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(Video)
Angel Haze - New York
"New York" is taken from Angel Haze's new Reservation mixtape which you can download byclicking here.Video directed by Adrienne Nicole.>via: http://www.bestinnewmusic.com/2012/08/angel-haze-new-york-video.html#.UItczkJesvh
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Angel Haze –
Cleaning Out My Closet
Press play and listen very carefully. Just wow. Incredibly brave and excellently executed, this has to be one of the most shocking autobiographical hip-hop songs, ever.
Download: Angel Haze – Cleaning Out My Closet.mp3
Angel Haze – “Classick” drops October 25th.
Rating: ★★★★★
What do you think?
>via: http://lozzamusic.com/2012/angel-haze-cleaning-out-my-closet
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Five Star Flashback:
Eminem – Cleanin’ Out My Closet
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Talking to Angel Haze
By JAMES C. MCKINLEY JR.Karsten Moran for The New York Times Angel Haze performing in August.
Troubled childhoods often produce artists, although more often than not the source of the pain driving a young musician remains shrouded, only surfacing years later in memoirs or biographies. But Angel Haze, a promising 21-year-old vocalist and rapper residing in Brooklyn, has decided to speak plainly about some of the demons behind her art.
On “Cleanin’ Out My Closet,” Angel Haze raps (over an Eminem beat of the same name) about the sexual abuse she says she suffered for several years starting when she was 7, and the mental turmoil that followed: suicidal thoughts, anger, self-hatred and an eating disorder. The track will appear on a mixtape she plans to release on Thursday. She also talks about her bisexuality and how she thinks it is linked to the abuse.
These would be difficult topics for an established artist to take on, but Angel Haze, whose real name is Raykeea Wilson, is just starting a career. Last summer, she signed a contract with Universal Republic Records just three weeks after her first set of songs, “Reservation,” was released for free on the Internet and drew critical praise. Hoping to win fans and build expectations for her major-label debut next spring, Ms. Wilson, a Detroit native, did two shows last week during the CMJ Music Marathon in New York, including Mass Appeal’s showcase at the Gramercy Theater.
She spoke to The New York Times recently about her decision to release a song about being raped as child and about why she decided to abandon a chance to study neurobiology at Penn State for a career in music. These are edited excerpts.
Q.Whom do you admire in the world of hip-hop music?
A.Not many people, honestly. I can’t really even name a person I like in hip-hop music. I don’t know, I feel like as time has gone on, hip-hop has become really redundant and repetitive. There is no point in listening to anything, because it all sounds the same and everyone is saying the same things. For me, the people I have admired are from the late 1990s and early 2000s. People like Missy Elliott, Lauryn Hill and Queen Latifah.
Q.Tell us about the “Cleanin’ Out My Closet” single on the mixtape, in which you describe how you were repeatedly sexually abused as a child.
A.This is one of the most honest songs I have ever done in my entire life, and I was extremely nervous to put it out because of that. I’m anxious, because I don’t know what the response is going to be. I don’t know how crazy it’s going to sound. I literally bared my soul there. So it’s a giant step for me, and hopefully it helps a lot of people.
Q.What do you hope to accomplish with this song?
A.My ultimate goal was to let go of all of it, the things that kind of haunt me in a way. I know it’s important in music to be honest with who you are, because this world is so full of lost kids who go through the same thing I went through, whose end result is ultimately suicide or drugs. And they don’t know they are strong enough to get through it. They don’t have an example. Too many people are afraid to say, “This happened to me and look what I did with it.”
Q.When did you start rapping and writing songs?
A.I started when I was about 17, about four years ago. This was when I was in Virginia. I’ve moved around a lot, and I’ve lived in several different places throughout my life. I moved away from Detroit when I was 10, and I’ve been hopping around ever since.
Q.Where did you go to school?
A.I bounced back and forth between being home-schooled and going to public schools and private schools. I actually ended up graduating home-schooled.
Q.Your mother taught you?
A.No, I did it myself. I was in a private online institute where they school you. You had to teach yourself everything, basically.
Q.Did you go to college?
A.I was going to start at Penn State, but I decided to do music instead of that. I was going to go to school to become a neurological surgeon.
Q.What made you change your mind?
A.I had been studying neurology for about a year before that, before deciding I wanted to major in medicine, or rather biology. It was a fascination with me at first, learning the brain and how it works. Basically I wanted to learn how to control myself. I ended up getting really bored with it. I decided I would always do something I couldn’t grow bored with. Music was such a relief for me, a coping mechanism. I figured I would so something I would never stop loving.
Q.Were there artists who were important to you when you made that decision?
A.Jason Mraz. Train — I love Train. The New Radicals. Paramore. Bob Dylan. Their artistic expression and emotion via their work helped me a lot with my own.
Q.And yet you decided to write raps instead of writing in a pop, folk or rock style?
A.I’m shaping myself up for the crossover. I really am. I am taking vocal lessons and guitar lessons.
Q.So you want to do songs in other genres?
A.That’s the goal. I want to be an artist you cannot categorize at all. You can’t put a box around me. You can’t put anything around me.
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MC Angel Haze
shows off freestyle skills
A newcomer to the hip hop scene, 21 year-old Angel Haze began writing at age 11 but the idea that her captions might actually be lyrics only occurred to her recently, when a friend suggested the possibility of turning her poems into raps. To date, she’s been featured on several music blogs and websites, such as: XXL.com, DJBooth.net, MTVIggy.com, TheSource.com, UrbanSteez.com Unsigned Hype, HotNewHipHop.com, Pound Magazine, and a feature for TheFader.com. Even Pitchfork ran a couple of blurbs about her New York and Werkin' Girls singles and you know how much hip hop they cover. In two short years, she already has thousands of fans following her career and continues to build her buzz online. Her songs have presently surpassed the 100,000 mark in downloads, and have over 1,000,000 views on YouTube which was reason enough for Universal to offer her a recording deal. Angel Haze's Reservation EP – featuring production by Hira Sky, J La, Paris Jones, North Kid, Odhi Beats, The 83rd, The Rip, TK Kayembe, Trell Fields and Will Idap – was released on July 17 via Noizy Cricket!!/Biz 3 Records for that random rap look.
>via: http://theperlichpost.blogspot.com/2012/08/mc-angel-haze-shows-off-freestyle-...
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Angel Haze adds to year
of new female rappers
shaking up the game
The year of the Femcee just got better with the 21-year-old Brooklyn-based Detroit native Angel Haze.
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Rising rapper Angel Haze. (Courtesy of Universal Republic / October 26, 2012) |
Earlier this year, The Times wrote at length about the new crop of Femcees blazing their own trails in the wake of Nicki Minaj’s success.
Australian bombshell Iggy Azalea, former background dancer Nyemiah Supreme, Miami's Brianna Perry and bawdy Harlem girl Azealia Banks have earned plenty of ink -- and deservedly so.
After years of dormancy, this has been a great year for Femcees, and it just got better with rising rapper Angel Haze.
The 21-year-old Brooklyn-based Detroit native needs to be on your play list if she isn’t already. Start with her latest project, “Classick,” which she dropped Thursday.
On the six-track mixtape, she spits fiery bars over famous tracks such as Missy Elliott's "Gossip Folks," Jay-Z's "Song Cry," Common's "Love of My Life" and Lauryn Hill’s "Doo Wop (That Thing)." Her flow is raw and brash, and it brims with effortless swagger and originality.
The standout here is the gut-wrenching "Cleanin' Out My Closet."
Backed by the beat from Eminem's hit of the same title, Haze lays out the shocking narrative about being raped at 7 and the continued sexual abuse and mental turmoil that included suicidal thoughts and an eating disorder.
It’s a jarring tale and a painful listen that brims with the type of hard-knock honesty that real hip-hop is built on.
Having shined at the recent BET Hip Hop Awards in one of the night’s cyphers alongside A$AP Rocky and Childish Gambino, the Native American spitfire scored a deal with Universal Republic after her first mixtape, “Reservation,” garnered critical praise when it was released earlier this summer.
Listen and download “Classick” below (warning, there is profanity). Check out her fierce video for“Werkin Girls.” It adds to our obsession of Haze.
>via: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-fall-in-love-with-a...