From Freestyle Fellowship to Haiku D’Etat to his solo work, Myka Nyne has been an integral part of a vibrant, if not criminally overlooked, underground hip-hop movement in Los Angeles.

The guys in Freestyle Fellowship (Myka Nyne, Aceyalone, Self Jupiter, P.E.A.C.E.) were (and still are) champions of avant-garde hip-hop, taking influences as much from jazz as hip-hop. They met/formed at a regular open-mic night in Los Angeles in the ’90s, so it’s easy to draw the parallels of freestyle hip-hop and improvisational jazz.

Myka Nyne’s latest LP, Citrus Cessions Vol. I (buy at eMusic), continues in that same vein, with Myka deftly maneuvering around unorthodox time signatures and live instrumentation, strengthening that bond with between hip-hop and jazz.

Myka Nyne (feat. P.E.A.C.E.) | Viles

Also, from his MySpace:
Myke Nyne | Determination
THANKS to Ben for filling in for me yesterday with that excellent post. I wasn’t as drunk as he’d have you believe … well, OK, maybe. We went with some friends on a little three-day booze cruise from LA to Ensenada, Mexico. So what if our exploration of Ensenada only involved this place? … It was a fun trip, and I gotta tell ya: Duty- and tax-free liquor is the way to roll. Two large bottles of Absolut for $21.