The homie Gabriel Teodros is gearing up to drop a new album later this year. It’ll be his first solo project since 2007 and based on the music I’ve heard from it so far, people need to support it.

When I say support, I don’t just mean by listening. I mean by finacially sharing their twos and fews to help it get out there properly. Gabriel started a digital fundraising campaign via Indie GoGo a little while ago and his deadline to raise funds is rapidly approaching. He’s down to his last 38 hours. If you can, hit up Gabriel’s page directly and show him some love. Colored People’s Time Machine is definitely his breakthrough breakthrough album and folks like you can help support it. Make it happen if you can. It’s better to give artists your money than bill collectors. #justsaying

Here’s a brand new music video from Gabriel Teodros and Amos Miller’s growing side project, Air 2 A Bird. The project started when Teodros was denied entry into London last year, had his global tour canceled and was deported to New York. Instead of sitting around twiddling his thumbs, Teodros and brother Amos linked up for two weeks in New York and began crafting the songs for the incredible Air 2 A Bird album, Crow Hill.

As of yesterday, they finished their first music video and it’s not bad. I’m not familiar with the video directors but they do a good job of capturing Amos and Gabe’s zany personalities. Check it out.

After grubbing on some crucial Ethiopian food with homie/206 emcee Gabriel Teodros, GT played me this amazing track by Toronto emcee Ian Kamau.

I was pleased to find out Kamau’s obvious love for the T-dot manifests through some amazing youth work with Toronto’s Remix Project, an“arts, cultural and life skills incubator serving vulnerable young people located right in the heart of Toronto”.  It’s dope that dude is so grounded in community, staying level headed even with the co-sign from Canadian heavyweights like K-os and Knaan.

Here’s a video with some beautiful footage of Toronto, off Kamau’s latest mixtape Love and Other Struggles: Volume 3, download the whole thang – and look out for an album from Kamau in the near future.  Over this contemplative banger,  Kamau’s flow evokes jazz horns – smooth, melancholy and urgent – all at the same time.

Since the mixtape is free, think about donating a little scratch toward the Remix Project or your local youth arts programs that are making space for future arts brilliance.

Yes. A thousand times yes. Noted globe-trotter, freedom fighter, and local dude made good Gabriel Teodros is back at it again. Our guy G Teezy just blessed the world with a new ep – free, downloadable, and all for you. The name? GT’s Ethiopium: A Jitter Generation Mixtape. The concept? Oxnard, California hitmaker Oh No put together a beat tape exclusively sampling classic Ethiopian songs – Gabe raps over them.

It’s a pretty ridiculous result. Gabe’s been holding down the Mid-Atlantic seaboard for the last couple of months, following his kerfluffle with the British authorities at Heathrow, and the experience shows in this recording. It’s pretty direct to the heart, which is saying something for Gabe: dude does not do anything without heart.

It’s also a statement of sorts, with a sampling process that is so overtly using one culture’s traditions, there are bound to be more complex layers of meaning. GT himself writes:

It’s crazy as a musician, to know the struggles of other Ethiopian musicians, and how much harder it must be back home to create this music, that in 2009 people are sampling our classics left and right, and i know that very little, if any, of the money made off these samples ever actually gets back to these musicians, who can barely make a living off this music, and who back home couldn’t make a living off of it at all. Not to say i’m against sampling, most of the hip hop i love is still based on samples… but if someones gonna do it, i feel like there should at least be an Ethiopian perspective to go with these beats!”

And he does it big. Download this thing and turn it up.

Gabriel Teodros – GT’s Ethiopium: A Jitter Generation Mixtape

It’s been a long 36 hours for Seattle MC Gabriel Teodros. As some of you might know, Gabe just left Seattle on Tuesday for what was supposed to be a three month journey through England doing solo shows, then France and Germany on tour with Souls of Mischief, possibly Jordan and the United Arab Emirates on tour with Ragtop of the Philistines and Omar Offendum, and then into Ethiopia and eventually Nairobi where he’s hoping to link with Monk Wordsmith of the Physics for a show in Kenya. It’s all a beautiful concept but it’s taking a temporary delay since the Babylon border patrol detained Gabe for a whopping eight hours yesterday before denying him entrance into London. It’s been said that London Heathrow Airport is a tough airport for people of color and Gabe experienced that first hand yesterday. It reminds me of the Mos Def line: London Heathrow me and my people/they think illegal is a synonym for negro.

It’s sort of a heartbreaking story because he’s had his heart set on this trip for awhile. And everything was falling into line perfectly. But the officials at the border said they didn’t think he had enough funds to support himself in the U.K. for the duration of his trip and that he didn’t have a proper work visa. Fucking borders. So after eight hours of being in a cage, they put him on a plane and sent him back to Iceland. He’s in Reykjavik now, where it’s apparently freezing cold. He and I spent a couple of hours trading emails trying to brainstorm on what his next move should be. He’s being shipped out of Iceland at 10 a.m. our time (5 p.m. Iceland time) and being sent to New York. That actually could be a good thing. He can link with all the Seattle Rappers at CMJ and maybe tour the East Cost for awhile. Either way, his real goal is to be in Ethiopia by December 1st and he’s still on task to make it. Send him some love right now like he’s getting in the video below. He needs it.