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Wondering (How to Believe)

 I can't recall the first time I heard of R.A. The Rugged Man, but the first time I took notice of his name was on a poster with Snak the Ripper (I want to say they toured through Calgary 2009ish together...but I can't find record of the show), with my first time hearing him being on Snak's You Can't Hide. His name stuck with me, but his verse on You Can't Hide didn't really hook me. Flash forward to 2013 and I saw a post that Brother Ali was on an R.A. track with Masta Ace. After listening to The Dangerous Three I had to check out R.A's newest album, Legends Never Die. Enter Definition of a Rap Flow, that song blew my mind. R.A.'s breath control and is wild, when mixed with his bottomless flows and actual lyrical content it's mind blowing. There are times when I'm not completely on board with his content, but I respect that he's sharing his perspective and can paint one hell of a picture. Although the 7 years between Legends and All My Heroes Are Dead was shorter than the 9 years between Die, Rugged Man, Die and Legends, it was still quite a stretch..but worth the wait. There wasn't a Definition of a Rap Flow on the album, it was just a super solid album with some pretty crazy colabs. The Rugged Man showed no signs of slowing down stepping toe to toe with his protege A-F-R-O on Gotta Be Dope in an absolute masterclass of speed rapping. R.A.'s way of using horror/exploitation film raps to paint vivid pictures of humanity both good and bad is amazing. 

Uglies Kettle Chips. A while ago a friend from work mentioned these "Naturally Imperfect. Honestly Delicious." chips brand. I took note, but hadn't seen any around (In Western Canada I'm only aware of them being found in Winners stores), until one day I came home from work and my wife had grabbed a bag of Bar-B-Que. Sure Uglies touts that they are "Reducing Waste & Helping Fight Hunger!" (the use what would be throw away potatoes by other brands and 10% of all profits are donated to Viva Kids, "a Pennsylvania charitable organization dedicated to fighting hunger globally". So, you have me at ugly (I equate it to more flavourful) potatoes and helping kids. Enough with the preamble, how do they taste (you're asking [I can read minds]). They don't visually look that much different than Old Dutch Dutch Crunch chips. They have a nice mid weight kettle cooked crunch. BUT WHAT ABOUT THE FLAVOUR (I assume you're yelling into your screen). Well, they taste like..mesquite BBQ chips. A nice sweet a slightly smoky flavour. I was expecting more of an old school smokey BBQ flavour with little sweetness, this was quite a welcomed surprise. I thought it was more of a honey sweetness, but looking at the ingredients "Sugars (sugar, dextrose, molasses, maltodextrin)" it's not honey based. These have great flavour without being excessively high in sodium (13% / 50g). I was hoping for a bit more earthy flavour from the potatos, they're not bad, they're just pretty typical tasting. Great bag of BBQ chips, I can't wait to try some of their other flavours (I have a bag of jalap in the salty cellar).

Stay hydrated,

Marc

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