Does Tanya Morgan Have The Music You’ve Been Missing???

MUSIC : Snapshot

A good place to start is usually the beginning.  So who is Tanya Morgan?  Sorry soulquarian lovers, Tanya Morgan is a rap group and just so we’re clear in 2008 they released a mixtape named Tanya Morgan is a Rap Group.  This group consists of Brooklynite Von Pea and Ilyas and Donwill of Cincinnati, Ohio.  In 2003 the group met online at Okayplayer.com.  They hit it off and conversations about music led to beat exchanges and long distance collaborations.  Eventually that led to the formation of the group a rap group that sounds like what rap lovers would be listening to if we weren’t so derailed in the 90s.  So where does the name Tanya Morgan come from?  You know how artists are.  I’ve heard different stories but Von Pea told vibe.com: “It was a way for people to expect the unexpected. It was a metaphor for the group.“  Illyas said, “I guess it can set a standard to see how good we are.  We would bang with the name Tanya Morgan and see how far we go with the name.“  I think that alone warrants a listen or two to some tracks from their earlier work spanning the past few years like their online mixtape Sunlighting, and both EPs Sunset and The Bridge. 

I confess I’m just in time to be late for Tanya Morgan’s debut LP Moonlighting, but right on time for their new album “Brooklynati”.  Brooklynati is a fictitious virtual city combining the names of the hometowns of Tanya Morgan’s members, Brooklyn and Cincinnati.  Somewhere in between the extremes we were told existed in rap that had “good, conscious and positive” on one side and “bad, gangster, drug dealer and negative” on the other side was music worth listening to.  Tanya Morgan fits in that space. 

Tanya Morgan’s official myspace

Check out some of their impressive non rap music choices in You Know I Got Soul: Tanya Morgan

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