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This is where I’m supposed to type some pretentious shit in third person about Straiht Wikid Crew. I’ll spare you from that. Instead, I want you to consider this: Why do you listen to and like music?

There are two reasons why I love music. First, good music has the ability to change your emotional state. It can make you laugh... cry... love... hate...

Second, it challenges you. It stimulates your brain. It grabs you by the ear drums and says: "Hey buddy! I don’t give a fuck if I only have 12 notes. I’m going to figure out a million different ways to combine those 12 notes and leave it for you to sort it all out."

I approach music the same way I approach living. I refuse to conform to the world around me. Instead, I force the world to conform to me. When I die, I want to leave behind a permanent mark in the world. I want people to say -- there will never be another like him.

I say that if you’re a musician and you’re not adding something new to the musical landscape, you’re simply creating noise pollution. Let my music be overlooked, let me songs be slept on, but never let it sound like something else. Never it let it be "me-too" music.

Every time I sit down and write a song, I think-- how can I capture a certain feeling that means a lot to me, and present it in a way that it also will mean a lot to you? And how can I present it in a way that is has never been presented before?

That’s what I strive for in every song.

That’s Straiht Wikid Crew.

WHAT THEY ARE SAYING ABOUT STRAIHT WIKID CREW:

"think of Straiht Wikid Crew’s album as a kind of a Nirvana-themed "Straight Outta Compton."

----- Chris Lee, Los Angeles Times

"’Get on Down to the Beat’ is a male vocal hip hop groove song, equal parts Beastie Boys, Bare Naked Ladies and (post-Talking Heads era) David Byrne."

" It’s nice to hear some talented folks having fun."

"We life it. ’Nuff said!"

------- Recording Magazine

"Fladliens lyrics are entertaining in their own right. "

"Fladlien pulls from a broad range of influences. Dirty Dancin sounds like a mashup of Run DMC and Digital Underground, and the soothing flow of Love Me Or Hate Me is straight out of the Atmosphere school of touchy-feely rappers trying to make sense of their relationships. "

" If Hasidic Jew rapper Matisyahu can make it in the rap game, Fladlien stands a chance as well."

------- Eric Clark of the Cedar Rapids Gazette

"His raps are playful and colorfully orated, the same way the Beastie Boys and Eminem spout off, though they lack the sameness of the Beasties and the brash, always off-color homophobic and inciting rhymes of the man from 8 Mile Road in Detroit. "

"[The spiritual clay markings on his forehead are a] visible sign that Fladlien, the Muscatine rapper known as Straiht Wikid Crew, wont approach his art in the same way that Ludacris does."

------- Sean Moeller of the Quad City Times