"The Bill Murray EP is solid from start to finish. another hip hop masterpiece in the name of Canadian hip hop."
Today’s hip hop world seems to be overrun by auto tuners that over-produce songs written and perform… Today’s hip hop world seems to be overrun by auto tuners that over-produce songs written and performed by self-proclaimed crunk masters. Since the Vancouver hip hop collective formed in 2000, Sweatshop Union has been able to avoid the pull of mainstream hip hop and continuously produced outstanding records in which the beats compliment the lyrics and not the other way around. Their latest release, The Bill Murray EP, is no exception.
The album starts out with an aggressive beat in "Makeshift Kingdom" and follows up with "Sunburn," a track that can only be described as cosmic rap. Each track has its own cultural or political message to get across. In "Bring Back the Music," the MCs spew their outrage at MTV (“What happened to the music videos? All I see is Jersey Shore and these stupid Diddy shows”) rapping, “With no videos it’s like an empty weed sack. It’s useless.”
From the cuts and sampling to the intelligent lyrics and the rhymes, The Bill Murray EP is solid from start to finish. Sweatshop Union is able to ignore the cliché’s of today’s rap world and produce yet another hip hop masterpiece in the name of Canadian hip hop.