Pioneer Unit

Listen to The Bridge on Yfm tonight at 10pm. Lee is going to be playing Why by Wordsworth and Ben Sharpa for the first time anywhere in the world.

Pioneer Unit’s Ben Sharpa recorded the track with Lyricist Lounge all-star, Wordsworth, while he was down in Cape Town recently. Check out the recording session here

If you can’t get Yfm on your radio, go to their website and listen to the live feed. Click the ‘Y-ired’ link at the top of the page, then click ‘Live audio’. Sadly it only works on Windows, so Apple peeps will have to find someone with a PC.

That’s how we rrrrrrrroll!!

Mary Anne Hobbs played Statement by Ben Sharpa (featuring KONFAB) on her BBC Radio 1 Experimental show last night (well, very early this morning actually).

Mary Anne Hobbs has been compared by many to the legendary John Peel. She is one of the biggest supporters of underground electronic music and is becoming well-known as a champion of Dubstep (a hybrid of Dub, 2-Step and Techno).

Anyone who’s into any form of electronic music (including experimental Hip Hop, Grime, Glitch and pretty much anything else you can imagine) should tune into her show on BBC Radio 1 between 02:00 and 04:00 every Tuesday night/ Wednesday morning.

For people who can’t stay up that late, or people outside the UK, each show is available online for a full week after the show has aired - Ben Sharpa’s track will be online until 20th November.

It’s always an honour to be featured on her show so please go and check us out!

www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/maryannehobbs/

(Just click the ‘Listen to the show’ link under the ‘Listen again’ header.)

Mary Anne Hobbs - Photo courtesy Merlijn Hoek under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic licence.

The Unit was in full effect this weekend as Trusenz broadcast his show, ‘Ground Zero’, live from Cape Town. The show was broadcast on CKI FM, an SABC station that goes out across the Eastern Cape, on both Saturday and Sunday.

Tru was in town with his band BEE to do a couple of shows so he gave us the opportunity to talk to the people of the EC about what we’re up to in Cape Town.

I’ve only ever been to inside the SABC building in Seapoint to do interviews on GoodHope FM (as they share the building). It was interesting to go deeper into the building and see the somewhat old skool SABC studios.

On Saturday Rattex and I did an interview and we played through his tracks on Planetary Assault. Ratteezy also did a freestyle over the ‘Go and Ask’ beat.

On Sunday we did it all over again, this time with Driemanskap who killed it as usual. Those boys always bring the FIRE!

Big Tru with his copy of Planetary Assault

Tru interviewing Rattex

Ratteezy busting a freestyle

Tru at the controls - Sunday’s session

Tru interviewing me

Me and Amina

Another day, another radio show to promote the Planetary Assault launch party. This time DJ Eazy was nice enough to invite us on to his show on UCT Radio 104.5fm.

Sadly, I forgot to take photos so nothing to show you, but we had another great time. This time I went along with Terror MC and Oracle Flo. We also met up with a Miami-based Colombian MC by the name of EPHNIKO who’s in town trying to link up with heads and share in global Hip Hop culture.

Everyone got on the mic and spat a few verses. I have to give it to EPHNIKO though,,, he killed the freestyle.

Anyway, tomorrow is the launch party. If you’re not a confirmed guest on Facebook, get yourself over there right now and sign up!

See you at the party!

And we don’t stop! Another radio promo for the Planetary Assault launch party last night, this time on the Dirty Roots Show on Bush Radio 89.5 FM hosted by Buddhadda and Mr Nimbus.

I took Rattex with me and met Otis Larynx and Hyphen from Archetypes outside the spot. Hyph was seriously blazed (which always worried me for live radio). Once we got in front of the mics it was all love. We went through the CD playing tracks and giving some background info on the making of the album.

Hyphen, Otis and Rattex killed a freestyle over the Kakalaki beat. It always amazes me that Hyph can be so blazed that he can hardly talk, but when you put a beat on he can rhyme like a beast.

True to form, KONFAB turned up an hour and a half late, just as we were leaving. The boys from Bush were kind enough to put us back on air so that KON and Hyphen could bust another freestyle over the Township Storm beat.

Make sure you check out the Dirty Roots Show on Bush Radio 89.5 FM between 6-8pm on Saturday.

That’s how we rrrrrrroll!!

I’m suffering from a bit of a hangover today after last night’s appearance on Nick Knucklez show on UCT Radio with Archetypes and KONFAB. We were there to promote the Planetary Assault Cape Town launch party.

We arrived in high spirits after spending a good few hours at Joburg on Long Street. We definitely brought the party with us to the studio. TOP, Hyphen, Otis Larynx & KONFAB all spat bars live on air, and we got generally rowdy - what else would you expect from Archetypes?

Last night I was told that UCT Radio reaches out as far as Paarl. I’ll have to ask Jaak to confirm this, but if it’s true, I’m impressed. Hyphen told me he listens in Gugs so it reaches much further than I thought.

It was nice to run into Endzi who was at the station to promote her show this Friday at Mercury Live. I’ve seen her around, but never properly said hello - what’s up Endz, nice to meet you!

It wasn’t all fun and games earlier in the evening - we weren’t just at Joburg to drink R10 draughts. We were there on official Pioneer Unit business!

Dylan Culhane, a freelance journalist and photographer, is writing a piece on Planetary Assault for One Small Seed magazine, so he wanted to meet myself and some of the artists on the project. Rattex and Anne-Sophie Leens (who made the videos for ‘How We Roll’ and ‘Go Against Us’ were also there.

Anyway,,, off to meet Nastie Ed to discuss the music for the launch party.

That’s how we rrrrrrroll!!

Big shout to Ignatius and the team at Mfm 92.6 out in Stellenbosch.

It’s always nice to break in to new markets and get exposure in unexpected places. I wouldn’t normally associate Stellenbosch with Hip Hop but Mfm were open-minded enough to play How We Roll and interview me about the release of Planetary Assault.

That’s how we rrrroll!!

Just want to say a big thanks to Lee from Yfm for showing love to Pioneer Unit and hooking up an interview last Tuesday.

That’s how we rrrrrrroll!!

Catch the world exclusive of KONFAB’s new banger from the forthcoming Planetary Assault Mixtape on BBC Radio 1 this Thursday night/ Friday morning (8th) at 2am GMT.

Click here to listen to the show live online

If you wanna catch the rewind, hit this link the day after the show (Friday 9th). The show will be online for a whole week.

That’s how we roll…