New Video: EyeASage's "MRSHMLO"

MRSHMLO from Mikhail Shapiro on Vimeo.

Your favorite guerilla-busridin', grill-rockin 'Frisco Pinay EyeASage aka Rocky Rivera dropped her first single "MRSHMLO" on Tuesday. Don't be fooled, this txt-savvy, sweet-tooth song title is nothing soft. It's a hard-hitting, street-smart knock.

EyeASage's clever braggadocio is complemented well with 6Fingers' sharp, sample-heavy, head-nod beat, which uses an E-40 sample ("neva been a marshmellow"). It sounds sort of like a funkier Puff Daddy "Bad Boy for Life," spiced with a Bay Area vibe, and embellished with cartoony, quirky sounds. And you got to love that OG, boom-bap sound with samples or scratches serving as the chorus...an oh-so-sweeeet formula. 6Fingers' madman creations can also be heard on Hopie Spitshard's album from last year.

The video is interesting too, amplifying EyeASage's boss swagger. With a dark, anonymous background, bright studio lights, and extreme close ups, it kind of feels like a battle. To Rocky Rivera's opponent: good luck.

In the last 40 seconds of the song, the beat switches up to a slower, laid back, West Coast flavor. EyeASage gives a short bio of her (mis)adventure with Rolling Stone Magazine. For those who are not familiar, EyeASage aka Krishtine de Leon, who writes as a music journalist, won on the reality MTV show "I'm From Rolling Stone," where journalists competed to write for the magazine.

I'm curious to learn if EyeASage's Rocky Rivera persona (at least in this video) is in any way a reference to the stylin' Filipino zoot-suiters in the 1930s-40s? The feminist implications to this is geekily interesting.

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