With social justice themes at the forefront of today’s storytelling, ALIBI Music has released powerful, new production music capturing that pulse. The album, Conscious Rap, features deep and thought-provoking lyrics ranging from hopeful and inspiring to hard-hitting and incisive. Instrumentation includes dusty vinyl drum beats, soulful pianos and organs, and intimate lo-fi guitars.
Conscious Rap’s lead track is a poignant response to the killing of George Floyd from artists L.Rucus, Trill Lee and TheChemist aptly called “I Can’t Breathe.” After meeting then unsigned L.Rucus at SXSW in 2019, ALIBI’s head of sync A&R, Julia Trainor, recognized his talent and had already commissioned him for a few original tracks before he approached her with the especially meaningful song.
“L.Rucus sent us ‘I Can’t Breathe’ just as we were going into production on Conscious Rap, which was going to speak to some of these issues,” Trainor explained. “It was so on-point, so good, we had to include it and make it our lead song on the album.”
Conscious Rap is perfectly suited to thought pieces, documentaries, dramas and any production centered on pivotal moments. In addition to the lead track from L.Rucus-Trill Lee-TheChemist, this album drew inspiration from such influences as Kendrick Lamar, Talib Kweli, Common, Mos Def, Kanye West, Tupac, Killer Mike, Black Thought and Black Eyed Peas, among others.
ALIBI’s production music has been used in the trailers for Netflix’s live-action preschool series Bookmarks: Celebrating Black Voices, IFC Films’ MLK/FBI and Tyler Perry’s Ruthless, among thousands of other projects.
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting — quite literally — into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat — who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival — has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive — a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
The one rule to follow is that... Read More