UPTOWN XO "PIMP HARDER PT2" - OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO

“I gotta tell the city’s story now that it’s gone.”







That lyric hits hard and early on “Culture Over Corporate,” the first
of several new albums from the veteran District rapper Uptown XO. But
it’s the final syllable that leaves the bruise. With his hometown awash
in gentrification, XO knows the city he grew up in isn’t disappearing.
It’s gone.







He’s still here, though, and his strange surroundings have changed
how he raps. “I used to write street stories, but lyrically, I’m past
that,” XO explains over lunch – a bright orange plate of General Tso’s
at an eatery on 14th Street NW. “I want to preserve, not my truth, but
the truth. My stories aren’t as important as the overall story of
oppression… I want to motivate people to think so that we’re not being
taken advantage of by what we don’t know – which is most business
models. Consume, consume, consume. But intellectually, we’re still
starving.”







Check out “Pimp Harder part 2” on YouTube below:




OFFICIAL VIDEO RELEASE FROM UPTOWN XO OFF HIS NEW ALBUM "CULTURE OVER
CORPORATE" PRODUCED BY DREW DAVE THAT WAS RELEASED JANUARY 1, 2020. YOU
CAN GET THE ALBUM OR STREAM IT ON ALL MAJOR DIGITAL PLATFORMS. WE HOPE
YOU ENJOY.... PIMP HARDER PT2!!!!



Step out on 14th Street and look both ways. You’ll see capitalism
thriving in every direction, from the luxury condos built for moneyed
new residents to the high-end retail chains catering to them. It’s a new
kind of urban blight being lamented most vividly in rap songs like XO’s
“City Feel,” a blissfully percussive tune that memorializes the sunnier
side of yesteryear, but with an explicit reminder that things “will
never be the same.”







Musically, XO’s D.C. roots run deeper than the open mic nights on U
Street NW where he learned to rap as a teenager, and where he eventually
met his future supergroup collaborators, Oddisee and yU of Diamond
District. Decades back, XO’s grandfather managed the proto-go-go group
the Young Senators. His father is a jazz drummer who once played with
Gil Scott Heron. His mother studied saxophone at Howard University and
performs in the marching band for Washington’s NFL franchise.





Funneling all that history into his rhymes, XO hopes that his music
can help listeners envision the D.C. of tomorrow. To make that happen,
not every lyric needs to hit hard.







“The earth is spinning around – the power is there, but it’s subtle,”
XO says. “The power of your breath, the power of your heartbeat: It’s
subtle. When it’s snowing, it comes down subtle. It might cover the city
and pile up eight feet high, but it’s subtle.”







As he waves his fingertips flurry-like over the tabletop, the brain
of an image-minded lyricist silently kicks into action. “Subtlety is
where the power lies,” he says. “In music, in everything.”







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