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LP
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HB3
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Emanating from a "prehistoric" existence, near the end of the last millennium, schoolies Andy Votel and his slightly older college mates, were once best recognized in Mancunian clubs and bars as teenage vinyl nerds and bum-fluffed battle-rappers under the collective name Violators Of The English Language. As steadfast supporters of the '80s/90s Brit-core rap scene coming out of London, the multicultural Violators... Mancunian accents were perhaps a bridge-too-far to secure dream-job contracts for humble labels like Kold Sweat and Music Of Life. An unlikely constructive meeting with Gang Starr's DJ Premier (while Andy helped out at a radio station) and playing warm up DJ sets for countless US rap hero's might have temporarily added inspirational fuel to the fire, but after an active period combining graffiti, rapping, scratching, obsessive record digging and beat making into their daily operations, adulthood eventually began to rear its unwelcome head. A decade later Andy Votel (with his reluctant moniker) and his digging skills would begin to provide direct sample material for the likes of Madlib, Mos Def, Jay-Z, Nas, Dr. Dre, Ghostface Killa, and Action Bronson amongst others, and the Violators' black book of break-beats and catalog numbers soon began to feed a same-but-different rap beast. For a project that has taken thirty years it would be totally inadequate to call the formation of Hypocritical Beatdown Records a lockdown-project. There's a deep history and psychology in these records by Violators Of The English Language and their spin-off groups Magnets (Rap Group) and ProVerbs, that combines stage-fright, loss, pride, creative-schizophrenia, racial inequality, surrealism, personal politics, brotherhood, artistic-constipation, better judgment, love, anti-love, soul searching and much more. Each member of all of Violators Of The English Language crew were committed to this cause as soon as the doors opened. Completed, recorded, exorcised, committed to vinyl, rotated and liberated. As well as Andy Votel taking care of both production and part of the microphone duties, some might recognize fellow MC and solo recording artist Figure Of Speech as a prominent voice here. The trio of Magnets (Rap Group) sees Andy also joined by local B-Girl legend Jeni Chan aka Penny Chew, and rapper and DJ Benjamin Hatton. Widely respected visual artist Rick Myers (now living in Massachusetts) also contributed scratches for many of these recordings via file sharing and custom dub-plates to keep the Violators... authentic line-up intact, as well as galvanizing the crew's semi-reluctant art-school roots. Extra production credits for the label also go to Sean Canty from Demdike Stare and the late great Dan Dwayre aka Black Lodge (Mo Wax) who sadly passed away during the completion of these recordings. The members of Violators Of The English Language who you've not yet heard of will quickly make themselves known as the needle drops on this long-mooted debut vinyl release.
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