Brash
New Britain, Connecticut, United States | SELF
Music
Press
http://www.twogroove.com/blog/2009/12/15/past-present-future-brash/
...Now they are going to have to make room for Connecticut’s Brash. Brash, aka Chris Rapple, is an unassuming yet extremely talented lyricist and producer. He has an intense yet accessible lyrical style; the beats are interesting and full of hooks without being overbearing. - twogroove.com
http://www.hartfordadvocate.com/article.cfm?aid=8791
Brash, an MC from Ledyard, had a short set that hit like a bombshell. He had incredible enunciation—a skill that seems lost on a lot of MCs (even some famous ones). You could easily understand his words and follow a verse, which was ideal, since he was weaving some complex narratives. The second (and final) song of his performance was a chilling story. In the first verse, a selfish, have-it-all type college student gets loaded, and promptly gets behind the wheel of his car. In the second verse, we're introduced to a smart, ambitious girl who dreams of leading a life of service. She happens to be walking home late at night. You figure out what happens next. I liked that Brash didn't opt for Wu-Tang-style realism ("blood all over the hot concrete"), but instead let his listeners imagine the details, telling us only that now there was a "hole in her parents' hearts" that would never be filled. It was foreboding shit, punctuated with chants of "fuck what you heard, 'cuz the world ain't round." And the whole time he was wrapping his free arm around his chest, emoting like he couldn't bear to tell the story. Awesome. - Hartford Advocate
"Fans of Underground Rap
will certainly enjoy the realness of Brash as he spits rhythm and rhymes with a mission. His lyrical style is unmatched to many other cats in the entrainment business, and he knows how to delight and entertain his fans."
http://www.juniorscave.com/Brash.html - JuniorsCave.com
Discography
EPs
The Manhattan Project EP (2006)
Piece of Mind (April 2011)
Albums
Mind Flex (April 2011.)
Mixtapes
Red Dawn (2007) (Tha Zoo Records)
Equilibrium (2008) (White Label)
Equilibrium 2.0 (2009) (White Label)
Mind Warp (March, '10)
Appears on
Wreck1- Super Villianï's Circus EP
Keep it Classic: Volume 15
Joey Batts- Greed
E.One- Schemes and Scams (To Be Released)
Keep it Classic: Volume 17
Beat Wizard- Straight From the Lab Vol.1
Singles
Growth (April 2011)
Gears (2011)
Photos
Bio
Stuck between a generation of Golden-era hip-hop giants, and corny oversaturated garbage rap, Chris Rapple AKA Brash has been able to hit his local state of Connecticut as a "bombshell," though he doesn't want to fall into your idea of "blowing up." Paying dues and self abuse, mixed with a hard working attitude and business acumen, Brash has been performing throughout Northeast, opening for major label acts since his professional beginning in 2005.
After being signed to a local label that was beginning to fail, Brash struck out on his own to form Aeon Audio, the first attempt in a long time to create some kind of cohesiveness for Connecticut based hip-hop artists. His album, Mind Flex, is tentatively slated for an April release, acting as the flagship record for the label. The music reflects the middle-ground Brash inhabits, with topics ranging from skateboarding, to growth, to journeys through his often twisted mind, to trying to turn it all around to a better perspective. It isn't always positive, but nothing real is.
Brash comes from the South East corner of Connecticut, the product of a broken family that had split when he was 12. Learning to play instruments and playing in rock bands helped him find his love of hip-hop in the mid 90s, after hearing KRS ONE's "Step Into a World," on a cassette that his friend had given him. He then dove into the culture head first as a fan, digging back into the recent past and learning from the great golden-era poets that helped fuse rap music into mainstream culture. While attempting to find success in bands that constantly fell apart as fast as they came together, Brash continued to pursue his writing talents, and eventually his two art forms met up with each other, in the form of lyricism.
Brash's first album is a lyrically intensive work, a product from doing things the right way in hip-hop, instead of chasing after a short buzz for an eventual go-nowhere outcome. He has production contributed for this album from Domingo (Produced for Big Pun, KRS ONE, Kool G Rap), Benefit, Blacastan, Colombeyond, Kajmir Royal (Produced for DMX, De La Soul, Crooked I), DJ Dyslexic , Teddy Roxpin, Mr. Green (Producer/collaborator with Pacewon), and Anno Domini (Produced for Jedi Mind Tricks). With some of the most elite local talent to work with, Brash is representing Connecticut as someone willing to put his own neck on the line to get us on the map.
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