Lost Generation/

Fast paced Nation/

World population confront they frustration/

The principles of true Hip Hop have been forsaken/

It’s all contractual and about moneymakin’/

Pretend to be cats don’t seem to know they limitations/

Exact replication and false representation/

You wanna be a man then stand ya own/

To MC requires skill I demand some shown/

-Black Thought

These are the words that an army of overlooked soldiers in Hip Hop live by. These are also the words that an army of Hip Hop soldiers live against. For some cats the entire game is about contracts and moneymaking. That’s not to say that true lyrical artists don’t want to make money. Some of us just won’t sacrifice our integrity and become (a) copycats.

El Da Sensei is one of those artists who won’t sell you a dream and then dash away in the night. For some of us lyrical prowess is still the nature of why we rhyme. In 1994 a duo emerged out of Brick City- Newark New Jersey- and they exemplified 3 of the 4 core elements of the art known as Hip Hop. That duo was The Artifacts. Comprised of El Da Sensei and Tame One, The Artifacts showed the world the MCing, DJing, and Graffiti writing side of Hip Hop culture. After the release of their debut album Between a Rock and a Hard Place, and the follow-up sophomore effort The Art Of Facts, El and Tame parted ways due to creative differences. Today, El Da Sensei has returned with a new label, a new family and his lyrical ability still intact. He still represents the backpack age of artists who are constantly overshadowed by the mainstream. For those of you who don’t know, the backpackers were artists that carried backpacks (which were) filled with rhyme books, Graffiti tools, clothing and whatever else they deemed necessary to represent the art form of pure Hip Hop.

The new album is titled Relax, Relate, Release and it is one man