What happens when you combine trained musicians from the world-renowned Berklee School of Music in Boston, with an articulate emcee and breathtaking beat-wizard both born and raised in sunny, southern California? Crown City Rockers, that's what - a genre-blending hip-hop collective whose music is original, powerful and provocative all in the same breath and follows in the storied footsteps of such pioneers as The Roots, De La Soul and Tribe Called Quest. With an organic blend of lush, funk-drenched grooves, riveting classic soul samples, sharp live instrumentation and of course old-school inflected rhymes, Crown City Rockers is a welcome breath of fresh air in today's commercially cluttered hip-hop cosmos. Comprised of stellar emcee Raashan Ahmad, producer Woodstock, keyboardist Kat Ouano, bassist/producer Headnodic, and drummer Max MacVeety, Crown City Rockers formed in Beantown's Roxbury section during the late nineties. The Crown City Rockers' epic full-length LP, Earthtones was release late last year. It is an astonishing achievement, seamlessly fusing all of the group's sonic facets together. Indeed, the album overflows with Raashan's battle raps, poetic musings and emotionally fraught tracks about life and love. The lyrics are, in turn, melded with Kat's keyboards, Max's drums and Headnodic and Woodstock's beats - which run the creative gamut frum funk and soul, to jazz, to straight classic hip-hop.

WEBSITE: http://www.crowncityrockers.com/

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