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In late September Vibe reported that Top Dawg Entertainment—aka the home of Kendrick Lamar and his Black Hippy cohorts Schoolboy Q, Ab-Soul, and Jay Rock—signed Tennessee rapper Isaiah Rashad. Rumors that Rashad had inked a deal with TDE began circulating online over the summer, and occasionally I’d stumble upon blog posts that fed into the hype around the MC and the supposed deal without shedding much light on the actual guy—Pigeons & Planes, for example, published a bare-bones slideshow that didn’t go much deeper than mentioning his social network accounts and music taste. That post did link to a 2012 interview with Chicago blog See Beyond Genre, which includes an interesting bit about his relationship with local rapper Dikembe Caston, aka Kembe X:
Rashad isn’t the only rapper bringing Caston’s collective to new audiences; just yesterday Vibe premiered “Woozy,” a tune from glossy UK pop-rock outfit Glass Animals that features Village member Jean Deaux. The local rapper-singer is just about the only thing that keeps the airy number from wafting away at points, and her luxurious voice and cool performance have me eager to hear more of her own tracks. Fake Shore Drive founder Andrew Barber points out that Deaux has a debut mixtape in the works called Soular System, and here’s hoping it’ll come out soon. Until then take a listen to “Woozy” below and head to Deaux’s Soundcloud page for a handful of songs.
