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Music

Square Wave 002: Johnny Boy and the Overknights Give Boom Bap a Florentine Flourish

Who knew Florentines had such an appetite for hip hop? The Overknights are Florence's contribution to the world's ever growing pile of instrumentals and wonky boom bap beats. Crewmember Johnny Boy just dropped a pack of free gems in the form of a beat tap

Square Wave documents an emerging community of contemporary musicians trafficking in electronica, hip-hop, and avant-garde. In an age where any beat geek or tech head can be a producer, technology has given rise to scenes and collectives in unlikely locales; Square Wave is a space for those communities to reach a global audience.

Who knew Florentines had such an appetite for hip hop? The Overknights are Florence's contribution to the world's ever growing pile of instrumentals and wonky boom bap beats. Crewmember Johnny Boy just dropped a pack of free gems in the form of a beat tape. It's not quite a record but rather a collection of fortunate studio brain farts stacked together. Meat My Beats will give you a feel for the sounds brewing beneath the cradle of the Renaissance.

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At Finest Ego's Beatmaker Challenge in Berlin a couple months back Johnny Boy surpassed the banality of his moniker with a raucous live set, bouncing above his MPC to an 8bit beat aptly titled "Mintendo Blaster System." Despite the constant presence of spacy synthesizer work, a foundation of hard beats, relentless jazz sample dicing, pseudo-scratching, and a guest MC pin this stuff in the hip hop category.

See Johnny make love to 16 pads and a Dr. Sample in the video below.

Johnny Boy 10 mins Samplers Live Set from Overknights on Vimeo.

Below you can hear a particularly nasty pick from Meat My Beats, Johnny Boy's treatment of a track by Italian MC CantiinAsociale. If you find yourself gaining a taste for the underground Italian brand of hip hop, download free records by Millelemmi, Colossius, Digi G'Alessio and rest of the collective at the Overknights' bandcamp page.

Ombra - CantiinAsociale - Jboy rmx feat. Jaja by JohnnyBoy Overknights