We've seen it all before...
Big had Lil Cease...
Jay had Bleek...
Marshall had Royce...
etc. etc. etc.
There's a common theme though...
Lil Cease never panned out to be what Big had envisioned him to be.
Bleek was cool but never quite got it right...
Royce coulda been so much more in the beginning but there was that falling out...
Big ended up finding out that his bitch Kim would be his best successor (or The LOX, depending on how you look at it.)
For Marshall, his most successful predecessor ended up being a dude from Queens who got shot 9 times.
And with Hov, surprisingly enough, his greatest successor would be a square bear producer/rapper named Kanye.
Rappers love putting their homies on, however, most of the time, the homies are better off just being... homies.
The same can be said for me & my beloved Blade Gang (Hellrazors).
I came up with several buddies who enjoyed this rap shit. We came up together, we had fun, we did our thing & made many great memories but as time went on, I grew to realize my passion and ambition to make music for my community, my home, my people, was not equally matched by my friends. No offense to them, cuz many of them I still consider family and love and respect to this day, but they just didn't want to do this music shit as badly as I did, so the "gang" eventually disbanded and everyone went on to do their own thing. Unsurprisingly, the majority of those individuals are not making/putting out music these days.
I come from the Eastside of Fairbanks, Alaska. Those who grew up on the East, take great pride in that. One of those individuals happened to be a local d-boy named Lamar...
Lamar's younger. 5 years younger, I believe. I knew of Lamar (or as we all know him back home, "LB") through the younger homies. My lil bros Devon & Jeff Bailey would come to my lil mixtape store to kick it and one day they brought a young LB over to kick some raps for me. It was cool. Wasn't nothing great and at the time, I'm doing my Hellrazor thing along with my store and studio so I had a lot going on. I told him to keep at it and kind of left it at that. I went on to put out several more albums, travelled and performed while a young LB stayed in the streets doing what he did until the law caught up with him and put him behind bars. We lost touch with each other during that time but always remained cool when we crossed paths. Several years later, we reconnected and to my surprise, LB had continued working on his music, writing rhymes, playing with beats and just doing what most kids like us do, and thats trying to find something else to keep us from doing dumb shit. At that point, I noticed the kid had ambition, persistence and patience. Something I hoped my other Hellrazor brothers would have. I finally found someone who not only had the same desires, but also had his own means of getting it and shared the same ambition. I went on tour, he came with. Paid his own way, played his position and always came through on his word, financially and otherwise. I sent him beats, he'd write his verses. Several verses. He'd even ask if he should re-write them and do them over. Several years later, Blade Gang has been narrowed down to 3 (shout out to my baby bro Keezy of Sky Division who shares all of these same traits as well. I'll tell you more about him, soon enough). After a decade plus, of frustrations with my previous artists/band members, I finally found the person to pass the torch to. I finally found my Kanye...
We are on the verge of releasing LB's (who officially goes by the name Fleetwood Malone, these days) 2nd project "Viva La Fleetwood" and I gotta say, it's amazing, but until then, here's the latest leak and title cut from said project. I promise you many great things from Blade Gang this year, and Lamar (along with Keezy) will be a major contributor to that. Enjoy "Viva La Fleetwood" and make sure to check out our soundcloud page for more music by and featuring Fleetwood Malone, or as I know him, LB from the Eastside. Support
hard work, support independent music, support loyalty... support Fleetwood.
- Blade Gang 2014
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