However, it didn’t take long for STEEZ to start tinkering with a unique set of beliefs that went far beyond being Rastafarian. His mother was a Christian, but in high school STEEZ abandoned these beliefs in favor of Rastafarianism. This leads us to talking about STEEZ’s spiritual beliefs. Even as the song builds and his voice is almost screaming the lyrics, the STEEZ we see in the video warps his mouth to the lyrics emotionlessly, trapped in hypnosis perpetrated by the media. The music video shows him sitting on his couch being numbed senseless by a TV that skips through channels rapidly. He highlights the many civilian casualties that led up to the death of Osama Bin Laden he flambés New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg for putting his energy into regulating sizes for soda while the crack rings were leaving people dead in the streets he criticizes the black community for their lack of unity, and he wonders anxiously if God perhaps abandoned Earth because of humankind’s destructive ways. His lyrics question American politics and his own community from every level. The hook samples the Moody Blues, creating a dreamy, emotionally distant feeling while the rest of the beat thunders in with aggressive drums and haunting riffs from a piano. STEEZ’s song “ Free the Robots” is excellent evidence of this, from the music to the lyrics to his music video. His anger was never expressed through violent lyrics, but through a sort of wisdom that remained perpetually bleak but impressively intelligent and always a little bit weird. He seemed to wield the “outsider” perspective in his verses, attempting to criticize the very foundation of the music industry and American society. STEEZ’s persona was also different than that of his Pro Era counterparts. STEEZ began setting himself apart from most other rappers with bars that seemed far too socially conscious for an eighteen-year-old. STEEZ even coined the term “Beast Coast Movement,” which is composed of Pro Era, The Flatbush Zombies and The Underachievers. With crazy rhyme schemes, liquid flows and consistently clever wordplay, Pro Era began making a splash in the East Coast rap scene. The group, especially STEEZ and Joey Bada$$, possessed a sharp-witted sound that was heavily influenced by jazz and early nineties hip-hop. Pro Era (Image via Pro Era / The WILD Magazine) Short for Progressive Era, the group had two primary goals: to respond to the dominant success of West Coast hip hop by putting New York back on the map, and to introduce a more spiritually focused message to the culture.Īccording to Joey, they wanted to “change the world through our music.” These must have seemed like ludicrously high-minded ambitions for a band of kids still in high school, but time showed that their dreams were more in their grasp than anyone would have guessed. How did this artist make such a significant impact on hip hop in such a short time and at such a young age?Ĭapital STEEZ, formerly known as Jay STEEZ, was the primary founder of the rap clique Pro Era, a New York group of extremely young but talented rappers/producers including Joey Bada$$, Kirk Knight, Nyck Caution and CJ Fly. The festival crowd, of course, erupted into noise and excitement, as the album had been supposedly in the works since STEEZ’s death. Just last month, Joey Bada$$ announced at the third annual STEEZ Day Festival that they would be releasing a posthumous album of STEEZ’s unpublished work, called “King Capital,” on the five-year anniversary of his death. It was a painful moment in music history. In the first minutes of Christmas Eve in 2012, New York rapper Capital STEEZ, real name Courtney Jamal Dewar, committed suicide at age nineteen by jumping off the roof of the Cinematic Music Group’s headquarters.
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