January, 2008
Yeah, Ruby’s definitely representin’ lately. But with her new book coming out (more on that soon!), her moving to Atlanta for a sec, and all the other good stuff taking off, maybe it just comes with the territory. Or maybe she’s just the bombdiggity.
Check out her feature on Built From Skratch here.
(it’s the 3rd video down, baby)
Last month Ruby kicked on ThinkBeat Radio and of course we caught the juicy stuff for you. Check the show out every final Friday night/ Saturday morning from 2am-4am (PST) on 94.1 FM KPFA or kpfa.org for a live stream.
Yo! Check out Jamilah King’s feature on us in this week’s San Francisco Bay Guardian!
A collective composed of Ruby Veridiano-Ching, Adriel Luis, Nico Cary, and Dahlak Brathwaite, iLL-Literacy brings its distinctive flavor or performance to the stage through spoken word, MCing, and crowd participation. Read more.
Those of you who’ve been keeping your ear to the iLL-world are already familiar with Rafael Casal, January’s featured iLL-Homie. We met him waaaaaaay back in the dizzay coming up in the spoken word scene, and shortly after he teamed up with Dahlak to drop the (now sold out) Innerworks Mixtape. He’s been featured on Def Poetry hellllllllla times, tours throughout the country, and now heads up The GetBack Crew alongside Nico. Yeah, the man’s talented and a close relative in the iLL-family.
So of course, we MUST INSIST that you check out Rafael Casal’s highly-yearned-after debut LP, As Good As Your Word, which just dropped this week as an exclusive online release before the physicals copies start rolling out. Pretty gosh-darned genius. And do take our word for it.
A track for you: Rafael Casal - The Getdown
[]
And now, cop the rest of the album.
Read more about Rafa in the iLL-Homies section.
Here’s a goodie from Prentice Powell, our Oakland iLL-Homie! And be sure to check him out at Mouth Off every Wednesday in Oakland! Details in the iLL-Events section.
[]
Yesterday Nico and Adriel decided to conduct a social experiment on the Asian American student organizations in UC Berkeley. The conclusions may or may not be shocking.
Posted on 366.
Peep the dialect.
See, what’s up with that whole stigma of being the neo-soul-hippie person? To be honest, I kinda dug it when it was around. You know? Sometimes you just wanna burn some sage and prop yourself upside down on a corner in your room…barefoot.
Anyway, this is Drizzle, and I would like to give a shout out to Mae who kindly requested that I put together a bunch of soul/neo-soul playlist thingie. And being that I had nothing much to do today besides gain weight, I accepted the challenge. So here you go. It probably will be updated. And Mae, just for you, we kick it off with D’Angelo’s version of “Everybody Loves the Sunshine.”
Grab a tofu burger and sway widdit.
Last night’s show at Stanford was hotttttt! Our first time with the band…there were some sketchy moments but still definitely a debut for the ages. THE AGES we say!
We ended the night by celebrating the birthday of (one of) our favorite Stanfordians, Karen Lum a.k.a. the director of Adriel’s Slip of the Tongue film. This cake was so hardcore, it endured a half-hour trek lost in the rain looking for the dining hall. Oh yeah, much love to Delicious Food Company in Oakland Chinatown, and the OG baker dude who wrote out the whole icing dealie on the cake without a flinch.
Peep the Slip of the Tongue-O-Rama @ Adrizzle’s blog.
Okay kids, here’s some iLL-Literacy 101: back in the dizzay iLL-Lit was first founded as a spoken word organization on the campus of UC Davis. One of the co-founders was this dude that wore hellllla knit caps, Armael Malinis, who now works as a youth advocate for AYPAL. Told ya, iLL luuuuuuuuvs the kids!
And yes, Armael as well as many other beautiful Bay people convene every 4th Friday of the month at Poleng Lounge in San Francisco for Libre, hosted by Kiwi with slick tunes by the one and only DJ Phatrick.
More info at the iLL-Events section.
Sup fam, we’ll be playing with the iLL-Homies Zion I as well as supa dupa hot national slam champion poetry hotnesses AMMO from Philly, Gabriel Teodros from Seattle, Sirens Echo from Portland, and Andrea Gibson and Katie Wirsing from Boulder, Colorado!
Yep, pretty much got the the western United States rolling through. You should come too.
It’s pronounced the way it first looks…no word/letter/number play with the “o” or anything. But regardless of that useless anecdote, the man has hot beats. We paid Mr. Clock a visit today (well, Nico’s there often, being that he’s his BFF…yes, 8 O’Clock a.k.a. Adarius is the famed “Big Galaxy Niiiiiia”).
Anyway, the basic point of this post is to let you know that we’re pretty excited to work with him. Just check out what kind of stuff he has up his sleeve:
Recognize the vocalist? Ohhhhhh yeahhh it’s this month’s featured iLL-Homie Rafael Casal!
And now this is for those of you who didn’t feel like clicking that first link.
Those of you who have been to an iLL-Literacy show know that we always start by telling you that we’re gonna take you on a journey. In the past few years together, we’ve certainly been on one, and we thank everyone who’s been along for the ride.
For us, one of our great challenges is creating poetry and music that work together in just the right way that gives that special tingly feeling you get when you hear a dope ass poem, but also the longevity of your favorite song. It’s not something that you really come across often, but when you do, it’s magical.
Us being the picky people we are, have been through a lot of different sounds, and it’s one of the reasons we still haven’t dropped an album after this point…we’ve only wanted to give you something that WE would bump too!
The thing about journeys, though, is that it’s not always just about the destination. It’s about what happens during the ride, and sometimes taking wrong turns, getting lost, and finding your way back again.
With that in mind, we’re going to be throwing up tracks that are still in the works, but something that we’d like you to hear. Most of the time it’ll be incomplete, levels jacked up, sometimes we’ll like it sometimes we won’t, but it’s part of the journey.
Our first track is Adriel and Ruby’s “Burgundy Bruises,” produced by Charlie Darker. Still working on the hook and bridge, but we laid down some rough cuts of the verses, and thought you might like to hear them. Enjoy!
Sup fam! Peep the show this Saturday!
