Hardly Novices by Max Prime & Jon Brando

The duke of storied hip hop dynasty Low Budget Affiliates, rapper emprime (a.k.a. Max Prime) and rogue individualist MPC-whisperer Johnny Brando (a.k.a. Jon b) return with new music and the re-release of their early-2000s EP. The limited edition tape-release recalls a bygone era when music was enjoyed on tapes, headphones had wires attached to them and news came from your city's weekly newspaper. If you haven't owned a cassette player since the last century, don't despair, these analog obsessed Luddites are releasing the project on digital music platforms with support from Saskatoon Folk Rap Records.

emprime blesses the listener's intellect with 3 new original tracks backed by Jon Brando's crunchiest drums, warbling bass-lines and arty beat productions. The lead single “Lost Buddies Association” features folk rap hero Ol' Epic as he reminisces about capital city life, homemade recording studios and fallen rap homies Chaz and Conspiracy. “Hardy Hard” is a dense, hook-free, multi-syllabic instruction manual on how to be the hardest emcee. And “Maturity Bingo” is a play-by-play of the funny things that people do and the places they end up as they grow older. In between tracks are 3 Brando produced interludes which utilize lost, dusty recordings of controversial Toronto psychiatrist, the late Dr. Gordon Warme. Many of these vocal samples are lifted from the documentary film “Bay St. Healer” directed by Brando's filmmaking alter-ego.

Boom-bap informed, but future focused, the new hardly novices ep + reissue reveals that creativity doesn't always languish and that age is just a number. As hip hop matures into its 50th year, so too do emprime and Jon Brando, but their playful slacker sensibilities remain in-tact and remind the listener that rap isn't just an expression of youth culture anymore.

Bland-ish Hikikomori Hop for the masses, and Degenerate Prairie Punk Hop for the strung out. For the memories, dawg.

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