A-Alikes 'Us Against Them' album

At a time when the economy is sinking, the prison industrial complex is expanding and the music industry is shrinking into a handful of major corporations driven by sales alone, A-Alikes (K & Ness) offers a connection to the streets with a concern for the future of the community. Their debut release" I Eat You Eat" on Nervous records helped garner them national press and has lead them to their current project "The Ballot or the Bullet", a film and soundtrack was released on October 30th. This is a prelude to A-Alikes' upcoming full length LP "Us Against Them".

These Unsigned Hype graduates were influenced by Kool G Rap, Nas and dead prez and inspired by Pac. "The wordplay and poetry of G Rap was crazy," says Ness. "Nas and Pac were the last ones to be able to talk to the streets and bring a certain level of knowledge." Ness and K linked in Tallahassee in the late nineties, and it was there that they connected with their People Army/R.B.G. comrades stic.man and M1 of dead prez and Tahir and Abu of Hedrush. Like the legendary dungeon in Rico Wade's Atlanta basement, they banged out beats, rhymes and ideas in The Attic, a spot where they'd build on everything from the future of hip-hop to the hope for Black and Brown youth.

People's Army or R.B.G.z, the larger collective they would later be known as, seed was planted in those early days in Southside Tallahassee, Florida. The crew grew organically, knowing that the delicate balance between the streets and revolutionary philosophy would be one that they'd be perfecting for a lifetime.

A-Alikes know the space they occupy in rap's present, fractured landscape is truly unique. "We're here to re-define what the streets are, what revolution is, we want to re-define what it means to be gangsta, what it means to be conscience even... " says Ness. "Cats is ready to organize and get on some shit. The economy's fucked up. The white tees and army gear have created a united look on the streets. There was a time when we emphasized our differences, like I'm from Philly, you from Cali, now we ready to talk about the ways we're the same, we not here to talk about how different we are from the next man, but how much the same we are. A lot of niggas in the game, they're whole shit is how much they don't give a fuck, our thing is, We give a fuck."

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A-Alikes - Us Against Them