Cohenbeats Arik

Michael Cohen, aka Cohenbeats, recently relocated to Los Angeles from his native Tel Aviv, Israel to spend more energy on his craft of hip-hop production. After linking up with local heavyweights like Gaslamp Killer and Samiyam, young Cohen began to flourish, and the talent that was already there became more and more defined.

He recently finished and released a free, instrumental album called Milk and Honey, a reference to his homeland and the theme of the album. Almost all of the beats were composed from Israeli records, and he sprinkles the project with Israeli-related audio samples.

My absolute favorite beat on Milk and Honey is "Arik," a sweet loop that Cohen managed to pluck and finesse just enough to create something I could listen to for much longer than the minute and some change the beat runs for.

Released through his homie's label, Raw Tapes, here is what they have to say about the project:

"Cohenbeats (also one half of the rap group Cohen@Mushon) has always had a soft spot for Israeli samples, so this time he focused on 25 of his favorite beats sampled only from Israeli records from the 60's up to the 80's, 2 beats from Israeli related samples and many skits of Israeli people speaking half-ass English. We even went far enough to feature Hebrew writings on the cover, if you ever wondered what it looked like. We figured since all we hear in the news is political related, we needed someone to show us another side of the Middle East."