"I love to bring that Old School fun and energy into my music," Phoenix-based hip hop artist and coffee shop poet Vocab Malone says.  At live shows you can catch him cracking corny jokes, busting random freestyles, and even being, well, happy!  But can hip hop music really be happy? Vocab says "yes".  Really, Vocab is just describing the style of his new album: playful and joy-filled at one point, yet dark and serious at another, energetic and silly, but also depressed and melancholy.  In short, it’s an album of strong contrasts ... Happy Hardcore. A very notable song is the lead single and title track.  Backed by an infectious party groove, the chorus inspires the listener to "dance, and shake your troubles free."  In a melodic rap style, Vocab tells of hope and triumph in the face of despair.  The topics on the album range from heaven and hell to eulogies and even poems.  The musical arrangements are diverse as well, going from grimy samples to live instruments and then back to innovative breakdowns.  Vocab enlists an array of talent to accomplish this: Pigeon John, Red Cloud, Lightheaded, Man of War, DJ’s Manwell and Bombay, and the versatile Cre One, who handles production for the whole album. Vocab started rapping in the 5th grade: "I heard a mixtape at school and was hooked."  He began recording basement demos but it wasn’t until he joined a group with John Reuben (Gotee Records) that he would begin publicly performing.  He left his native Columbus, Ohio in 1999 to attend Bible college in Arizona.  It was there he would begin organizing "reverse battle" tourneys as well as leading teams of fellow artists in street outreaches on Mill Ave. off the ASU campus.  This led him to form a non-profit orginization, Urban Artists United (UAU). After a number of notable compilation and guest appearences, a slot at the National Poetry Slam Finals, and a 2 month tour, Vocab is set to release his fourth album.  This is his first project on Makeshift Records, also home to Patrick Andrew (PFR).  This, in conjuction with his role as Dr. Luke in the world's first  "holy hip hopera" (The One) is sure to multiply the amount of stores, web sites,and radio stations in wich Vocab can be seen and heard. Vocab's previous album, The Notepad Nomad received extensive airplay and charted on Radio %26 Records.  It also generated possitive press from The Arizona Republic, East Valley Tribune, The Phoenix New Times, URB, and a wide variety of indie publications and local television stations. His new disc promisses to improve upon that success. If you want something that looks back to a simpler time in hip hop while still pushing ahead - all the while declaring God as the centeral focus - then search no further than Vocab Malone's Happy Hardcore.
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