Trackademicks aka. “Cool Collar Scholar” got into the rap game while he was still a student at The University of San Francisco. If not music, he must have taken marketing because he has an uber smart “prep” branding theme going on with the thick rimmed glasses, nerdy cardigans, and of course the less subtle nominal signifiers he picks out (he is also associated with Bay Area’s Honor Roll Crew).
But being in the thick of the rap scene, not everything he touches turns into college schoolboy, like the production work he did with Mistah F.A.B. for his album Son Of A Pimp. Hmm, something doesn’t fit there.
This new single, “Fool on the Hill,” comes to us as a double hype for both Trackademiks’ upcoming album State of the Arts (fall, 2010) and Phonte and Nicolay’s third Foreign Exchange album, Authenticity (October 12, 2010). Right at home with most of the electro based hip-hop coming out of Cali, it is sunny and beckoning with punctuating tight high hats and claps that bounce a top a warm ambient synth bed.
Or at least that’s what you thought that’s what that frequency thick sound was. Astute listeners will smile from ear to ear when some subtle scratch work pleasantly reveals that the pitched wash you’re listening to actually isn’t a synth at all– they are vowel sustained vocal samples.
Tricky, Tricky! .. Eat a Parsnip!
[audio:https://thecomeupshow.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/TrackademiksFoolonthehillPhonteTHECOMEUPSHOW.mp3]