Archive for the Hip-Hop Notes From Underground Category
Along comes a video for yet another totally ill track off Skewby’s epic “Proving You Wrong Since 1988″ mixtape which, if you don’t have already, you can get by clicking here and downloading it, aiight?
Is the world ready for Total Savage? Fresh off an opening bid with the Mashter of Ceremonies Girl Talk, Memphis rapper Total Savage is about as next as it gets. I think this video, directed by Brad Phelan, speaks for itself — so let there be no question. Tonight, he’ll be blowing up the stage at Hi-Tone with the grand masters of Aristocrunk, Lord T and Eloise. Get ready to get it bumping out the frame, Memphis.
As part of the 2009 International Folk Alliance Conference in Memphis, the Red Bull Music Academy put together a creativity workshop session featuring ?uestlove (the drummer for The Roots) and jam-jazz-folk legend Bela Fleck. During the weekend presentation at Ardent Studios, Quest addressed a series of questions from moderator Lucia Kaminsky about both his personal background in music and the state of the music industry over the 22 years in which The Roots have been together. Now, if y’all haven’t ever heard Quest talking about anything before, you really ought to listen: he offered up to the tightly-packed audience a lot of good insights and information. His insights are always on point and on time.
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This is a very fresh new video for N.A.S.A.’s track “Hip-Hop”. Featuring guest appearances from Slim Kid Tre, Fatlip and KRS-One, it’s a bumping video bound to turn a party out. N.A.S.A.’s The Spirit Of The Apollo (including the song “Hip-Hop”) will be released on February 17th.
Last year, I procrastinated heavily. I think there were a lot of good records that came out the last couple of years, but I started to think that for every record that came out, there was an equal number of these “best-of” lists being bandied about. At first I thought, “Wow, it’s finally happened. Everyone’s a music critic.” Then, with this pervasive thought entrenched in my gourd, I started reading these other lists before making my own.
I suddenly felt small.
So deadlines for the “best of 2007″ rolled around, and I was in a tailspin, dogged by the massive amount of music I had encountered. I kept reflecting on these words of Billy Corgan that I’d read years ago. Billy had once quipped to, I think, Rolling Stone, that, “Not every year can be a great, or even good, year in music.” This thought just stirred in my head and fed into some neurosis. The thought actually fucked with me; maybe 2007 wasn’t that great? Or was it? So I slacked until it was way too late to really do it with any fervor.
Newsflash: Shit aint happening like that this year. I’m past all that, and this year’s going to be different.
It’s been a very busy and awe-inspiring year for A-Trak. Looking at the whole picture, he’s worn the hat of DJ, mixer, arranger, producer, record label magnate and you know…what can I say? The man has really stepped up his game to another level. Even with so much on his plate, he appears to be taking it all in stride. If you read this blog with any frequency, you already know we tend to dote on A-Trak pretty heavily around here because, well….I mean, skillz. He’s got mad skillz. Respect.
So we had to let y’all know: his website is up and crackin’, he’s got the blog going, and he will likely hip you to content you’re not going to find anywhere else on the web. Suggest you take a trip over to http://djatrak.com and see what he’s putting out there for y’all. He’s also doing guest postings at The FADER blog from time to time, so be sure and keep an eye on the haps over there, too. Hey! He’s even giving away a fresh pair of Fool’s Gold limited-edition Nike Air Max’s too!
Now I gotta go figure out how I’m getting to Mississippi tomorrow. Y’all be good.
I guess I don’t know enough about The Cool Kids other than I know that The Bake Sale is stupid tight, my boys in Lord T & Eloise stupid love them, the rhymes I hear them drop are stupid fresh and this mixtape entitled “That’s Stupid (The Mixtape)” is right banging.
Go grab this shit while you can. Somewhere in these six songs, you might just get silly, stupid dumb — just make sure that girl ain’t no bum.
01 Oscar the Grouch
02 That’ll Work
03 Dinner Time
04 Full & Paid
05 Box of Rocks
06 Don’t Trip (Bake Sale UK)
Get it here or here. (HT nialler9)
Get The Bake Sale from Amazon [cd or mp3] by clicking here.
This is groundbreaking, earth-shattering, and like whoa.
New exclusive Nas. “Queens Get the Money,” the opening track to his much-discussed and untitled album, finds Nas in a Kid A mindspace. Rapping over a drumless beat from Jay Electronica he talks about bringing back Arsenio for hip-hop’s sake, dubs himself Nasty Nasdaq and shouts out kids in group homes. Will this be the album where Nas creates a new national anthem?
Back before samples had to be wait eons to be cleared, back in a day when uptown hip hop crews and downtown punks were checking out each other’s shows trying to learn a thing or two, there lived Steven Stein and Doug DiFranco — two pioneers whose adventures would transform them into the hip-hop superheroes known as Steinski and Double Dee.
Rabid music fans and hip-hop enthusiasts with day jobs on the edges of the biz, they got their “big break” in 1983 by winning a Tommy Boy Records remix contest for Play That Beat, Mr. D.J. by G.L.O.B.E. and Whiz Kid. The remix has come to be known in the annals of hip-hop as “Lesson 1 – The Payoff Mix” — an incomprehensible sampladelic jam of breaks from funk and disco records that reads (just as the name suggests) like a time capsulized history lesson. It was from works like these that, much like the graffiti kids tagging stray subway trains with spray paint cans, a cult of “illegal art” in music was born. More music and full review after the jump.
I was cleaning out an old hard drive, and I came across this random collection of hip-hop songs that I pieced together into a little mix with the plan of giving it to you guys at some point in time. Short term memory and life crises all coming together, I guess I forgot about it for a while. Well, better late than never, I guess. Here’s a (possibly the most) random collection that I guess I (at some point) cobbled together for your listening pleasure. I know you gonna dig this.
TRACKLISTING:
1 – Clipse, “Dirty Money”
2 – Ghostface Killah, “Kilo”
3 – Robin Thicke ft. Lil’ Wayne, “Shooter” (clean)
4 – Nas, “Hip Hop Is Dead”
5 – Chubb Rock ft. Biz Markie, “No Head, No Backstage Pass”
6 – Public Enemy, “New Whirl Odor”
7 – ????? with Three 6 Mafia, “Stay Fly” (Remix)
8 – Gil-Scott Heron, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”
