coast underground Christian hip hop collective Tunnel Rats, released on March 3, 2004, through Uprok Records. Featuring several new members among the group's ranks, the album was well received by critics, with Christianity Today and Rapzilla considering it the best album so far by the group.
New Breed is a Christian Latin hip hop duo from Boston, Massachusetts, consisting of brother and sister Rosario "Macho" and Elsie Ortega. An affiliate of the underground hip hop collective Tunnel Rats, the duo has recorded and toured both as part of the Tunnel Rats and independently. After joining the Tunnel Rats in 1998, New Breed appeared on the DJ Maj mixtape Full Plates with the song "What's My Name" in 2001, and later that year on the Tunnel Rats album Tunnel Vision. The duo released its first album, Stop the Music, in 2002, and then appeared on the Tunnel Rats albums Underground Rise, Volume 1 in 2003 and Tunnel Rats in 2004. A second album from New Breed, Nine, came out in 2004.
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Dax Reynosa, often mononymously known as Dax and by the former stage name Theory, is an American underground hip hop artist, producer, songwriter, smooth jazz singer, and music manager from Whittier, California. As a hip hop artist, he co-founded the underground Christian hip hop collective Tunnel Rats and the affiliated groups LPG, Footsoldiers, and The Resistance. He also co-founded the Latin funk and R&B band Elé and formed The Dax Band. He has contributed vocals and songwriting to numerous jazz recordings.
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Daniel Josev Brewer, who goes by the stage name Sintax the Terrific, sometimes stylized as Sintax.the.Terrific or simply Sintax, is an American Christian hip hop musician and a founding member of both The Pride and the supergroup collective, Deepspace5. Brewer is also a practicing attorney in Columbia, South Carolina. He has released three studio albums through Illect Recordings – Simple Moves (2003), Curb Appeal (2007), and Prince with a Thousand Enemies with DJ Kurfu (2011) – and two studio albums, Qoheleth with Beat Rabbi (2010) and The Last Unicorn with Sir Chamberlain (2015), independently. Brewer, originally under the moniker ipoetlaurate and later The Press Junket, runs a blog for which he writes articles and composes songs discussing current social and political events. He released three compilation albums containing these songs in 2011, 2012, and 2013.
Speak Life is the debut studio album by Albany, New York-based hip hop musician Sev Statik, released on November 9, 2002, through Uprok Records. While Sev Statik, real name Joseph Evans, had released a previous studio album, Altered State, in 2001 under the moniker "Stu Dent", Speak Life is considered his debut. Sev Statik had recently joined to the hip hop collective Tunnel Rats, and the release features several artists from that group. It also features Listener from Deepspace5, another collective of which Sev Statik is part. Speak Life marks the debut appearance of Propaganda, who would join Tunnel Rats the following year. The album garnered a mixed response from critics, receiving praise for its positive lyrics, East Coast sound and use of sampling, but criticized for its lack of innovation and inconsistency in overall quality.
Nephilim: Act of God 1 is the second studio album by hip hop musician Stu Dent, released November 14, 2003 through Illect Recordings. Stu Dent is an alternate moniker for Albany, New York artist Sev Statik, real name Joseph Evans. Evans originally created the Stu Dent pseudonym in order to release the album Altered State in 2001 without breaking his contractual obligations with Tunnel Rats, a hip hop musical collective of which he is part. Nephilim follows up on Altered State and the 2002 Sev Statik release Speak Life. The album includes production from Beat Rabbi and Freddie Bruno, fellow members of Deepspace5, a group Evans co-founded, and production and a guest appearance by JB!!, also known as Dirty Moses, a member of All Bully, another group that Evans helped found. Nephilim met with a highly positive reception from critics.
Ill Harmonics is a hip hop band from Dallas, Texas, formed in 1995 by Playdough and Blake Knight. In 2004, Gib, the brother of Blake Knight, joined the group as a drummer. Ill Harmonics has released four studio albums, An Octave Above The Original Volume No. 1 (2000), Take Two (2002), Monkey Business (2004), and Modern Heart Exhibit (2007), as well as a compilation sampler album with MG! the Visionary and Soup the Chemist, released in 2000 through Uprok. Both Playdough and Blake Knight have released solo material, and Playdough also performs and records with the supergroup Deepspace5.
Back to Dust is a studio album by Albany, New York-based rapper Sev Statik and Atlanta-based producer DJ Dust, originally released on October 9, 2007, through Rawkus Records. It was the fourth studio release by Sev Statik and the second studio release for DJ Dust. Back to Dust features numerous guest appearances, including Manchild and Playdough of Deepspace5, Theory Hazit, Supastition, LMNO of The Visionaries, and Raphi, Griffin, and Triune of Tunnel Rats. The album was selected by Rawkus for inclusion in its "Rawkus 50" promotional campaign, and was released as a digital download. A physical version of the album was released on July 7, 2008, through Braille's Hip Hop IS Music label. Back to Dust met with critical acclaim. In 2010, Theory Hazit released a remixed version of the album.
Zane Marie Reynosa, known by the stage names Zane and Zane One as well as the names Zane Valdez and Zane Marie, is an American rapper and fashion accessory designer from Whittier, California. She joined the pioneering Christian underground hip hop collective Tunnel Rats in 1993, which was formed by her brother, Dax Reynosa, and recorded three studio albums and a compilation with the group. She also founded the band Saturday Night Freestyle. She has featured on numerous songs and in 2008 released a solo studio album, L.A. Woman. She was active for years as a battle rapper in the Los Angeles scene and was featured in the 2004 documentary The Battle for L.A.: Footsoldiers, Vol. 1, directed by Darren Doane. She also created a fashion line, Zane Marie Bags, specializing in vintage handbags, luggage, wallets, and rhyme books.
L.A. Woman is the debut solo album by the American Christian and underground hip hop rapper Zane One. After years of delays during the recording process, the album was released on March 10, 2009, through AudioSketchBook. The title references the album of the same name by the Doors and includes samples of various classic rock and folk songs taken from Zane's vinyl album collection.