Tanya Morgan Archives - RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture

#PeepTheVisual: Tanya Morgan – “Louder”

Evie — Sat, 26 Aug 2017 14:29:08 +0000

Meet Elijah Gomez, a young hustler from the ATL who personifies the spirit of Tanya Morgan’s Von Pea and Donwill while moving units in the group’s new video for “Louder,” a bass-driven joint off their recently released, fourth LP, YGWY$4 (You Get What You Pay For).

While previous videos featured the duo dissecting awkward one-night stands and dropping bravado-laced bars out the trunk, Tanya Morgan went for a wholly different, albeit still creative approach for their latest effort. “Louder” centers on the day-to-day business of Elijah, a burgeoning entrepreneur in the music game who moves units and pantomimes the track’s lyrics.

Elijah is also the son of the video’s director, George Gomez, who makes his directorial debut here and shows that he clearly has the necessary chops. He’s the creative director of SOAP Goods Creative and has worked with Tanya Morgan since 2004, most recently providing artwork for YGWY$4 and 2016’s, Abandoned Theme Park.

Given that Gomez and SOAP are based out of Atlanta, it’s only fitting the director shot these visuals there as well. He also enlisted some other local ATL talent, such as rising artist Zipporah Joe’l (who plays Elijah’s mother), FRKO (Action Bronson’s illustrator), and Mr. Fahie (a multi-talented artist).

Check out the visuals above right here, courtesy of RESPECT,, and be sure to head over to the digital retailer or streaming platform of your choice to support, YGWY$4.

Tracklist:
01. Started (prod. by Astronote)
02. Dirty Stayout (feat. Afaliah) [prod. by Fresh Sinatra]
03. VPND (prod. by Roddy Rod)
04. Trunk Shit (prod. by AEON for The Lessondary)
05. Louder (prod. by Brick Beats for The Lessondary)
06. Slow Me Down (feat. Jermiside) [prod. by Quelle Chris]
07. Cold Modelo (prod. by Kev Brown)
08. Ahead of You (prod. by brandUn Deshay)
09. Transplant Anthem (feat. Lee Sissing) [prod. by Astronote]
10. Peppermint (feat. Sunny Jones & Cyren Young) [prod. by Von Pea for The Lessondary]
11. Filthiest aka LESSLOWWITT!! (feat Ilyas) [prod. by The Beatmaker for The Lessondary]
12. Finish Line (feat. Cyren Young) [prod. by Astronote]

Twitter:
• Tanya Morgan: https://twitter.com/TanyaMorgan
• Von Pea: https://twitter.com/VonPea
• Donwill: https://twitter.com/donwill

Tanya Morgan Online:
• Website: http://www.tanyamorgan.net
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/almightytm
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tanyamorgan

The post #PeepTheVisual: Tanya Morgan – “Louder” appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

Tanya Morgan Unleashes New Visual + Album – “Trunk Sh*t”

Evie — Tue, 01 Aug 2017 23:07:52 +0000

The always-dope duo of Tanya Morgan are back on their “Trunk Shit” in their new video, which is brimming with bravado-laced bars from Von Pea and Donwill, with a bass-rich instrumental supplied by AEON for The Lessondary.

The banger stems from their highly anticipated new album, YGWY$4 (You Get What You Pay For) which drops today, and follows the release of hilarious lead single/video “Dirty Stayout.” Whereas that track centered on a tale of a one-night stand gone wrong, “Trunk Shit” is an all braggadocio bar-fest seen through the perceptive lens of Toine Jameson.

Von Pea and Donwill are clearly masters in this arena, with the latter taking some well-placed shots at critics who try to put the duo in a box. “They say that we ‘A Tribe Called De La’ or ‘Smaller Little Brother’/ All I know is that we do it better than the others.”

Don’s point is that while he and Von have made some ill-as-hell Boom bap joints to date—arguably “Trunk Shit” is among them—people need to stop trying to classify them as this or that. Anyone who’s heard all of their projects will say the same, and YGWY$4 further demonstrate Tanya Morgan’s versatility. Want proof?—just head over to the digital retailer of your choice and support this duo that’s been keeping your iPod and tape deck satisfied since ’05.

YGWY$4 (Smart URL): http://smarturl.it/tanyamorgan

Album Press Release: http://bit.ly/PressReleaseYGWYP4

Twitter:
• Tanya Morgan: https://twitter.com/TanyaMorgan
• Von Pea: https://twitter.com/VonPea
• Donwill: https://twitter.com/donwill

Tanya Morgan Online:
• Website: http://www.tanyamorgan.net
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/almightytm
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tanyamorgan

The post Tanya Morgan Unleashes New Visual + Album – “Trunk Sh*t” appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

#PeepTheVisual: Tanya Morgan (feat. Afaliah) – “Dirty Stayout”

Evie — Tue, 11 Jul 2017 13:44:59 +0000

Photo by Antoine Jameson (IG: @toinejameson)

With the release of their new single “Dirty Stayout,” which is accompanied with a hilarious visual, Tanya Morgan prove once again that they are one of the most consistently dope and clever Hip-Hop groups doing it today.

The duo of Von Pea and Donwill made yet another splash last year with the release of their Abandoned Theme Park project, but they’re going even bigger with their forthcoming full-length, YGWY$4. And the much-anticipated album is off to a beyond-strong start with “Dirty Stayout,” a playful look into one-night stands and the misconceptions plenty of us can relate to.

Bolstered by the beat’s mix of keys and drums, the two rappers deliver rhymes that are just as sharp as they are gut-busting. Those include a riff on a classic Tribe Called Quest line when Von raps, “If you need ‘em, I got crazy prophylactics/ And a fat d—hold on, hold on, how fresh.” His and Don’s sense of humor permeates the track and its video, which centers on two women in the year 2050 reminiscing on their dates with the emcees.

We don’t want to spoil anything, but needless to say, everything doesn’t go according to plan. At least, that’s definitely the case with Don, who takes playing the ukulele a little too seriously.

Check out the visuals for “Dirty Stayout” right here courtesy of RESPECT., and head over to the digital retailer of your choice to pre-order Tanya Morgan’s latest opus, YGWY$4, which is due out July 28!

YGWY$4 (Pre-Order): http://smarturl.it/tanyamorgan

Album Press Release: http://bit.ly/PressReleaseYGWYP4

Twitter:
• Tanya Morgan: https://twitter.com/TanyaMorgan
• Von Pea: https://twitter.com/VonPea
• Donwill: https://twitter.com/donwill

The post #PeepTheVisual: Tanya Morgan (feat. Afaliah) – “Dirty Stayout” appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

Interview: Koncept and J57 Prepare For Departure

RESPECT. Staff — Tue, 10 Dec 2013 20:03:47 +0000

Through a potent mixture of fortunate events and hard work, New York rapper Koncept found himself and his friend and co-creator J57 on a flight to Los Angeles, headed to Red Bull’s recording studios. Realizing the significance of this opportunity, the pair planned every moment of their trip with meticulous detail, even their downtime, which they didn’t even expect to have. The result of this rigorous planning is their soon-to-be-released joint album, Flight, and irreversible alterations to their recording process. Detailing this life-changing experience and its consequences, as well as their least favorite trains, their new direction as artists and their favorite albums of the year, the pair sat down with us for a lengthy and engaging talk. Boarding passes in hand, they’re ready to go.

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RESPECT: So [J57] you rap as well as produce, but for this project you’re just producing. Why’d you make that decision?

J57: We were already gonna do an album where I produced the whole thing anyway and I kind of just brought the idea that we could it make it a little different from regular Koncept albums if we set it aside and just do Koncept and J57 and he was like, “I’m with that.” And then when we were in L.A., I remember we were going to do a show and we get to the venue and we were chillin’ because we didn’t want to go into the venue and talk to people and lose our voices. So we’re chillin’ outside still and he’s like, “Yo, I don’t think I want anybody else to do my beats.” And I was like, “Done!” So we were just like from here on out we’re gonna do this as a group. So now it’s a group dynamic. It’s always been fifty-fifty when we work on stuff anyway, but now it’s like official.

Koncept: And the sound is different as well from the previous stuff that we’ve done –

J57: – Yeah and that’s why I thought it would be cool to separate it from all the other shit because it doesn’t sound like Awaken – and those are incredible records – but it just doesn’t sound like the other shit. It’s just bigger sounding.

Koncept: It’s the best music we’ve ever made. I feel and he feels and we feel like everything else – I’m proud of all my previous work – was learning. At this point I feel like I’ve really found my sound and my delivery and how to use my voice. And just how to make better music. Again, all that stuff, I’m proud of it, but it was just all to learn, to get us to where we are now. So with this new music it’s just bigger and better. So being a group will just make it stand out a bit more and make people see, before they even hear it, that that’s different from what they’ve done previously because now it’s actually a group dynamic.

Did you two come with a name for the group?

Koncept: Well the name is just gonna be Koncept and J57. The album is gonna be called Flight. And we have an EP we’re gonna drop before that called The Fuel.

You said that it’s always fifty-fifty when you two work together. Is there ever any overlap between your roles as producer and rapper?

J57: Oh yeah! Totally, totally! When we’re in the studio, he’ll come up with ideas for beats as well. It’s not like it’s all me. Or even just a creative idea in general. It’s not like a hundred percent half and half.

Koncept: It’s fifty-fifty in the sense that we do everything together. He may be like, “Yo, I love that verse, but what if we switch it up and have you do a bridge here instead of that?” Or, “What if you flip this line a little bit?” And I’ll be the same way. I’ll be like, “Yo this beat is crazy but what if we have this change-up here.” So it’s fifty-fifty in the sense that we’re both involved in everything.

J57: Like a real group! [laughs] It’s more than a rapper and a producer linking up for a real quick project. It really is like a group, like all the classic duos like Gang Starr. It wasn’t just like Premier made the beats and he was like, “Guru, go do some raps!” [laughs]. [Guru] was in the lab next to him. That dynamic is dire. There are people who are doing it, but they’re doing like one-and-off albums. We wanted to bring more to the table than that. That’s why we’re keeping it kind of old school with just “Koncept and J57.” It’s modern, but it’s old school at the same time because cats aren’t really doing that anymore, where there’s just two names together…well they are, but it’s just for those one-and-off projects, not for a real group.

Yeah like for an EP.

J57: Yeah, like me and some random dude link up for an EP, which we do all the time because that’s dope, but we’re not trying to do that anymore. We’re not trying to just make some shit. We’re trying to bring it to the next level.

Do you feel like that interaction that you have is possible only because of your previous relationship?

Koncept: Yeah, we’ve been close friends for years now, so our relationship in general just allows us to work together. And we both have the same goals and the same place that we both want to reach. So that forms the chemistry right there.

So before we started the interview you mentioned labels that you’re possibly working with for this album. Is Fat Beats one of them? You two both used to work at the store.

Koncept: Yeah, we worked there together for awhile. For these projects, we’ve been talking to some majors and just different outlets. We recorded the album with Red Bull, so we’ve obviously been in contact with them to figure out some different options. And we’ve been in contact with Interscope and some other majors. And right now everything’s looking good. We’re just trying to find the best place for us to go.

Why did you name it Flight?

Koncept: So the album is my autobiography and it starts with me and J in Brooklyn, getting into a cab to go to L.A. and record the album. And I wrote the album like a movie, so then throughout the whole album, I talk about my childhood and my dad passing and growing up with a single mom, then high school, then moving out of the city to live in Vermont for a little bit and then moving back to the city. So I talk about everything in my life and the album ends with me and J recording the album in LA.

So it’s like a journey.

Koncept: Yeah, exactly.

J57: And we recorded a lot of sound-bites, when we’re on our phones, when we’re taking the actual flight, when we’re at the airport, getting into the cab, the whole nine, from beginning to end while we were traveling. And we chopped them out and sprinkled throughout the whole album so it’s really cohesive. It has a real story.

So before you two even flew out to L.A., you two already had a very coherent idea of what this would be.

Koncept: Yeah yeah, exactly.

Koncept, you mentioned your dad passing. On “Awaken,” you said that his death scared you straight. What did you mean by that?

Because my dad died of drugs, so basically his death sent me in the direction of not going down the path.

The post Interview: Koncept and J57 Prepare For Departure appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

Album Review: Tanya Morgan – Rubber Souls (prod. 6th Sense)

RESPECT. Staff — Tue, 24 Sep 2013 20:01:26 +0000

There’s an extensive history of rappers saying, “I only compete with myself,” but when Von Pea says, “We are our competition, so anything goes,” on “More,” the album’s seventh track, he’s changing the nature of the statement. Rather than boasting [alleged] uniqueness and proclaiming their “own lane,” Tanya Morgan makes this statement in a self-deprecating way: they’re not competing because they’re not even in the competition. This may sound pessimistic, but it’s actually liberating. By remaining self-involved and self-contained, indifferent to what is essentially a marketing problem, Tanya Morgan is able to free themselves from anxieties about sounding absolutely original and make whatever art they want. Rubber Souls feels like a product of that liberated mentality. Produced entirely by 6th Sense, the album is characterized by experimentation, humor, pulse and genuine passion for music.

Though it’s only ten songs long Rubber Souls features a variety of sounds that are almost exclusively the product of live instrumentation. On “More,” before Von Pea‘s previously mentioned memorable line, he tells the audience to make our kids learn an instrument so that Tanya Morgan can perform alongside musicians for the album’s 20 year anniversary. It’s a funny statement, and it shows how much the group values live instruments, but it’s a bit bizarre. Given the significance of live instrumentation throughout the album, they could tour with musicians now. In fact, it’s almost unfathomable to imagine them performing smooth songs like “For Real” or “Pick It Up” without musicians. On the former, the percussion and the bass are just as essential as the vocals, and the beat change toward the end of the song wouldn’t be nearly as potent in some random venue’s probably shitty speakers. The prominence of the instrumentals is just that pronounced, that necessary for the album’s soundscape.

The vocals are equally as engaging, but the appeal is more performative than lyrical. Donwill and Von Pea occasionally drop a nice one-liner (like Von Pea saying he has a metro card with $10,000 on “Worldmade”), but the focus seems to be more on being evocative than being impressive, which is paradoxically impressive. For instance, on the lighthearted “Never Too Much” which features Nitty Scott, MC, the lyrics are generally straightforward, but the earnestness of their flows and even just the humor of their deliveries sells the song without a barrage of #bars. Similarly, on “Eulogy” both artists mourn the passage of time and the erosion of relationships, but the power of the song is more tonal than lyrical. Both artists sound impassioned, rapping over the smooth organ like it’s a pulpit at a funeral. That isn’t to say that that Don and Von aren’t lyricists. In fact, they are phenomenal lyricists. They just simply have the acumen to know that words can only do so much. Only the best lyricists graduate to that level.

All in all, Rubber Souls is a solid project. 6th Sense has hinted that there “might” be some samples embedded within the tracks, but for our purposes, we’ll say that this album’s instrumentals are actually one-hundred precent instrumental. At a time when synthetic sounds are ubiquitous, it’s nice to hear an entire project of live instrumentation. Does this mean that Tanya Morgan is retro? Not necessarily. Not only has hip-hop almost always eschewed live instrumentation (sampling dominated hip-hop until fairly recently), but Tanya Morgan hasn’t always had a penchant for live instrumentation. In fact, earlier today they released a song that sampled a rant from a week ago. That’s definitely not retro. Most importantly, they don’t ever make any declarations defining what hip-hop is or isn’t because they don’t have time for marketing or complaining about the market*; they’re just trying to make good music. And they’re succeeding.

*When an artist, in any genre, attempts to define the essence of that genre by complaining about what’s real and what isn’t, the real complaint is about that artist’s sound no longer being commercially viable. #FactsOnly

The post Album Review: Tanya Morgan – Rubber Souls (prod. 6th Sense) appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

New Music: Donwill feat. Von Pea, NE$$ & Chill Moody – “Kanye Rants”

RESPECT. Staff — Tue, 24 Sep 2013 15:39:46 +0000

The only thing better than a Kanye West track is a track sampling a Kanye rant. Donwill and Von Pea of Tanya Morgan team up with NE$$ and Chill Moody to bring you “Kanye Rants”. Producer Parker chopped Kanye’s rant at Pusha T‘s listening session and turned it into an incredible chorus. Tanya Morgan‘s latest album Rubber Souls dropped today and is now available for download on iTunes. Get into the track below and return later today for our review of the album.

The post New Music: Donwill feat. Von Pea, NE$$ & Chill Moody – “Kanye Rants” appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

New Video: Tanya Morgan feat. Nitty Scott MC. – “Never Too Much”

RESPECT. Staff — Thu, 19 Sep 2013 18:13:36 +0000

Rubber Souls isn’t out until next Tuesday, but for now we have another sample of its magic. Teaming up with Nitty Scott, MC, the humorous duo lightly speaks on relationships and the minute, ostensibly unimportant details that make them special. The video brings the song to life, featuring visual effects, props and actions that are just as detailed as the song’s subject matter.

“Never Too Much” is produced by 6th Sense, who actually produced Rubber Souls in its entirety. Watch the video below.

We’ll have a review of the album next Tuesday.

The post New Video: Tanya Morgan feat. Nitty Scott MC. – “Never Too Much” appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.