"For us, it's more than just a passion - it's self-therapy," says MC Vast Aire about the rhymes he writes with Vordul Mega, the other half of Canibal Ox. The new-school hip-hop duo formed at New York's Washington Irving High School around 1992, when the two Harlemites bonded over a shared love of rhymes and visual art: "We were definitely artists and poets when we met," Vast recalls. "We were doing comic books, we were doing graffiti." They freestyled at talent shows and open mics, and eventually found a fan in Company Flow's El-P, who produced their first full-length, The Cold Vein, and released it on his Def Jux imprint. "Your confidence gets up when other musicians you respect wanna do music with you," Vast Aire says. "That's what underground hip-hop is about." Cannibal Ox's music depicts an urban landscape wavering between beauty and decay, past and present, punk and funk, with fractured melodies, futuristic effects and illusory samples that create an Enter The Wu-Tang-like cinematic quality. And Vast and Vordul's rhymes seamlessly mix street roughness with introspection. On "Stress Rap," Vordul punctuates, "Walkin' through these odd days / Watchin' every snake breathin' / Ready to deface the heathen at night / I'm like just tryin' to reshape the meaning of life." "We don't mind goin' full blast," Vast asserts. "We're gonna be honest and we're gonna be highly creative." - CMJ New Music Monthly, August 2001. As a bonus, check out this 3-part series called "The Making of The Cold Vein," which was uploaded to their YT page...
Oh, and full feature in CMJ is available below if you'd like a copy...
