Cincinnati alt-hip hop mainstays Abiyah and Eugenius are releasing the video for their 2014 recorded noise rap collaboration “BLUP,” shot and edited at local motion graphics studio Lightborne by Jacob Drabik and Brad Grawe, respectively. “Blup,” their first collaboration, is an avant-garde noise rap wet dream that clocks in at punk-rock length and slaps dap upside your head. The term “BLUP” is also intended as a euphemistic replacement for a common four-letter word used when one wants to verbally flip someone or something off, while the hashtag #BlupAllaDat attempts to offer listeners of all ages a way to dampen the noise of injustice and negativity in a more user-friendly way.
After over a decade of playing in a multitude of punk, metal, and hardcore bands, Eugenius (a.k.a. Phillip Eugene Smith) was created, and birthed his first live hip hop performance in June of 2013. With a lifelong love of hip hop, he started making beats and writing rhymes, combining everything he loved about rap music with the experience acquired from years of underground music and growing up in the suburbs. Eugenius is aggressive, progressive rap music originating from his DIY punk ethos, and is sometimes compared to Childish Gambino, Death Grips and Danny Brown. He also plays guitar in hardcore band Husk & Skull, and writes indie rock songs under the name Silent Tongues. Eugenius has several full-length and EP releases under his belt, including the collaborative album/mixtape ‘Eugenius & Friends Presents Bars Against Humanity’ (Feb 2016). He has shared the stage with Clipping., Busdriver and Milo, and, most recently, Sage Francis, and obtained his first nomination in the Hip Hop category of Cincinnati alt-weekly CityBeat’s Cincinnati Entertainment Awards (CEAs) in January 2015.
Take a Soul Train dancer from 1974—one of them sistas who didn’t give a f*ck about cameras or Don Cornelius—well, if that sista made love to George Clinton and they had a baby girl and they let Patti Smith and Sister Carol raise that girl child in an embrace pre-dating same-sex marriage debates, that girl child woulda grown up to be Abiyah. By the early aughts, Abiyah hit upon a highly workable concoction: she fused her punk ethos with her love of Hip Hop, Dancehall, Dub, Alternative Rock and Spoken Word. LA-based alt-hip hop artist Open Mike Eagle (Mello Music Group) posits that “Abiyah is the queen of all the mechanical parts of your heart. Her songs let you breathe underwater. She’s the only thing your brain and your hips can agree on.” A five-time CityBeat Cincinnati Entertainment Awards Hip Hop nominee and six-time MidPoint Music Festival veteran, Abiyah has performed at NYC’s Sidewalk Cafe and Trash Bar, and opened for avant-hip hop vanguards Mike Ladd and Beans, as well as louis logic, Serengeti, Busdriver, Open Mike Eagle, Homeboy Sandman, Ceschi Ramos and clipping., while also appearing on LA art-rapper Open Mike Eagle’s second full-length offering “Rappers Will Die of Natural Causes.” She has been most frequently compared to a blend of Santigold, MIA and Sister Carol. Abiyah is also active in empowering women in hip hop through activities like embarking on the two week-long First Ladies tour in 2014, performing at the first Louisville Outskirts Festival later that year, and presenting a strategy session on being a female hip hop artist and promoter at the 2015 Allied Media Conference in Detroit.
Cincinnati is known as being a conservative and segregated city; one in which ‘black and white’ is both literal and figurative. Abiyah conceptualized the video to be shot in headshots in black/white to emphasize this study in contrast, including the actual physical appearances of she and Eugenius and the mistaken stereotypes  Cincinnatians sometimes assign to them. Also included in the video, in the role of lip-syncing the hook, are five of Eugenius’ and Abiyah’s close friends/fellow musicians: Abiyah’s son Zeque; experimental hip hop artist Evolve, punk musician Scabby Anomie, world/experimental/soundvibes artist Jennifer Simone, and drum programmer/producer Mavis Concave.
Both sharing a punk rock ethos, Abiyah and Eugenius offer an innovative and literally in-your-face take on haters and those who perpetuate injustice through the video for “BLUP,” with headshots and faces rhythmically pulsating to the beat.
Today, Ghettoblaster has the pleasure of premiering the video, which you can enjoy below:

(ABIYAH
Web: abiyah.com
FB: facebook.com/abiyahmusic
Music: soundcloud.com/abiyah
EUGENIUS
FB: facebook.com/eugenius513
Music: http://eugenius.bandcamp.com/
Download “BLUP” for FREE (or Name Your Price) at:
https://abiyahmusic.bandcamp.com/track/abiyah-eugenius-blup
OR
https://eugenius.bandcamp.com/track/abiyah-eugenius-blup)