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Hip Hop Holidays

Last Updated (Wednesday, 03 December 2008 22:20) Written by Luke Z. Fenchel Wednesday, 03 December 2008 22:14

Thousands of one featured in the Ithaca Times.

Haltom fronts the unfathomably great Thousands of One, Ithaca's band of the year. With two albums pressed so far - a 2005 self-titled debut and last year's SoulForce - Thousands of One's afro-hip-hop-funk-soul-groove is so danceable you might miss how profound Haltom's rhymes are.

Do yourself a favor between Thanksgiving and New Years and treat yourself to a hip-hop holiday. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the musical genre - which is omnipresent on radio, in film and the unofficial contemporary soundtrack to life throughout the United States - is experiencing something of an emergence in the bars, clubs and venues here in Ithaca. Three major groups are leading the way locally, and there are many chances to catch the wave over the course of the next month.

Hip-hop, like any music genre, has a wide array of iterations. This past Halloween, Cornell celebrated a landmark archive tracing the cultural movement's early years with a two-day conference of performances and lectures by several pioneers and roundtable discussions led by speakers from the academic and musical world.

Ithaca's hip-hop forefather of sorts is Elliot Martin, frontman of John Brown's Body. Martin's music, which is expansive enough for critics to draw comparisons with Bob Marley, Massive Attack, the Police and 311, doesn't play hip-hop per se, but certainly has spawned a fair amount of it.

"Though we only played two shows together, I'm indebted to him," Jhakeem Haltom said by phone the other day. "Elliot taught me how to harmonize, he taught me basically everything I know."

Haltom fronts the unfathomably great Thousands of One, Ithaca's band of the year. With two albums pressed so far - a 2005 self-titled debut and last year's SoulForce - Thousands of One's afro-hip-hop-funk-soul-groove is so danceable you might miss how profound Haltom's rhymes are.

A band that is beyond tight, with stellar supplemental players including towering guitarist Safak Ozkan and jazz keybordist Chad Lieberman, Thousands of One's driving force is Haltom, who is able to flow with the ease of Talib Kweli and sing with the grace of Stevie Wonder. The group has already appeared at the famed Roxy in Los Angeles and earlier this month performed Crossing Borders Live at the Lost Dog Lounge. It's testament to the breadth of the group's music that it had both GrassRoots dirty hipsters and baby boomers bopping along at their shows.

Thousands of One will appear at the Chapter House Dec. 13, bringing onstage two rising stars in local hip-hop: Darell Tate (aka Money Mars) and Rahmel Mack (aka Ave Mack); they'll appear again at an art opening at the ABC Café Nov. 29; and finally, in what may be read as a musical torch-passing, they'll open for the Sim Redmond Band New Years Eve at Castaways.

Read the entire article HERE