Featured Label: Tres Records

Step 1: To learn music outside the radio-pop realm, follow and learn about music labels. From Death Row to Om Records, music labels don't just release records, they showcase particular styles and genres. In the weeks to come, I will feature different labels, assisting you in finding artists you might enjoy.

Tres Records
This is Tres Records "About US":
Tres Records, a label founded and run by artists, is committed to procuring the hip-hop aesthetic while exploring the infinite possibilities of the sampling tradition. Tres seeks out artists with the same passion and provides them a space to be creative and maintain their musical integrity by putting quality before quantity.
Tres hopes to help continue to contribute to the culture and become an example of the idea that independent Hip Hop label is far from dead.

After following Blu, considered by critics as one of the top emerging hip hop artists in 2008, I learned he was signed to Tres Records. I saw and reviewed a show of Blu & Exile earlier this year. The LA rapper has an old school west coast aesthetic, rapping about daily issues of growing up in a story telling fasion.

Here are some other artists on Tres Records:

C.R.A.C. Knuckles
C.R.A.C. Knuckles is a collaboration of Blu and Ta'Raach. Ta'Raach is a witty, and inventive producer, compared to the likes of Prince Paul or De La Soul. Blu, as described before, has an old school descriptive story telling style. Together, they create a fresh style of hip hop, which is both mind stimulating as it is eardrum palpable.

C.R.A.C. Knuckles: "Buy Me Lunch"


Big Tone
Big Tone, born Anthony Jackson, a Detroit rapper with LA lyrical realism. Having worked with some of the best, like J Dilla, Big Tone came out with his sophomore album The Art of Ink, which is filled with a blend of soulful and funky beats.



Giant Panda
Giant Panda, still a symbol of remembering traditions without forgetting progression, is composed of childhood friends Newman and Maanumental(hailing from Seattle) and Chikaramanga(a Tokyo native), with their foundation based out of Los Angeles, CA. The trio’s name is simply an analogy to their ethnic and cultural make-up: what else would you call a group made up of white, black, and Asian guys?



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