Mr. Lif & Brass Menazeri

In 2010, Hearth Music arranged the ground-breaking collaboration between Mr. Lif & Brass Menazeri for the 2010 Seattle Folk Festival. That work inspired these artists to create a full album together. The fruits of their creative melding can be heard on their release, Resilient.

Born and raised in Boston, Lif broke out with his seminal Enters The Colossus EP and quickly established himself as one of the most ambitious and forward-thinking MCs in the game. As the first artist to sign to the legendary Definitive Jux Recordings - a movement in both independent rap and independent music culture - Lif cemented his status with a string of critically acclaimed releases, including Emergency Rations, I Phantom, & the Perceptionists' Black Dialogue project.

Long before the current Balkan brass music craze, as iconified by crossover artists like Beirut, NY's Balkan Beat Box, and Beats Antique the musicians of the San Francisco Bay Area's powerhouse Brass Menazeri Balkan Brass Band were already getting deep into the music.
Drawing on many of the characteristics common throughout the Balkans: odd-metered rhythms, riveting, often close harmonies, soulful improvisations, and a mission to get people dancing Brass Menazeri embraces it all.

They are steeped in tradition and yet bring their own 21st-century American sensibilities to every arrangement they create, every wild solo they take, every note they play.