Affiliated

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Affiliated G’z, is a Jackson hip-hop/rap group who has been around since 1999and they’ve got plenty of heart and determination and most important, they are RELEVANT. The Affiliated G’z are relevant because they have heart, they are talented, have some very good music, and they pushed very hard to be heard because they knew their music was worth hearing and sharing with the world. They wanted to express themselves in a real way because they are three of the most real men I’ve ever seen in the rap world of the SIPP. A rap group can rap for an array of reasons. Rappers can rap to express themselves or to make an impact on the world around them or to simply try to make money. Other rappers rap because the rapping is a spiritual thing and it gives them fulfillment. "After I finish my prayers," said Dino, "I get on up and I go to work. I have the music on my mind right after I say my prayers. I be thinking about how I’m going to make it work for me."Dino, the youngest of the three men who comprise Affiliated said, "I think about the music when I wake up. I know I want to do music all day long. It’s the music that I love next to loving my family. Music is something I know I can make and I know I’m good at it. I can just write and write. It feels good doing it. I hope one day to be able to make my music work for me and then I can do that one thing I love and that is making music."Jackson is a fertile ground for making talented artists of rap music. Affiliated has a way of making their music relevant for many groups of consumers. I appreciate the Dorothy Moore hook on the track for their song, "Been a Long Time." I also like the anthem, "MISSISSIPPI," which is a banger. I’m an older lady and when rappers go to mixing old school with the new school, it moves me--especially when it’s Dorothy Moore, a Mississippi Southern Soul and Blues legend. Ms. Moore is still singing good and to hear her voice mixed into these young men’s work(Been A Longtime) meant something to me. It meant that the young men appreciated the older folks who made Mississippi music when they were babies and they grew up to show their respect and love, something that is beginning to make the older folks such as myself stand up and take notice and say to the young men, "Well done, young men, well done."And Affiliated does their music well.Sitting across from the members of Affiliated, I thought about how they were making the same path that Kamikaze and Banner had made for themselves in the time period for making Grey Skies when they were Crooked Lettaz and when they made Them Firewater Boyz and Banner made his first solo independent album. I watched them carefully for weeks. I saw how they were serious about their work in the rap business and knew that as young men who were now a part of a new generation of rap artists, they would join Kamikaze and David Banner, Boo the Boss Playa, the Wildlife Society, Hellborne, and Raggabumpkin as makers of classic Mississippi rap music.
Mississippi