The sound may be raw, but the lyrics tell a story from Iraq that you don't often hear—from the soldiers on the streets. June 13 issue - It took only a few ambushes, roadside bombs and corpses for Neal Saunders to know what he had to do: turn the streets of Baghdad into rap music. So the First Cavalry sergeant, then newly arrived for a year of duty in Sadr City, began hoarding his monthly paychecks and seeking out a U.S. supplier willing to ship a keyboard, digital mixer, cable, microphones and headphones to an overseas military address. He hammered together a plywood shack, tacked up some cheap mattress pads for soundproofing and invited other Task Force 112 members to join him in his jerry-built studio. They call themselves "4th25"—pronounced fourth quarter, like the final do-or-die minutes of a game—and their album is "Live From Iraq." The sound may be raw, even by rap standards, but it expresses things that soldiers usually keep bottled up. "You can't call home and tell your mom your door got blown off by an IED," says Saunders. "No one talks about what we're going through. Sure, there are generals on the TV, but they're not speaking for us. We're venting for everybody." ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The rest of the story and a link to part of their music video (which contains graphic material) is here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8101421/site/newsweek/
The sound quality is horrible. Well the equipment isn't horrible...just that the mixing/editing is horrible. The bass is way too loud, and the vocals are too low. I really wanted to hear how they would spit, but I'm stuck with listening to an instrumental with gun shots.
