So far there is exactly one great San Jose anthem of the new millennium: “The Hometown” by Rey Resurreccion. Spitting on top of a heartstring-tugging banda beat from DJ Cutso, Rey makes the case for all the golden grains of the Valley of the Heart’s Delight: “Barbeques, fairgrounds, go karts, taquerias / pho noodle, Music in the Park, and fly senoritas.” On new album Tiger’s Eye, Rey gets to flex his considerable chops as a producer, dropping ten instrumentals inspired by the hypnotic stone, “said to keep you focused, grounded, and centered, even when surrounded by chaos.”
‘Tiger’s Eye’ Album Release
Fri, June 4, $7.77

It’s hard enough aging gracefully as a rock star. But when it comes to hip-hop—a genre obsessed with the hustle of youth and the hardscrabble realities of urban life—it can seem downright impossible.

Relevancy and authenticity have been at the front of Rey Resurreccion’s mind of late. At 35, the Filipino-American rapper and San Jose native feels he is at a crossroads in his career. He has given the bulk of his life to rap music and he has plenty to show for it.

Since 2009, Resurreccion has dropped three full-length albums, five EPs and a laundry list of mixtapes, loosies and collaborations too lengthy for him to easily account for. The liner notes of his official releases serve as a cheat sheet for the most talented producers and emcees in the region. Chexmex, Goldenchyld, Dirtbag Dan and Andrew Bigs have all worked with Res.

Resurreccion’s paean to San Jose, “The Hometown,” from his 2014 Sleeping Giants LP, stands as one of the best songs about this city ever written. Supported by DJ Cutso’s triumphant banda-sampling beat, it is gritty and genuine. In it, Resurreccion effortlessly name-checks the East Side, Monterey Boulevard, Music in the Park, pho, tacos and many more cultural touchstones that San Jose denizens will recognize. Its accompanying music video celebrates the diverse faces of San Jose and helps to polish the gleaming diamonds of hope that glimmer in Res’ rough, gravelly flow.

Over the course of his last two EPs—2016’s Sweet Tooth Tony and his latest, Bricktop Jimmy, released on streaming services last week—Resurreccion has continued to demonstrate growth, both as a lyricist and as a producer. Bricktop marks the first release on which he has handled all of the production and mixing, in addition to the writing.

It was difficult, but it was something he felt he had to do in order to prove to himself and his listeners what he is capable of. “For me to produce the whole project was me making a statement,” Resurreccion says.

And yet, while Res considers Bricktop Jimmy a “milestone” in his career, it also contains one of the bleakest lyrics he’s ever penned: “My city forgot me. My city forgot me,” he spits on EP closer, “No Way,” which features The Grouch.

The lyric carries a double meaning, Res explains. On the one hand, it refers to the fear that he lost momentum and fans during the brief hiatus he took after releasing his last EP. On the other, it refers to the fact that, increasingly, he can’t even recognize the town where he was born.

“The San Jose I know is going way,” Res says.

Double meanings and calculated nuance are plentiful on Bricktop Jimmy. The EP’s opening track, “Live Dat,” sets the scene with memories of growing up wanting—splitting bowls of Top Ramen with his sister and sleeping on the couch—before fast-forwarding to the present.

“I’m in the Silicon Valley / small-ass house for a milli / they livin’ in tents around the city / really,” he rhymes over burbling trap trills and an a capella chord progression reminiscent of Dirty Projectors’ “No Trigger.”

Gentrification is just one of the many subjects Resurreccion tackles here.

On “Window,” Res and Andrew Bigs expand on the pain of being close enough to see the good life, but unable to attain it. “My brother got a smart phone in prison,” Resurreccion intones. Even with one of humanity’s most powerful tools in hand, his brother is still a prisoner of a system that is stacked against the least fortunate.

“Checkmate” finds Res taking aim at many familiar hip-hop targets—including haters and the police—before unfurling a new beef with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “I-C-E,” he rhymes, is just as likely to “run up on ya” as a jealous rival or a crooked cop.

And yet, on that same track, Resurreccion gives the listener a big slice of optimism. “Checkmate” closes with an audio snippet of Res’ young chess students cheering as one of them beats their teacher.

“They’ve been trying to beat me week after week for years,” Resurreccion says, explaining the clip. When they finally amass the skills needed to put their instructor in checkmate, it is very exciting for them. It is a victory they know they have earned.

Rey Resurreccion
‘Bricktop Jimmy’
Now Available
All Streaming Services

The Annex in Menlo Park was doing about as well as any recording studio could hope to do. Throughout the aughts, or post-Napster years, everyone in the recording industry—from the labels and musicians to producers and engineers—had to innovate to survive. Compared to many others, The Annex had equipped itself well for the changing times.

“The main point of that studio was to be as diverse as possible, to be able to handle any project that came its way,” says Ryan Perras, a recording engineer at The Annex from 2008-2012.

He isn’t exaggerating. In addition to banda, rock and hip-hop, The Annex branched out into other areas of recording, like voiceover work for film, TV, video games and, increasingly, apps. It became the go-to spot for local athletes to record radio ads. Willie Mays, Jerry Rice and Ronnie Lott all came to record audio tracks for projects that they were working on—Mays for an audiobook, Rice for some green-screen filming and Lott to overdub some lines for an episode of One Tree Hill. Michael J. Fox came to voiceover an ABC special. Alan Parsons came to Studio A specifically to film its equipment (more specifically, its much-coveted Neve III console) for an instructional video about sound engineering. When Buffalo Springfield reunited for the 2010 Bridge School Benefit, Neil Young and crew practiced in Studio D.

And though record sales had dropped years earlier, plenty of musicians were booking time at The Annex. Over the years, countless bands from the Bay Area and beyond had come to record in one of its five different live rooms. Los Tigres Del Norte, the biggest band ever to come from San Jose (and one of the largest bands in the Spanish-speaking world), recorded almost every one of their albums at The Annex, starting before the building had even formally been named.

Since opening in 1975, The Annex rolled with the punches, expertly regrouping with the shifting record industry along the way.

And then Mark Zuckerberg went and ruined everything.

“Facebook moved literally down the street and that made everything crazy in that neighborhood,” says Perras. “It was depressing.”

Perras now runs his own studio, District Recording, in San Jose’s Sunol-Midtown neighborhood. District is an impressive studio that many in San Jose don’t even know is here. Asian Man Records (one of the precious few nationally recognized success stories of South Bay music) has utilized the studio for a number of projects.

Ryan Perras behind the soundboard at District Recordings in San Jose. Photo by Geoffrey Smith II.

Russell Bond, The Annex’s studio manager from 1975 until it closed in 2012, confirmed Perras’ take. After the social media giant moved into the former Sun Microsystems campus, a group of young real estate developers made incredibly high offers for a number of buildings on the street, including The Annex.

“Our landlord was made an offer she couldn’t refuse,” he says by email. It was a direct result of what he saw as “Facebook investing quite a bit of ‘improvement’ dollars into the area.”

“Improvement,” in this context, is a questionable word. By all accounts, The Annex was doing well for itself when the building sold. All five of its studios were booked a solid eight weeks out. And yet, when the landlord sold the building, they were given only six weeks to complete all business, strip it entirely and leave.

“No amount of pleading worked,” Bond says. “Nearly 40 years of collecting and storing media, machines and office stuff, enough to fill five studios in 16,000 square feet of space had to be moved. It was chaos.”

A massive soundboard in one of five of The Annex’s recording studios.

Before giving in to the coming tide, The Annex made an effort to raise enough money for a counterbid on the building. “A grassroots effort via a group of friends, clients and peers,” Bond says. All of them would have had partial ownership of the studio, had they been able to outbid the developers. The effort was within a few hundred thousand dollars of the goal when it became clear that they had to shift focus from fundraising to moving out.

In May 2012, after serving the Bay Area music scene for almost 40 years, The Annex went silent.

***

But if history has proven anything, it’s that all truly dedicated artists never stop creating, even when they’re on the down and out. In the same way that some of Silicon Valley’s most successful makers have embraced the principle of “failing upward,” so it goes with many of this region’s most gifted musicians. Whether it’s sleeping in their practice spaces, crashing on couches while on tour, or working shitty minimum-wage jobs to keep their gear up and running, musicians find a way.

That’s what Jack Shirley did when he opened his recording studio in the former murder capital of the U.S. with an economy computer and tiny soundboard designed for bedroom recording hobbyists—and then proceeded to produce one of the most critically acclaimed metal albums of 2013.

Tracked in just 10 days at the beginning of 2013, and released the same year, Sunbather, by San Francisco black metal band Deafheaven would go on to be hailed as a genre-redefining work. In their 4.5/5 star review of the album, All Music Guide wrote: “Many bands go through their entire career without making an album as well crafted, fully realized and downright gorgeous as Sunbather.” Rolling Stone listed it as the best metal album of the year, calling it “a mind-blower,” and it placed higher on Pitchfork’s best-of-2013 list than Justin Timberlake, MIA, Drake, Neko Case, Run the Jewels, Arcade Fire and even Daft Punk, whose “Get Lucky” charted as the No. 2 single of the year.

To record Random Access Memories, Daft Punk worked with two producers in the legendary Henson Recording Studios in Los Angeles. To make Reflektor, Arcade Fire began recording in Louisiana, spent a month recording in Jamaica, workshopped the songs with LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy back in Montreal, and then did more recording at Murphy’s DFA Studios in Manhattan.

Sunbather, on the other hand, was recorded out of a modest studio, hidden in a dead-end street between a boxing gym and an auto body shop in East Palo Alto.

“Just because it’s a high-end place, or they look professional, doesn’t mean you’re going to see eye-to-eye, or that they’re gonna, like, do a good job,” says Jack Shirley, owner of and sole producer at EPA’s Atomic Garden studio.

At this point, the Atomic Garden should be a household name for anyone interested in Bay Area music, or underground rock music in general. Shirley has recorded and produced not only the Bay Area’s brightest—musicians like Tony Molina, and Void Boys—but also some of the most influential metal bands from here to Europe. Jamaican reggae stars Black Uhuru recorded with him. And a number of records he’s produced have even landed on the American Billboard charts.

Shirley has managed to build a staggering resume as a producer from less than auspicious beginnings. He began his career as a record producer while also juggling art school, working at a BMW dealership and recording bands out of his parents’ house in San Carlos for $20 an hour.

“There was one semester where I was working 30 hours a week, going to school 30 hours a week, and then recording like 20 hours a week on the weekend,” he recalls. At the end of that semester he quit his job at the BMW dealership. Shortly after graduating college, he moved into the studio in East Palo Alto.

“The name of the game since day one has been to keep the overhead low,” Shirley says. In order to be able to afford the studio, he converted part of his building into housing, which he split with roommates who also ran a screen printing business. Within a year and a half, he went from working on a Dell computer with two microphone inputs to a fully functioning studio with just about anything a musician could need. In part, he chalks up this success to a bit of right-place right-time.

“I knew a lot of people who were in bands on the Peninsula and there wasn’t really anybody doing DIY recording,” Shirley says.

In January of 2014, San Jose emcee Rey Resurreccion told Metro that his then-brand new Heart of the City was the first record he’d made after carefully studying what his fans liked. Considering that, his new EP—Sweet Tooth Tony, released earlier this month—makes total sense.

At less than 30 minutes, his latest effort is as quick-hitting as it is surgically focused. “I want to make something that people can fully digest,” Resurreccion says of Tony, an album he hopes people will listen to in its entirety.

“People have so much these days,” he continues, noting that for a rapper of his stature, a full-length like Heart can get easily lost in the deluge of new music that comes pouring from the internet daily. “I’m an up-and-coming guy,” Res says. “I’m still new to a lot of people. I’m trying to figure out ways to reintroduce myself.”

Sweet Tooth Tony definitely plays like a proper introduction. The EP features a conceptual opener, which introduces Rey’s character, Sweet Tooth Tony. At the beginning of “Act 1,” our hero untangles from a woman with a voice full of money, before striding past backstage regulars toward the swelling sound of an excited crowd. The rapper and producer proceeds to unspools an effortless verse about his career’s burgeoning momentum. He then directs the listener’s attention to the backing band that riffs on some hypnotic lounge grooves.

The thumb-over-the-shoulder gesture mirrors the album’s highlights. Rey’s scratchy, baritone flow pops and crackles and his lyricism is competent and clever. But the project is at its dopest when he nails quick-witted references to his neo-retro production.

Throughout Tony, the stylishly-tattooed Filipino American demonstrates his scholarly knowledge of the genre. On his website, he describes his style as “old rust, new bang”—distilling influences from prior legends into his own concoction that blends homaging and trailblazing.

The son of immigrants and an active graffiti writer, he makes music with the persistent, no-nonsense approach of a veteran underground rapper propelled by the midlife crisis detailed on his hometown ode, “Heart of the City.”

On “In The Cut,” he rhymes about blunts and his “lightweight” fame, then huffs through a stomp-clap hook. Halfway through, he flips the beat to knead in the table-pounds and twinkling flip-phone chirps of E-40’s hyphy anthem “Tell Me When To Go,” before parroting the thesis from another hit by the bespectacled big guy, “We Out Here Tryna Function.”

On “Goodfellas,” he lays down double-time claps between a stuttering melody that remixes a melancholy lady cooing: “baby.” He samples a Ray Liotta monologue from the 1994 Scorsese picture, then delves into an old-school record-scratching bridge with the distinct “Woo” and “Yeah” from “It Takes Two.”

“Who,” stands out for its earnestness. Over snazzy synths and jazzy guitar licks, Rey puffs his chest out, but semi-self-consciously inquires about a wishy-washy lover’s late-night plans. Unsure if she’s down, he offers an ultimatum to the effect of “we smoking and fucking tonight, or what?”

The song bleeds into a chopped and screwed outro that leaves her answer ambiguous—either they’re getting lit and freaky, or his request is ricocheting around his brain as he falls asleep waiting for a response that never comes.

Next, he fully flexes his ability to stitch together disparate sounds into a coherent composition on “Bounce.” He starts over booming kicks and serpentine buzzes, dropping his best threat, “I make your face Ragu.” Then he stretches and distorts the beat, samples Kanye’s “Power” and plunges into tinny N64 glitches and dizzying power-up bloops that sit below a steamrolling flow.

Finally, he closes with “My God,” where he laments children’s addictions to “sugar and prescriptions.” He name-checks oppressive public schools, stagnant politics, inescapable racism and gang violence before wondering if “God forgot about us” over 808 booms, tinkly wood-block taps and dreamy wails that slowly fade in the mixtape’s last seconds.

The project won’t make Rey world-famous. But it’s smooth as hell and his beats zag away from national trends. He cultivates a refreshingly throwback vibe that radiates warmth and drips with the optimistic grit of a man who wants more than just a taste of the sweet life.

Nick Veronin contributed to this story.

Sweet Tooth Tony EP
Out Now
SoundCloud, iTunes

Two of San Jose’s best-known rappers, Dirtbag Dan and Rey Ressureccion have released a new video for “Thinking of a Master Plan.” The clip, which is anchored by Dan and Res spitting verses on the steps of what appears to be a San Jose porch—whilst smoking and kicking back brews—also features plenty of shots of the city from which they both hail—the Zay.

“God bless the Zay/raising hell on these beautiful streets/ran into problems/fuckin’ with the usual freaks,” Dirtbag Dan rhymes on the chorus of the track praising his and Res’ native city.

Check out the Skylar G.-produced track below.

Stay tuned to Metro and the Activate blog for more on Rey Resurreccion who is nearing the release of his third full-length LP, Heart of the City.

YEAR-END LISTS typically hew to the comfy round number 10. And although Top 10 has a ring to it, Silicon Valley’s melting pot of musical talent fused genres, collaborated, innovated and turned out so many great LPs and EPs this year that it became a nearly impossible task to narrow it down to even the Top 15 releases, so we squeezed one more pick for a favorite 16. Here, in no particular order, are some of 2013’s best local releases.

The Bangerz: PRiSM
PriSM, the Bangerz’ second soundtrack LP for the Jabbawockeez Las Vegas stage show, showcases the crew going deeper into some amazing futuristic soundscapes. The crew has always straddled a line between throwback hip-hop and cutting edge electro-jams, but it’s all forward thinking with this release. In a sign of the times—as the line between EDM and hip-hop continues to blur—there’s a healthy dose of dubstep influence on this record, as well.

Rebelskamp: The Kill
Going into a recording studio without any written material doesn’t sound like a winning formula for an album, yet Rebelskamp produced a remarkable LP this year. They’ve gotten so good at improvisation that they don’t sound like they’re inventing the music on the spot. Yet, the spontaneity of such a freeform formula remains intact. These songs go any and everywhere, drifting through funk riffs, psychedelic space jams and crazy free-jazz. A highlight is “The Rebel,” with local rapper Dirtbag Dan freestyling a couple verses.

Philthy Dronez: Wepa Life
Up until recently, Matt Gonzales was known mostly as the go-to guitarist for local bands. (Anya and the Getdown, Raul y Mexia, Chris Reed—to name a few). Now the world gets a taste of his solo project: producing Latin-infused electro-beats under his alter-ego, Philthy Dronez. His debut EP, Wepa Life, was released on Global Bass Experience a few months back. It’s a short EP, about 15 minutes, but it’s bumpin’. It centers on the emerging new-cumbia sound, but also veers into electronic and hip-hop territory, and even some old-school cumbia.

Boboso: Grown Ass Man
There are three things Boboso raps about: food, cats and his love for the female derriere—often within the same song. Yet, he’s not exactly a comedy rapper. He can really rhyme. Plus, his production skills are top-notch: classic West Coast beats with surreal twists. The Beach Boys sample on “That Breathe In, Breathe Out Shit” is a particular highlight. Jeff Rosenstock from Brooklyn punk band Bomb the Music Industry also lays down an impressive verse on “Sartorial Panache.”

Careless Hearts: Alum Rock
Alum Rock isn’t just the latest album by Careless Hearts; it’s the culmination of five years of life-changing events. They started out a laidback Americana group, but since 2008’s Heart’s Delight, they’ve gone through some major lineup changes and played a life-changing show with punk legend, Stooges guitarist James Williamson. It shows in the roots-rock, power-pop songwriting on Alum Rock. The release rocks harder, louder and with more passion than their first two albums.

Antwon: In Dark Denim
In Dark Denim isn’t as accessible as Antwon’s prior work and takes the San Jose rapper in a new direction. His beats are grimier, the samples are darker and the lyrics are dirtier than ever. “Work 4 Me,” with its down-and-dirty hip-shaking beat and raunchy lyrics, sounds like he’s seducing the listener. All the while, Antwon’s fanbase continues to grow, with a successful run at SXSW, an appearance at Treasure Island Music Festival and two national tours during the last year.

The Albert Square: How’s Everybody’s Doings?
Last year, Sim Castro reformed his punk rock outfit the Albert Square. The songwriting is much in the same vein, subtly nuanced ’80s and ’90s post-punk-inspired, but the band’s performances are far more unhinged—a good thing. Their newfound spastic energy complements Castro’s reflective songwriting quite well. However, the strongest song, “(Proud) Parents,” is oddly the most reserved track on the EP.

The Limousines: Hush
It’s been a couple years since synth-pop duo the Limousines released their brilliant debut, Get Sharp. Despite all the views they were getting on YouTube and radio play they received, they had major problems to sort out with their label, but Hush was worth the wait: Its synth beats are dancier, the production is more refined and in place of their signature clever nihilism, Hush offers lyrics that are raw and honest. Hush was made with funds from a Kickstarter campaign that sought $30,000 but ended up raising $75,000.

Dinners: Black Rabbits
If such a thing as a San Jose “supergroup” exists, Dinners might be that band, featuring members from Worker Bee and Doctor Nurse. Dinners go into a different direction than either Worker Bee (moody indie rock) or Doctor Nurse (psychedelic folk) with lo-fi noise-pop and a heavy dose of Guided By Voices influence. At first listen, Black Rabbits sounds like the kind of four-track recording popular with ’90s indie bands, but it’s actually a quite meticulously, thoughtfully crafted album. The cover art is amazing, too.

Rey Resurreccion, M-10, Locsta Villan: First Street Sessions
Some of rapper Rey Resurreccion’s finest works are collaborations. Last year, he worked with the Bangerz to make some killer old school hip-hop tunes. This year, he got together with emcees M-10 and Locsta Villan and created the 1st Street Sessions. Together the trio has produced eight laid-back, dreamy hip-hop songs that should be on urban stations all across the country.

Raul y Mexia: Arriba y Lejos
Brothers Raul y Mexia released a fun, passionate Spanish-language album this year on Nacional Records, the current leaders of cutting-edge Latin music. Arriba y Lejos combines elements of cumbia and other traditional Latin sounds with hip-hop and electronica. The duo, who are sons of Hernán Hernández, bassist of famous Norteño band Los Tigres del Norte, has created something that both pays tribute to classic Latin music, like their father created, and all the newer American music they grew up with here in San Jose.

Sean Blak: #Basslife
Sean Blak books live hip-hop shows, puts on battle-rap events and holds a weekly Tuesday night residency, “the Trap Shop” at Johnny V’s. He’s also a prolific rapper, with a ton of lo-fi, surreal homemade hip-hop records online. His best this year is the LP #Basslife. On it, he takes some of the strangest, most intimate beats and makes them sound like outrageous club bangers.

Slime Girls: Vacation Wasteland
By the time Slime Girls came together, the chiptune scene was already well-established. Yet they’ve still been able to find their own sound within it, taking all the old Nintendo chip Gameboy sounds and mixing them with surf, punk and ska. Their latest EP, Vacation Wasteland, is a seriously fun collection of instrumental chip-rock tunes. It was originally pressed on cassette because they’re that into old technology.

David Brookings: The Maze
The Maze is David Brookings’ sixth full-length album since 2000, yet he’s still working on building his fanbase in the Bay Area. He moved to Northern California from the Memphis by way of Richmond, Virginia, in 2009, and produced his five albums before heading West. The Maze, like its five predecessors, brings together ’60s psychedelic-rock and ’80s New Wave.

Derek See: She Came This Way
The title track to Derek See’s She Came This Way is an amazing psychedelic-pop gem. At first, See, who normally plays guitar in soul group the Bang, recorded it, along with a couple other tunes, just for fun. It was good enough for an indie label to offer to release it, and they even ran out of the first pressing. It’s the kind of song that, had it been written in 1967, would have been a Summer of Love FM hit, no doubt.

Noothgrush: Split LP with Coffins
Back in the ’90s, sludge metal group Noothgrush were a pretty big deal. Along with Sleep and a few other bands, San Jose boasted a strong doom metal scene. Noothgrush just recently reformed, and they also just released a split record with Japanese metal band Coffins. The third track, “Thoth” is particularly special, as it contains spoken clips from the late, great, much beloved KFJC DJ, Cy Thoth, who died earlier this year.

The recently released 26-track hip-hop compilation NoiseLab Vol 1, features  a lot of familiar San Jose faces like Kung Fu Vampire, Rey Resurreccion, Sean Blak, Language Arts Crew and Luck Loosh and lesser known locals like newcomer YDMC and rap veteran Joe Cutter.

The compilation, assembled by Blak, is divided between veterans of the South Bay scene on the first half, and newcomers on the latter portion. The second volume is expected out in May.
In addition to San Jose rapper, the mixtape features artists from Santa Cruz (Playz), Half Moon Bay (Araknophobix), San Francisco (San Quinn, Pariah), Oakland (Kafani, Deuce Eclipse) and Watsonville (Xplisit).

Check it out here:

Music is always a good Christmas gift, but as record stores continue to disappear, it’s getting harder to find options outside of iTunes download cards. Bands are still making physical albums these days—CDs, vinyl records, and the latest retro trend, cassette tapes. San Jose has lots of bands that have put out stellar albums this year. Here’s our list of suggestions.

Hard Girls
‘Isn’t It Worse w/ EP’
on Cassette, $5 at www.lauren-records.com
Cassette releases are now a thing—maybe not a big thing, but more labels (underground ones, mind you) are putting them out. San Jose’s Hard Girls’ new album, Isn’t It Worse, is coming out on cassette a few months before it arrives out on vinyl. The cassette comes with several bonus songs—their entire first EP, in fact. It’s only been a few years since the Hard Girls released that EP, but it is interesting to listen to listen to the old material side by side with the new. Their debut contained some interesting Jawbreaker-influenced punk-rock songs, while Isn’t It Worse is a downright sophisticated rock album. They mix ’80s post-punk and ’90s indie rock (somewhere between Pavement, Television and Silkworm), all while giving it the urgency of a sweaty basement punk band.

Rey Resurreccion, one of San Jose’s best, unsung rappers, recently released a video for his track “Saturday”, produced by the Bangerz. The video itself is pretty standard, mostly a lot of shots of Resurreccion and his crew biking, skateboarding, breakdancing and, of course, plenty of tattooed women. What is exceptional is the song, due in no small part to the productions skills of the Bangerz.

One of Resurreccion’s gifts is how effortlessly he raps. He’s got a cooler than cool, laid back flow and spits out solid rhythms with clever lines. In “Saturday,” Resurreccion talks about hanging out with his good friends with no plans in mind, using Saturday as an analogy.
(“Rollin’ down the block/Cruisin’ with the homies like every day’s a Saturday.”)

Where this song truly shines above Resureccion’s normally high-quality work, is in the Bangerz textured production. The beat is a laid back, new-school jam, but it’s nuanced with old school sounds. It’s clever, so hip hop fan will love how brilliantly the Bangerz reference familiar 80s samples within the context of a strictly modern track. Casual hip hop fans will just love how cool everything sounds. The low synth bass line is a nice touch.