By Chad Thomas Carsten – 4.5/5 Dragons
From August 2016 Vandala Magazine
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Born Shane Manoel, Realizm is Australia’s best kept secret in hip-hop. He’s not only an intelligent lyrical emcee, but his production skills are far above and beyond most of the mainstream, yet hardly anyone knows him, even though this wicked underground warrior has been dropping slamming boom bap style beats for over 15+ years! Shane is not some bullshit faux producer (most of the internet is like this, sadly.) trying to make cheap ass beats on his mothers laptop through frooty loops and sell them pathetically for .99 cents on soundclick (yes, that still exists). Nope! Far from that! Realizm is the producer noble OG rappers should be fighting amongst themselves over who found him first and which rapper deserves to be on his dope ass shit. After all these years, Realizm still continues to strive at putting out nothing but absolute perfection. It’s just insane with the amount of work this cat puts into his career, some days he goes almost a week without sleep. Guaranteed Realizm could make an album for someone like Onyx or Strange Music’s Prozak and they would highly benefit from having such a master at beats working closely with them thanks in due part behind all the strong original creativity the Adelaide rapper has underneath his belt.
The Keys To The Cult House Collection is another strong example of Realizm’s untouched skills on the mic and production within this release is especially for the hip-hop heads who crave samples built around obscure movie soundtracks that collide with old school hip-hop production (which sounds exactly like it came from the early nineties). These are songs that Realizm himself felt just didn’t fit the vibe or feel of previous releases, but were too damn good to not be heard through a pair of fresh head phones. The unique flavorable remix of “Talk Your Shit” is a clever Elisa Waut loop that flawlessly conquers at the correct way of being super catchy without sounding commercial, yet the flows inside the track are lyrically gut piercing like a prison shank spilling out your guts. Guest rappers Everyday and Shotty Horroh really do shine on this remix! The directors cut of “Brimestone Delivery” features billboard charting artist Q-Strange and fellow Aussie lyrical slayer, Haunts. Found within the production of “Brimstone Delivery” are sounds from “Bring Me The Head Of The Machine Gun Woman’ soundtrack” that will leave fans of horrorcore breathless, as if they were strangled inside an Italian Giallo horror flick. Another major highlight is the political anthem “Before You Seem Dead”. The beat belongs inside the opening of a Hollywood action flick and what also makes it shine so bright is the rhyme schemes Realizm brings forth is just straight up raw!
The final verdict; The world needs to wake up and stop sleeping on Realizim! If you’re bored with the current state of hip-hop Realizm will feed your need of authentic hip-Hop. The Keys To The Cult House Collection kicks major ass all the way through!
*Note* The album cover is a way to pay homage to classic Giallo films.
Vandala Magazine 