Flatbasset Radio's Album Of The Week for the week of August 25th-31st, 2014:
Franz Diego - Equinox
01. Neo-Archaic
02. Purple City Pioneers (PCP)
03. New Era
04. We Feel
05. Zebra Party
For the second week in a row here at Flatbasset Radio I'm dipping into the Twin Cities hip-hop scene. Unlike spending last week with relative newcomer Manny Phesto I spent this week with Twin Cities veteran Franz Diego's latest EP Equinox.
If you've done even the minimum amount of digging below the surface of the Twin Cities' hip-hop scene you've inevitably stumbled onto Franz Diego in some capacity or another. He's a member of scene veterans Illuminous 3, host of the Turnt Up! dance party at Honey, frequent collaborator with fellow Twin Cities rappers, and all-in-all man about town. If you care at all about the hip-hop scene he's basically inescapable (which I mean as a compliment).
The Equinox EP came out back in the first week of June, but I'm finally spending a week with it. That actually worked out well since the album is meant to be heard in the summer and, considering the mild temps we've seen this summer, listening to it during a week when we broke 90 made sense.
Producer Xanja constructed the beats for the record, keeping the songs moving without attempting to make a "banger" or resorting to exhausted faux-trap sound (with the saxophone on "New Era" the highlight of his production). He does a brilliant job of giving the album enough space to breathe that Diego is able to find the style he wants to use rather than having the beat dictate the flow.
To that end, Equinox features something that I'm really growing to love as a I get older: the perspective of older rappers. While Franz Diego's not "old" by any definition of the word, he's been in Minneapolis long enough and seen enough things to know what's worth worrying about and what isn't. Where Manny Phesto's album carried a youth-aided carefree air, Equinox is carefree because Diego's wise enough to know not to worry about things he can't change. He spends the majority of the record representing his hometown and the scene that's given him a voice. I suppose there's only so much that can be said over (and about) a sixteen minute long EP, and thankfully Diego doesn't try to force five separate ideas into the mix. The goal of Equinox seems to be to have a good time and that's exactly what Franz Diego & Xanja delivered.
If you'd like to let the album soundtrack this last week off August for yourself, head over to Franz Diego's Bandcap page. Equinox is available as a "Name Your Price" download.
