The Yams & Odessa Kana aka Y/O album dropped last August. It’s called W.O.R.D. and if you haven’t listened to it yet, just know that Yams made all of the beats and Odessa wrote all of the rhymes. Yams and Odessa are from the same neighborhood and ran in similar circles but they never really knew each other. Then, in 2014 that changed. Yams started sending beats over to Odessa Kane and the timing was right… Yams unlocked something inside of O and these guys had an undeniable formula that could be seen early. So an album was inevitable to not only bring these 2 creative artists together, but do so in San Diego where we are all from. The end result was a chef’s kiss to those who are up on it. If not, tap in fam…
We dropped 3 singles for the album and the 2nd one was for the track “Stigma” which featured Scarub from the Living Legends. While Yams and Odessa Kane first met in 2024, Odessa and Scarub actually go back to the Mid90s where Scarub was rolling with the Living Legends and 3MG crew (with Murs and Eligh) and Odessa Kane (fka Matrix) had his Mastas of the Universe posse right down here in San Diego. Scarub and Odessa always had a mutual admiration for each other’s styles and bond built out of respect was born… so getting them on a track together like “Empty Roads” with Fashawn and ProducerTrentTaylor only made sense. Here is the video if you missed it.
Odessa Kane and Scarub together on “Stigma” was dope so of course we needed visuals. Enter the Chris G. Cleary Collective led by Chris who is one of the most creative humans you will ever meet… ever encounter? does that sound weird?? hahaha! Chris is dope though and he had the vision on this music video. We were up on LA staying at an Airbnb in Monterrey Park at the end of January when Chris transformed out garage into the craziest music studio you’ve ever seen. Chris draws inspiration from… I don’t know… is he just freestyling a lot of this? Here is one of my favorite videos from Chris and Odessa that deserves your attention. Here is “Sight 2 Behold” which is such a crazy track to begin with… Add in that Chris Cleary and Odessa magic on the visuals and it’s onnnnnnnnnnn.
So there we were in Los Angeles only a month and some change ago. Surrounded by homies just trying to stay dope and built… Chris was building the set… I saw O… I said O… We should get Propaganda on the remix shouldn’t we… Odessa looked at me and his reaction was like, “YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”… so I asked Prop if he wanted to get on the 3rd verse and in an instant, I looked over at Prop and he was writing in his notebook… did he just have the pen in his pocket? Was the notebook just by his side? So many questions… But Prop was working because fam… PROP IS OUT HERE WORKING… HUSTLING… CREATING… BUILDING. You know Prop?
Before I knew it, Crispy Akiyama had his engineering equipment set up at the Airbnb and then Propaganda was over there quickly laying down his verse… Then, Prop literally went right to the garage and they started filming the video… I kid you not… Prop’s verse went for non-existent to a written piece of art, to a recorded piece of art, and then right over to the garage for some visual art… That is crazy… And that is the crew we got right now… Cats are hungry and they know I’m moving… So what you get is a creative crew of likeminded peeps just happy to spend time with each other, talk hip hop, talk relationships, fatherhood, mental health… ALL OF IT. So when you peep this “Stigma {Remix]” below, just know it was made out of love… This is a moment of time where like 30 people came together to help support each others’ art in every way imaginable. This is dope yall… and so is this… Here is the “Stigma [Remix]” from Y/O featuring Scarub and Propaganda shot and edited by Chris G. Cleary.