Long March

Blue Scholars - The Long March [Full EP]

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• published: 16 Jan 2016
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http://bluescholars.com/ 1. Cornerstone 2. The Long March 3. Southside Revival 4. Proletariat Blues 5. La Botella 6. Commencement Day 7. Wounded Eyes 8. Talk Story 9. Sagaba Remix https://bluescholars.bandcamp.com/album/the-long-march-ep Blue Scholars are an American hip hop duo based in Seattle, Washington, created in 2002 while the members, DJ Sabzi (Saba Mohajerjasbi) and MC Geologic (George Quibuyen), were students at University of Washington. The name "Blue Scholars" is a play on the term "blue collar," an idiom for workers who often earn hourly wages for manual labor. Their music and lyrics frequently focus on struggles between socioeconomic classes, challenging authority and youth empowerment. These themes are often specifically addressed in relation to the Seattle region ("Southside Revival", "North by Northwest", "50 Thousand Deep", "Joe Metro", "Slick Watts" and "The Ave"), and heavily draw upon Geologic's history as an activist within the Filipino American community dealing with issues of immigration, racism, and U.S. neo-imperialism in the Philippines. Recent music has begun to extend even further outward, reflecting the group's greater West Coast and Pacific roots including an album devoted to exploring Geo's Hawaiian heritage on the OOF! EP. Since 2002, Blue Scholars have been based in southeast Seattle. The hip hop group first came to be in 2002 because, "two students skipped a class, went and crafted an album" as it says in the track Bayani (album). The two students, George Quibuyen and Alexei Saba Mohajerjasbi, were attending the University of Washington at the time. The two met at a meeting for S.H.O.W. (the Student HipHop Organization of Washington) which was organized by classmate and future manager Marc Matsui. The organization had set out to revive an authentic interest in hip hop within Seattle which, at the time, had become a solely rock town. This was a result of a series of incidents including a shooting at an Ice Cube concert in the early 1990s as well as the Teen Dance Ordinance. George and Alexei soon joined forces and formed their own duo that utilized Geo's raps and Sabzi's beats and became known as the Blue Scholars. Since then the duo has performed in over 400 shows together across the United States including the Sasquatch! Music Festival in 2005, 2006, and 2008, and Bumbershoot opening for Kanye West in 2006. They have opened for and shared stages with such artists as De La Soul, Slick Rick, Wordsworth, Kanye West, Hieroglyphics, Immortal Technique, The Coup and Masta Ace. In 2006, the Blue Scholars received top honors in the hip hop category of the Seattle Weekly's Music Awards Poll, and were also the top vote-getters overall; in earlier years, they had been recognized in the categories of Best Hip-hop Artist, Best Local Single, and Best Album. Over the years the duo has continued to use their music as a tool for social change and DIY activism. Since those formative years in S.H.O.W. at the University of Washington, Geo has continued to promote youth empowerment and support for political groups that include, but are not limited to, BAYAN-USA, isangmahal arts kollective, and Youth Speaks Hawaii. In 2007, Geologic, representing Blue Scholars, went on tour with Hip Hop artist, Kiwi, to promote the Stop the Killings Tour to bring awareness to the deaths of regular people in the Philippines. Geologic [Emcee] Geologic (born George Quibuyen; also known as Prometheus Brown, Geo) is the vocalist for the Blue Scholars and has also performed as a spoken word poet. In the 2007-2008 city-wide election for Seattle's Poet Populist, Quibuyen placed sixth with ninety-six write-in votes, the highest total for a write-in candidate in the nine-year history of the competition; although, the record was subsequently broken by Seattle poet Ananda Osel in the 2008-2009 election. The son of Filipino immigrants, Quibuyen lived in various locations along the west coast and Hawaii as a child until his family settled in Bremerton, Washington. Geo feels rooted in his Filipino heritage and that there is an unfinished revolution among his people. In 2011, Prometheus Brown released the album "Prometheus Brown and Bambu Walk Into A Bar" with Los Angeles rapper Bambu.