Playlist: 01. Blaxtar stream   Tracklist: 01. Amsterdam To Detroit 02. How Does He 03. Drugs Story 04. Don't U Know 05. Crazy Girl 06. Collabosh

In addition to cheese and tulips Holland has a new export product. Beautiful Linguistic Art, X-cellent Timing & Animated Rap is what his name stands for. Ladies and gents, we give you… Blaxtar.

Blaxtar was born late November 1977, in southern Holland, as the son of an army core saxophone player and a mother who sings in church, both from Surinam, South America. Due to frequent reassignment of his father his parents chose a more central place to live, which situated the young immigrant family in a village near the province capital Zwolle.

Having discovered the fine art of Hip Hop Blaxtar started rapping at the age of sixteen, recording his first demos over 2Pac instrumentals among others. Two days before he turned nineteen he left home to move to the city (Zwolle), where he already attended school. During that period he hooked up with Rico, who would become his friend and fellow mc in the group now known as “Opgezwolle”.

As a part of the group Blaxtar propelled himself towards an excellent stage appearance, strong and energetic. Even when the duo merged with another group and became a trio, the main focus seemed to be on Blax (as friends call him). After three years of attempting to combine music with school, he dropped out and enrolled in the Dutch Royal Army.

The geographical separation of the group, lead to an expected official separation which was enforced by the groups decision to focus on Dutch lyrics. Blaxtar stuck with English and recorded several demos with different producers. The split became official after a joint performance, where it became clear that it was too hard to combine the character of the performances. Blaxtar was now a solo artist.

After three years in the army Blaxtar had made a name for himself in the underground Hip Hop scene. He did so by opening performances for Dutch Hip Hop artists as well as international artists such as Coolio, Da Brat, Donnel Jones. He also appeared on Def Rhymz latest album to be followed up by appearances on both Opgezwolle albums. When Blaxtar resigned from the army he moved to Amsterdam. Just months later, he ran into songwriter/producer Ty (Terence Esajas), whom after listening to some of Blax's home produced tracks decided to do a couple of tracks for him. A small underground audience reacted enthusiastically when they were released over Internet. Ty then introduced Blaxtar to the Amsterdam based top producer Dutchflower.

“Ozmoses” is the mystic title of Blaxtar’s eagerly awaited debut album. He says that the album is called Ozmoses for the magical place that one is taken to when listening to it. And that Ozmoses can be broken down in two ways:

• Ozmoses for the leader of MC's breaking out of their geographical prison and for the liberator of Dutch narrow-mindedness that Blax hopes to be.

• Ozmoses: for the fact that Blax learned his English by osmosis.

Listening to the six track preview we can gather that Blaxtar is a flexible and versatile MC who can drop over a variety of beats. The opening track Amsterdam To Detroit is on a more soulful R'n'B type vibe. The musical backing is mellow and relies on sweet keyboard chords, big drums and low rumbling bass with a breathy female vocal sample for the chorus. He delivers his vocals in a heartfelt manner, generally on the more softly spoken vibe, but varying the intensity with reference to the lyrics. How Des He Do It is on a dramatically different tip being darker and hyper at the same time. Bouncing is the intention with this dance floor filler and this could be achieved with the production which fuses big orchestral horns with distorted acid bass blips and a thoroughly up to date beat with an off beat wood block snare.

Drugs Story changes up the style again as Blaxtar gets deeper with his story telling. Each verse exploring a different scenario with regard to drug abuse and the degredation and depravity it can bring on. The backing is minimal - a drumbeat simple bass and some bongos tapping away with more eastern mystical strings and a heartfelt soulful female singing for the chorus again and as such is perfect to bring the lyrics to the forefront. Don't U Know is the life story of Blaxtar and how he became himself all over a beautiful strings loop. Whereas the previous tracks experimented with mixing styles successfully this is classic mid 90's Hip Hop and it works really well. Crazy Girl continues in the vibe of the previous track. Heavy strings based production from Dutchflower provides a heavy backing for Blaxtar to tell a sad tale of a woman trapped in an abusive situation who isn't ready to check her self and try to break the cycle. The final track Collabosh is the funkiest track of this selection. Dutchflower hooks up a terrific bass line which is the main driver of the track and all throughout I have been impressed with the quality of the production and this track only reinforces that impression. Blaxtar goes back and forth with with the only guest rapper Perry Mystic, each taking a few bars and really together they inject a great deal of energy and tried to out do each other with fantabulous flows. Amongst all the lyrics Craig David even gets a mention!

The album which is scheduled to drop in March 2005 features tracks that have all been produced by Dutchflower, who after this should be renowned for his grimy bass sounds and thick, kick-ass productions. Make sure you make a note of this and check out what Blaxtar is up to in the future.

Blaxtar Entertainment :: Touwslagerstraat 1 :: 1013 DL Amsterdam :: the Netherlands
phone: +31 6 517 57 159 :: mailto:[email protected] :: http://www.blaxtar.com