This morning, Kerim Friedman sent in a link to a California-based hiphop group called Linguistics.
Their self-description:
A new breed of MC's, Linguistics is here to entertain you with true real hip-hop, amazing rhymes and beats, along with intense cuts and scratches by top-notch DJ's like Dj Step 1, Dj Solo, and Dj 3rdi. Linguistics consists of 3 MC's - Kasper, IQ, and Entity. All solo acts, Kasper and Entity joined together with a very talented group of MC's called Kastlevania in the 1990's and early 2000. They won the San Diego music award for best new hip-hop, but soon the group started breaking up and going their own ways. IQ was busy working on a mix CD with his company "Intelligence Records" that he founded with his cousin Jay War. Jay was a long time friend of Kasper and hit him up to see if he wanted to get involved with the Intelligence Records project, the mix CD featuring some of the best up-and-coming hip-hop artists around Southern California. Eventually Kasper and IQ we're creating many songs together and decided to put one together with Kasper's old friend Entity. At that studio session, they realized how strong they were as a group, and decided to make an album together. 3 different styles from 3 different places in Southern California. Entity from Texas originally bringin the southern style, Kasper growin up with east coast hip-hop and IQ growin up with west coast influence somehow combine to form the ultimate group with a unique sound that is sure to appeal to any true hip-hop fan. Add to that the amazing ground-breaking producers and you have something truly special to listen to and enjoy. It's all about the hip-hop.
Some of their stuff is here. I think their choice of name means that the field of linguistics is so out that it's in -- a point I've been making for a while, in my own quieter way. Here's how they set the name of their group (and our field):
X X X X
X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
L I N G U I S T I C S yes we're the best don't accept nothing less y'all
[Audio clip for this refrain is here. And here's another track with an upbeat message, "No turnin back".]
Posted by Mark Liberman at August 15, 2006 06:46 AM