Grammy-nominated musician, producer and engineer Josh Blake will release Unemployment Benefits, a 13-track studio album, on Tuesday, October 27. JamBase is pleased to premiere the video for Unemployment Benefits track “Benefits,” which features Grammy-winning emcee Agent 23 and animation by Derrick Lee Johnson (Yo Mama’s Big Fat Booty Band).
Blake, the unofficial musical mayor of Asheville and founding member of acclaimed hip-hop act Granola Funk Express, began work on the follow-up to 2019’s Nothing’s In The Way while self-quarantining in the wake of the pandemic. Josh recruited a bevy of guests to contribute to Unemployment Benefits including GFE collaborators Agent 23, Foulmouth Jerk and Adam Strange as well as fellow Ashevillians Spaceman Jones, Simon Thomas George, C. Shreve The Professor and Jamar Woods. Additionally, Deep Banana Blackout’s Johnny Durkin and MTV Blaze Battle Champion Breeze Evahflowin appear on the LP.
“Like many people, I found myself stuck at home with a lot of extra downtime, and eventually I set the goal to make a beat a day,” explained Blake. “Originally I just wanted to make a simple beat tape to put out—something that people could listen to as background music — but as the process moved along, I realized that these tracks deserved to be fully-actualized. That’s when I began reaching out to various emcees I had worked with over the years to see if they wanted to throw some rhymes on these beats.”
The politically-charged album is a throwback of sorts. “I think people who are fans of old school hip-hop will really appreciate the dichotomy between what I’m putting out here and what is currently popular in that genre,” Josh added. “I hope that this is the first of potentially several installments,” the 30-year music industry vet noted. “There are definitely some folks that I sent beats to that didn’t have their tracks done in time to make this particular album. No worries there though, producing beats and creating with friends are some of my favorite things to do musically, so I’m sure I’ll keep pushing collaborative albums like this one out for many years to come.”
Check out Josh Blake’s “Benefits” video featuring Agent 23 below:
Unemployment Benefits Tracklist
- Silver Linings
- Benefits (feat. Agent 23)
- All My Peoples (feat. Josh Blake)
- Same Thing (feat. C.Shreve The Professor)
- Let It Breathe (feat. Breez Evahflowin)
- jUStus (feat. Virtuous)
- Hedges (feat. Philo)
- Stay Home (feat. Mike Live)
- Belief Itself (feat. The Foulmouth Jerk)
- One Step Forward (feat. Ryan RnB Barber)
- It’s Payday (feat Free Radio aka Johnny Reynolds and Austn Frost)
- Upliftment (feat. Spaceman Jones)
- Ultra Meta (feat. Adam Strange)
.house-unit-wide { display: none; }
.house-unit-narrow{ display: block; }
@media (min-width: 768px) {
.house-unit-wide { display: block; }
.house-unit-narrow{ display: none; }
}
