Do you remember the “Golden Age” of hip hop? Alicia Leafgreen from Minneapolis Minnesota does, and she is taking it back to the roots of hip hop, retro style. As an old school influenced hip hop emcee she has gathered followers with her “old school-new style” hip hop, and retro linguistic flow. Her style is reminiscent of the golden days of the hip hop era, influenced by both East and West coast styles. Alicia sounds like an emcee rocketed forward in time from 1992 and tactfully preserved.
During this time, hip-hop saw a large circle of these artists promoting black pride, unity, and self-awareness. In Alicia’s case, her music is sensitive to the inner political struggles of the GLBT community. She uses hip hop as an educational platform to speak and educate about issues and politics, the way an artist of that time period would.
Alicia has vocal power and staying ability in her lyrics and music, with songs written to inform educate, teach moral lessons, and entertain all at once. Her sound is similar to a female Eminem with a stage presence and power of Public Enemy’s Chuck D.
Since 2005 Alicia has been working with multi-platinum producer and recording artist Matt “Dr” Fink formerly of Prince and the Revolution/NPG. Alicia says “Matt is incredible we have so much musical chemistry between us. Together we could create any sound imaginable from any point in musical history”
Dr. Fink says of Alicia “She writes her raps straight from the most intimate parts of her soul and reveals her thoughts with unashamed bravado. She doesn‘t pull any punches and tells it like it is.” The pair are still hard at work on Alicia’s full length disk, currently unnamed with no present release date.
She is set to release her first disk, an EP appropriately titled “White Lesbian Rapper” due out in the Summer 2008, Featuring musical production by Alicia and Dr. Fink as well as hip hop producer Rick Flare from Columbus, Ohio.