Review Trifecta Part One: Th3rdz - This, That & Th3rdz

Over the last few months, as I've become involved again in the NW hip-hop scene, I've acquired some new music. I figured it would be a good idea to share my ideas and thoughts about the music I've acquired in some short reviews.

I know the guys in Th3rdz, at least two of them, casually. I've listened to all three since they came out. JFK I have interviewed a handful of times. I do know their music history and that is what makes this project so interesting. The last collaboration between Candidt and JFK was "Paranoid," where Candidt helped on a chorus "I'm so sick having issues, boy, paranoid," and "I think they fucking with me, boy, cause I'm paranoid." The video had JFK banging his head against the wall and screaming at a lightbulb. Meanwhile, JFK worked with Xperience, the third part of Th3rdz, on an entire album called Facefeeder with his Grayskul teammate Onry Ozzborn.

All the work these guys have done with one another is on the rough side - not gangsta rap but most certainly some form of horrorcore - the hip-hop equivalent of heavy metal. JFK, the most seasoned rapper in Th3rdz, has definitely been somewhere in the horrorcore realm for most of his rap career.

Th3rdz isn't any of that. Once all three of them are together, JFK, Candidt and Th3rdz have all teamed together to make one of the most pop-friendly hip-hop records from the Northwest aside from Macklemore. With a clean hook of "This is your favorite song" and a clean hook by Candidt, "Favorite Song" is obviously and effort at radio/MTV stardom.

Meanwhile, none of the rest of the songs are rough in any way either. "Hustle Harder" and "Work" send a pretty positive message toward young people of moving forward while not letting others game them. "Boobiewho" and "Be Yourself" are smile inducing tracks about sex and relationships that show more courtship than the frustration that JFK's solo album Building Wings On The Way Down exemplified. The guest list is pretty small too - reduced to only local superstars like Sonny Bonoho, Sleep of Oldominion and Geologic of Blue Scholars.

Everyone in Th3rdz is Oldominion fam - a super network of rappers that encompass twenty plus artists in the Seattle and Portland areas. It would be really amazing to see an Oldominion effort take off in even a quarter of the way Macklemore did. Th3rdz is certainly a step in that direction.