Red Dirt Biz (DC) & Family Ties Records (BKLYN) are excited to announce the release of “Blakkboy Blue(s),” the highly anticipated follow up project to Tim’m West’s critically acclaimed “Songs from Red Dirt: (Cellular Records). Tim’m West is a Cincinnati born, Arkansas raised author, poet, and Hip Hop-activist who has been artistically nurtured in North Carolina, New York City, the Bay Area, and most recently Washington, DC. West complements the release of Blakkboy Blue(s) with the literary follow up to his first book, “Red Dirt Revival”, entitled “Flirting”. While “Red Dirt Revival” and “Songs from Red Dirt were both autobiographical projects that traced his roots as a young child in rural Arkansas to his adult years in New York City and the Bay Area, “Blakkboy Blue(s) and “Flirting” offer a resolved, hopeful, and polished voice responding the state of the Hip Hop Nation. In Blakkboy Blue(s), West moves from memories of finding Hip Hop down south to a sound that beautifully blends his gospel and blues roots with the sounds that largely define his movement through various urban settings. Significant, is his decision to move to Atlanta in July of 2007. It is a move that has been considered a “prodigal son” return to the South. West brings Red Dirt to the heart of Red Dirt-- a move about which the artist is hopeful and excited. Says West, “If leaving home leads to nostalgia for your Red Dirt, you gotta someday realize that you can never fully return home. Blakkboy Blue(s) is not just about accepting that home is where the heart is but also accepting that remembering isn’t enough-- that life as an activist calls for, not just thinking, but acting in the service of social change.” Blakkboy Blue(s), following Tim’m’s feature in two critically acclaimed Hip Hop documentaries: Alex Hinton’s “Pick Up the Mic” (LOGO) and Byron Hurt’s “Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes”, presents him as one of the critical voices in Hip Hop today. As the mantra of the Grand Royal produced “Irony” states: “O say can you see/What Hip Hop Is supposed to be/All I see is Irony/Hip Hop ain’t dead/He just needs to get free”. Tim’m offers a curative for a Hip Hop gone bling. An unapologetic “old school” emcee, he is one who has matured with Hip Hop; and questions an industry that doesn’t support that evolution. Unlike, “Songs from Red Dirt” -- an amalgamation of Hip Hop, House, R&B, and Spoken Word-- West, wanted to more deliberately produce a Hip Hop project, while compartmentalizing his interest in House and electronica to Bonus Tracks. Blakkboy Blue(s) includes principal production by Grand Royal (Bklyn), Eddy J. Free (Cincinnati), and Tori Fixx (Minneapolis), among others spanning from Oakland to Atlanta. The 18 track album, written entirely by West, gives the listener a look into the politics of not just himself, but an entire generation of voices whose more progressive and conscious Hip Hop music has been drowned out by an industry for whom politics = death. The richness of the project is West’s ability to speak so poignantly about redefining manhood. West best captures this in Interview interludes where he reflects on the intersection of his work as an accomplished educator and activist, and the growing body of music and literature that define a style unique to him. Blakkboy Blue(s) became available on CD baby, as well as at West’s artist site: www.reddirt.biz in June 2007 and at select stores upon request. Family Ties, an independent label in Brooklyn founded in 2007 by Grand Royal, will be promoting the project widely in 2007 and into ‘08.