Ivan Ave & Mndsgn
02 February / 19:30 / More Info / Buy Tickets
Band on the Wall welcome two of the most exciting talents in hip-hop, MC Ivan Ave and producer Mndsgn.
Ivan Ave
Signed with Berlin based Jakarta Records in 2014 to release Low Jams, a five track phenomenon produced by Stones Throw artist Mndsgn. The EP was described by Okayplayer.com as “an enveloping head nodder that peppers irresistible grooves with vivid double-entendres and exists in the same elusive strata of true school perfection occupied by Nas’ debut Illmatic LP.”
In the fall of 2015 Ivan and long time collaborator Fredfades will be releasing another duo project on Jakarta, entitled Fruitful LP. Early in 2016 we can expect Ivan’s debut solo LP, produced exclusively by Mndsgn.
Until then, his vivid raps are to be found on several features and side projects. From the soulful cassette release with his crew Mutual Intentions, to trading verses with the likes of Blu and J’Von, Ivan Ave is a force to be reckoned with.
Mndsgn
Ringgo Ancheta AKA Mndsgn is an anomaly among hip-hop producers – not raised in the suburbs on a steady diet of video games and hip-hop, but in the forest like a beast. His parents were members of the Philippine arm of the Aum Supreme Truth Cult, whose venture into terrorist activity caused them to flee the group in the late 1980s. They were granted political asylum in the U.S. and settled in rural New Jersey, where Ancheta was raised on the outskirts of a commune without electricity while his father worked as a researcher at Princeton Neuroscience Institute.
Ancheta describes one of his earliest excursions of his own into the modern world, when he hitchhiked to Philadelphia. “The first guy I met on the street introduced me to the world of music and beat making. Within a day I was making my own beats on his sampler.”
As his trips into the city became more frequent, he began using the name Mndsgn (pronounced “mind design”), inspired by the Nas lyric, “my mind is seeing through your design like blind fury,” and a not-so-subtle nod to his father’s work in neuroscience.