''Cinemetropolis'' is the third full-length album by

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

alternative hip hop Alternative hip hop (also known as alternative rap) is a subgenre of hip hop music that encompasses a wide range of styles that are not typically identified as mainstream. AllMusic defines it as comprising " hip hop groups that refuse to confor ...

group

Blue Scholars Blue Scholars is an American hip hop duo based in Seattle, Washington, created in 2002 while the members, DJ Sabzi (Saba Mohajerjasbi) and MC Geologic (George Quibuyen), were students at University of Washington. The name "Blue Scholars" is ...

. The album was released on June 14, 2011, with a pre-release to fans in mid-May. The album's title ''Cinémetropolis'' comes from a term coined by

Sergei Eisenstein Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (russian: Сергей Михайлович Эйзенштейн, p=sʲɪrˈɡʲej mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ ɪjzʲɪnˈʂtʲejn, 2=Sergey Mikhaylovich Eyzenshteyn; 11 February 1948) was a Soviet film director, screenw ...

in his book ''Film Form''. Geologic explained the concept of the album as a mash-up of life and cinema. He says in an interview, "We're all residents of the Cinemetropolis now. If you've ever seen a moving image and it affected you somehow whether it be a music video, the nightly news, a movie, television, sitcoms, whatever... that... all that has become a part of our truth and how we see the world." The album is planned to be released with a series of online music video short films corresponding with songs on the album. The first, "Slick Watts," premiered on May 18 and deals with the controversial relocation of the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United S ...

(NBA)'s

Seattle SuperSonics The Seattle SuperSonics (commonly known as the Seattle Sonics) were an American professional basketball team based in Seattle. The SuperSonics competed in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member club of the league's Western Confe ...

from to Seattle to

Oklahoma City Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, it ranks 20th among United States cities in population, a ...

in July 2008.

Release

With the album completed in early 2011, the group decided to forgo a traditional label release and instead went the independent route utilizing a

Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...

campaign to fund the album's release. The original fundraising goal of $25,000 was surpassed, with a final tally of over $62,000 from over 2,200 backers. The funds are set to go toward creating music videos and short films for each of the songs from the album, in keeping with the album's cinematic motif. The group wrote the following on the album's Kickstarter page: The album reached 40th position on the

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

Top Heatseekers Top Heatseekers are "Breaking and Entering" music charts issued weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine. The Heatseekers Albums and the Heatseekers Songs charts were introduced by ''Billboard'' in 1991 with the purpose of highlighting the sales by new an ...

chart.

Track listing

References

External links

Blue Scholars Myspace Profile
2011 albums Blue Scholars albums Kickstarter-funded albums {{2010s-hiphop-album-stub