See also: Span Phly Drops Third Free Album in Spy vs Spy Series See also: Phal Kilmer Talks Spy vs. Spy Collab, Set to Challenge in The Voicebox Battles
Phoenix rapper Jose Alberdi, better known as Span Phly, continues his lyrical assault with the fourth release in his collaboration series, Spy vs. Spy.
The project pits Alberdi against other "rap agents" over five tracks of heavy hitting head bangers and features exclusively written content for the series by him and his guest artists.
For this volume he has invited MC Judgement of The Society of Invisibles to tangle with him over beats produced by Lost Perception, Dn3, and Alberdi himself.
The recording opens up with a sample of the lead track written for the 1999 James Bond spy flick, The World Is Not Enough and closes out with a turn inspired by The Doors' "Alabama Song."
As with its predecessors, Spy vs Spy Vol. 4, is a free download available here.
Up on the Sun: Can you talk a little about how the idea for the Spy vs. Spy series came about? Span Phly: I wanted to do a series of collaborations that went deeper than just one song. I wanted to create these individual mini albums that featured friends and people I respected. I release solo records through my independent imprint, Espionage Records, so the Spy vs. Spy theme just fits.
You just dropped the fourth volume of the series. Besides featuring Judgement from TSOI, what sets this volume apart from the previous sets? We really took our time on this record. We sat down with Lost Perception a few weeks before we started writing and recording and picked out the beats that would be used. DN3 also sent us a great beat, so the production on this EP is excellent. Judgement is featured on each of the first three volumes of Spy vs. Spy, so we already had good chemistry in the studio that made writing these songs easy. The thing that sets this EP apart from the first three is how the production influenced the songwriting. When we got the beats it just seemed liked the topics were obvious.
What's your favorite track off of this EP and why? My favorite track on the new EP is "The World is Not Enough". Lost Perception sent us the beat and it had a cinematic feel to it. Judgement came up with the hook it was a wrap. I feel like this song is what Spy vs. Spy should sound like. If a James Bond movie needed an underground hip hop theme song, this would be it.
You're topping off this series at five releases, right? Can you tell us who you're collaborating with for the last release? When are you expecting to drop it? Yes, from very early on I knew I was only going to do five and I know who they would be with. I appreciate all the emcees and producers who offered to collaborate with me. The last EP will be just like the first and feature production exclusively from Lost Perception and will include emcees that appeared on the first four volumes. Volume five will be available January 2013.
Span Phly is scheduled to perform Friday, August 10, at WTF Friday at Stray Cat in Tempe.
