We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Of Mics and Men

by Josh the Word

/
  • Streaming + Download

    Purchasable with gift card

     

1.
Keys 03:17
We bear wings get flyer than kites And we share things to bring the fire to life And we PUSH Yeah we know what we came for We all carry keys trying to open the same doors
2.
Stay gold, Ponyboy, walk into the sunset...
3.
4.
Book Of 03:40
Through all the wars you've tried to fight Tonight it's time to shine a light ON...
5.
Crosses 02:37
6.
She 02:27
"You can see the stars here" he said...
7.
Living in the light of a slow song Quiver in the night but you're so strong We rise up, keep your eyes up Rhythm if it's right where the roads roam We gotta find our way home...
8.
We hope that our paths like to cross And we smoke night blunts on Foss And we cope with the stress and the shudders And when the night ends we fall into each other

about

Of Mics and Men is at once homage to the landscape of Josh Smith’s upstate New York upbringing and a 28-minute lyric letter of appreciation to the community that helped him come to be. Backed by Jared Paul’s clever, often cryptic beats, Of Mics and Men is at once full of restlessness and of sweetness, locating Josh Smith in his own process of balancing his fierce love of community in tracks like “Of Mics And Men,” with the home that he’s made in the quietest recesses of himself in “Keys,” where he locates himself, saying: “I’m in the middle writing riddles in the form of raps / live from the eye trying to find where the storm is at.”

Lyrically, Josh Smith’s rhymes are delicate and carefully wound. While he deals with topics ranging from community to relationships to self-knowledge and compassion for the distance between human hearts, his rhymes are uniformly intentional, tight and visually complex. Josh Smith has the quiet courage of P.O.S and the late poet Frank Stanford’s acumen for blurring myth into living. His writing takes cues equally from the musical poetics of Yusef Komunyaaka and from flawless carpenters of the spit verse like Atmosphere and Aesop Rock.

“Book Of” stands out as a glimpse into the logic of the link between Josh Smith’s crew and his process of composition. Central to the album, the track articulates the strength of his ability to rep friendship and interiority and to twist them around in the space made by the beat to see how many ways they can fit together.

The knockout, however, is “Crosses.” Here, the rapper pushes himself to the limits of his firing speed, his delivery sounding singularly urgent. If the strength of Josh Smith’s writing is his ability to speak to the private and the public in each person, then it makes sense that “Crosses” hits like a sacrifice of that balance. In “Crosses,” Smith puts his words to work to reach out and maybe to attempt to heal a little. From these two central tracks, Of Mics and Men, spreads out to the endpoints of its lyric wingspan, a solid debut album from a rapper who has the skill and heart to make his rhymes do the best real work that a rap song can do.

- Davy Knittle, Stethoscope Press, 2010

credits

released September 25, 2010

------
Josh Smith wrote the lyrics and rapped a lot.

Jared Paul made the beats and produced, mixed, and mastered it.

Gabe Gordon (keys), Jared Paul (guitar) Nate Mondschein (drums), Louis Russo (bass), Lucy Strother (cello), Katherine Scahill (violin), and Georgia Flaum (viola) played on “Stutter Steps.”

Matt Kalish did the album art.

Thanks to everyone who helped along the way.

license

tags

about

Josh the Word Brooklyn, New York

Josh the Word (Smith) is an emcee who grew up in Woodstock, NY, finding his song somewhere between the fiery swells of the funk era and the powerful lyricism of Minnesota underground hip-hop. He enjoys fat horn lines, hard snares over acoustic guitars, and favors a good house party to a dance club any day. Currently based in Brooklyn, he performs live with his band, The Riot Act. ... more

contact / help

Contact Josh the Word

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

Josh the Word recommends:

If you like Josh the Word, you may also like: