Third Root’s ‘Winter in America’ an sacurrent.com exclusive

Though the year is just getting started, one of the most ambitious and original local collaborations of 2012 is bound to be Third Root, a project by Mojoe's Easy Lee (poet, author, and emcee) and Mexican Stepgrandfather (Marco Cervantes, an emcee who also teaches Mexican-American and Afro-Chicano history at UTSA).

"We have been hard at work crafting a socially and culturally conscious album that deals with the African presence in Mexico and South America, as well as brown and black relations over time in San Antonio and America as a whole," Easy Lee told the Current recently. The full-length album is scheduled to come out in May and features tracks produced by local beat makers like DJ Ninja, Greg G, and Mic Dagger. Easy Lee said Third Root has secured vocals by Big Rube (of OutKast/Dungeon Family fame) and dead prez's stic.man.

Once a month until release, Third Root will release a single as an album teaser, and you will be able to hear it first (and download) by going to sacurrent.com.

Why us?

"The Current has been so good to me as a poet and as a member of Mojoe over the years," Easy Lee said. "I think this album will turn out to be a great piece of San Antonio music history and there's no better publication to share the journey with."

The first song is "Winter in America," (album art above) and you can check it out at www2.sacurrent.com/music/ThirdRoot-WinterinAmerica.mp3 (to download the 3.3mb file, right-click on the link and select "Save linked file as"). It was produced by Cookin' Soul and features Gil Scott-Heron.

When the fourth and last advance mp3 is posted around early May, Third Root plans an official CD release party and signing events.

Now, if you're a DJ more conjunto than hip-hop, this one's for you: KQQB 1520AM is a new online radio station where you can buy time and do radio on your own terms ($125/hour, $175/hour on weekends). The station wants to start reserving blocks of time in early January and have programmers doing their thing by the middle of the month. Interested? Contact Janice Thigpen at (713) 249-0781, Clinton Sanders at (210) 896-1008, or visit my1520am.com.

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