The Gritty City Records crew may not have the highest profile of all the hip hop cliques in RVA today, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t putting in work.
The Gritty City Records crew may not have the highest profile of all the hip hop cliques in RVA today, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t putting in work. Those who keep up with their Bandcamp page are surely aware that June marked the end of an entire year in which they posted a brand new song every Monday. All 52 of those tracks are still available as name-your-price downloads over at the Gritty City Bandcamp right now, but just because that’s at least three mixtapes’ worth of music created in the past year doesn’t mean this crew is resting on their laurels. Instead, Gritty City main man Johnny Ciggs is hard at work on his next album, Elegance, which will follow up last year’s grimy classic, Toilet Wine.
His new video, in fact, is for the title track from that upcoming effort, and in it, director BCMusic1st captures a day in the life of Johnny Ciggs in tried and true hip hop video fashion. The sound of the Fan Ran-produced beat is also tried and true, with some nice jazzy horn samples harking back to the sound of New York hip hop’s golden age. This kind of full, cinematic sound is a hallmark of Gritty City’s work, making their tracks always a treat to listen to, and Ciggs rises to the occasion with a statement of lyrical purpose, featuring a shoutout to Scorsese’s Mean Streets. Ciggs wants everyone to know that he’s rhyming hard and living the caviar-and-fat-pockets life–though there’s a tinge of irony and humor added by the video, in which he’s rapping down by the train tracks and while standing in front of Richard’s Rendezvous before coming home to take a bubble bath, smoke a cigar, and tear open a 12 pack. Regardless of how he’s living, though, one thing this song and video makes clear is that Johnny Ciggs, Fan Ran, and Gritty City have a lot to offer musically, so you better not be sleeping on these guys. Keep up with Johnny Ciggs on Soundcloud and Twitter, and follow Gritty City on Facebook to keep up with the whole clique.
By Andrew Necci
