San Francisco based producer Baghead came out of 2020 with two full-length solo releases, an EP with Professa Gabel, several singles, and production work as a part of The Watershed. Recently he has gifted us with his latest album, “Dedicated To Those Who,” under Audio Vandals production company.
The instrumental album is a culmination of all of the styles that Baghead has explored in his career to date and spilled into a seamlessly flowing instrumental hip hop album that serves as a love letter to San Francisco. Soundbytes of people from the city are interwoven throughout illuminating the relation between community, revolution, resistance, and artistry present in San Fran amidst the wave of gentrification that it has endured.
A local community organizer, Nickel Rivera, talks about what it’s like to know the people in your community yet still being able to find a cheap concha. Rapper and fellow Watershed member, Monk HTS, disses Karens calling the cops on city kids and declaring that they’ll be back anyway, despite being gentrified out of the neighborhoods they grew up in. These moments sit perfectly over gorgeous soul chops and unique drum programming all orchestrated into tight, head-nodding vignettes. Baghead focuses his efforts to explore a sound and narrative diverse in style and perspective that the world can relate to. Clearly influenced by the sounds of the present and past, Baghead stands firm in delivering his own muddy, yet crisp and eclectic grouping of sonics lost in the library of records.
“Dedicated To Those Who” is accompanied with a documentary that juxtaposes the instrumental album with the beauty and struggles of San Francisco. The film is directed by Cereal For The Kids, a born and raised San Francisco community organizer and experimental multimedia-maker. Their work utilizes a mixture of new and found media, photography, and animation, often using non-linear storytelling to reflect on temporality and the fluidity of memory.
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