Darius Heywood – “Night Rage” (Prod. Rauxy Woodro)

By: Shamus Hill

Returning to the Graduation Music site today is Brockton’s Darius Heywood with “Night Rage” — the first single off of his upcoming collaboration project with Rauxy Woodro, From The East.

This introspective track circulates around the everyday realities of Darius’ life growing up in Brockton. Whether it be his personal trauma, witnessing struggle, or persisting when negativity surrounds, Darius Heywood explicitly dictates what has molded him into the individual that he currently is. Rauxy Woodro does a truly wondrous job with respect to his assistance in developing a solid sonic structure, with “Night Rage” serving as evidence that From The East is set to be the next formidable collection of music to come out of the city of Brockton this year.

Listen to “Night Rage” below:

Kadeem – “The Game Is The Game” [Mixtape]

By: Seamus Fay

Life is an interesting force. Unpredictability is a virtue that leads us all down our respective roads and decisions (both good and bad) are the pockets of choice that contribute to these routes. No artist sums it up better than Kadeem in his latest project fittingly titled, The Game Is The Game. Life is life no matter how you want to look at it, and this tape both skillfully and efficiently executes a deep understanding of what its title means through the eyes of soul-targeting production from $lumLord.

7 tracks long, the newest release from this Mattapan native displays his rhymes in their purest form. Every beat, every bar, and every descriptive exploration into the decisions that create the life he lives is thoughtfully hand-picked, and no aspect of The Game Is The Game makes it more unique than the bellowing professions of brutal honesty that it brings to the table. The fact of the matter is that with this project, Kadeem isn’t trying to boil life down to a few simple lessons. He takes life’s complexity by the neck and paints its inner conflict in a magnificent light, only to be translated through lyricism and sound into an unapologetic lesson of what his years on this Earth have taught him.

That being said, there’s no simple way to tackle this one and turn it into a simple blog post, as the music does more justice than words can capture. Although this project has been long-awaited, Kadeem has aged like fine wine and he proves to be at the top of his game with this one. Give it a listen at the link below:

Darius Heywood – “Hillside Eyes”

By: Seamus Fay

Brockton native Darius Heywood first struck our ears by means of effective lyricism and brutally honest deliveries. Hinimitableble vibe finds itself deeply ridden with life experience, and overall, this young artist holds sky high potential from what we have heard so far. Returning to our pages today with new visuals for “Hillside Eyes”, Heywood proves his skills once again as one of Brockton’s most promising upcoming acts.

The airy yet atmospheric production courtesy of Rauxy Woodro on this one was the first element that really brought me into the world that this song creates. It’s delicately-placed nature leaves room for Heywood’s dense yet emphatic lyrics, and detailing the unforgiving life that he has seen, the young artist illustrates his trials and tribulations with wrinkled scenes of both himself and Brockton (also including a cameo from Patrick Michel).

In whole, this video is most definitely a solid release to keep Darius Heywood’s stocks rising, so be sure to check it out below and keep an eye on him going into 2018.