I caught this earlier on Soul Sides , during their joint tour after a tourbus accident The Coup and Mr Lif, although thankfully coming away with their lives, have lost an awful lot of stuff - clothes, instruments, equipment and more. As Soul Sides state, The Coup are one of the most honest hiphop groups around and the tour was to pay their bills. There's a statement from Boots Riley over on Myspace and you can also make a donation to get them back on their feet - Link . [...]
i{content: normal !important} DJ Shadow was really good the other night, it didn't seem as focused or slick as the Private Press tour and he played a couple of weak tracks from "The Outsider" (i.e. the ones with Chris James from Stateless - who also appeared for vocals and support) but all in, better than 99% of the shows you'll see. Lateef the Truth Speaker made an appearance too, although he did little other than be a hypeman (which maybe Shadow's [...]
i{content: normal !important} I'm off to see DJ Shadow tonight and I'm pretty excited all told. I caught him on his Private Press tour and it still ranks amongst the best live shows I've ever seen - total audio-visual overload. He had these massive screens behind him with video images that synched perfectly with the music. I'm looking forward to hearing what he does with the new material from The Outsider , especially the Hyphy tracks which should sound great at megadecibels. [...]
On seemingly every Ghostface album, there's unreleased material that's every bit as good as the tracks on the official CD. Even with this years twin-salvo of the underrated Fishscale and the upcoming More Fish , it seems to be no exception as this track wasn't included for whatever reason: Ghostface – Charlie Brown (Full Version) (MP3) I've [...]
I've been listening to Scientifik for much of the weekend. Although he sadly died in 1998 in a car accident that followed a shooting inside the car, there have been two album re-releases this year of the Boston MC's material. The first reissue released earlier this year, "Criminal", originally scheduled for release in 1994 never hit stores due to the label going out of business. Although cratediggers may have been able to locate a copy, it's never been given the release it deserved. Along with a couple of self-produced tracks, it features production from [...]
Discobelle linked this up earlier and it's been on repeat play for much of the day, way too good not to be given more exposure. A breathless mix from White Girl Lust , taking in disco, funk, hyphy, punk-funk and anything else with a pulse. There's some masterful blends and mixing going on here, it's worth downloading just to hear the mix at about 6 minutes or so - White Girl Lust - Bay Slaps & Disco Raps 1 (YSI Link) (MP3) [...]
For Clipse fans, you can grab a Hell Hath No Fury sampler over at Notes from a Different Kitchen . I've been listening to it pretty hard over the last couple of days and my fanboy hype levels are out of control, the album can't come soon enough - only a week or two now. WAMP WAMP. I've also listened to this snippet an unholy amount too which isn't on the sampler, courtesy of DJ Benzi [...]
I've been meaning to update for a while but haven't quite got round to it, hopefully this'll make up for it:- 3-CD mixtape of 90s hiphop rarities mixed by DJ Neoteric from both superstars (early Jay-Z, Eminem, Ghostface, Outkast, Mobb Deep and ODB) alongside more underground MCs, there's so much great stuff in here that's largely unheard - whether it be Biggie's and Crustified Dibbs (aka RA The Rugged Man) filthy 'Cunt Renaissance' (almost enough to make Necro blush) or BBO kicking some dope rhymes over the aptly titled 'Beat of the Year'. [...]
Ill Bill has always been my favoured MC from that whole Non-Phixion/Psycho Logical records crew, his flow in particular. His new mixtape "Ill Bill is the Future Vol 2" is pretty good, I was expecting to really dig the tunes with Raekwon but it's the tracks with his new group La Coka Nostra (comprising of Ill Bill, Everlast, Q, Slaine and Big Left; along with DJ Lethal, Muggs, Q-Unique +others on the beats) that really shine with some excellent heavy production and raw MCing. Kinda like Jedi Mind Tricks at their best. [...]
I've been away from my keyboard for a minute, hence the general lack of updates. It has given me the opportunity to catch up with my backlog of tunes, so much so I don't know where to start. Soooo, here's something else entirely courtesy of the peerless Spine Magazine . New track from Gwen Stefani, produced by The Neptunes, and it's weirdly addictive - certainly more leftfield than I was expecting; featuring mad heavy sprawling Favela basslines meets yodelling (!?!!11), sampling The Sound of Music [...]
To my complete suprise, I'm digging a couple of tracks from the new Puff Daddy Puffy P Diddy Diddy album. He still can't rap (even though his list of ghostwriters is crazy - Common, The Game, Taleb Kweli to name a few) but when he's concentrating on the clubs he gets it largely right largely due to some top-notch production (as you'd expect from the people behind the boards - Just Blaze, Kanye, Timbaland, Neptunes etc). I'm not sure I agree with his blatent use of ghostwriters, especially [...]
Ta muchly to Discobelle for this track, new M.I.A. It took a listen or two but I'm liking this. One for the clubs with some sharp Bmore beats and some softly spoken lyrics, rather than her usual style. She's not saying a great deal of import, it's just good party music. I particularly dig the handclaps - every song should have them - and the fact it's named after a Ford [...]
I was about to post something different but this just snuck up on me out of nowhere (or more specifically Nalden.net ), a tight little mix of original soul tracks as sampled by the Wu-Tang - both solo and as a group. Amongst the classics (Baby Huey's Hard Times is as great as ever), there's loads here I haven't heard before including some real curveballs - the original sample for Gravel Pit is fantastic, like the opening titles for a camp 60s French Detective Show. Check it: [...]
<img src=" http://img316.imageshack.us/im g316/7779/poprocksstickerun5sc 4.jpg" alt="Junk Science" I haven't been listening to a great deal of hip-hop recently, hence the general lack of updates. I'm sure I'll come back around. I'm digging this new track by Junk Science at the moment though. Not strictly my usual style but some laidback sunkissed beats and down-to-earth rhymes make this a suprisingly addictive little track. Junk Science â€" Do It Easy (MP3) ------------------ In addition, I was bigging up Junk Science's labelmate [...]
Bad News: Easily one of the most anticipated records of the year, The Clipse’s sophomore album Hell Hath No Fury has been pushed back once again and they ain’t happy. Good News: XXL Magazine have rated it XXL - “street hip-hop built to lastâ€. The Neptunes have been back on form this year (the less about Pharrell’s solo the better mind) so this can’t come soon enough. Some MP3’s to prove that
<img src=" http://img102.imageshack.us/im g102/2603/raekwonrm0.jpg" alt="Raekwon The Chef" Short post but this is well worth sharing. I was sorting out my bookmarks earlier and happened upon this which I saved a while ago: XXL Article on the Making of Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx Make sure you read it if you haven't already, an enlightening track-by-track account of the making of one of the finest (if not the finest) hiphop albums of the 90s.
There's an interesting interview over at Pitchfork where RJD2 says that he's left Def Jux to sign for XL Recordings as he's pretty much leaving sample-based Hiphop behind for his next solo - instead recording it all himself using live instrumentation. I'm not entirely sure how successful it'll be - especially for someone who's based his career on sampling - but like DJ Shadow pissing off half of his fans by going hyphy, at least he's doing what he wants rather than putting out an album that he doesn't care [...]
Rather unsuprisingly (well, he needs to sell records), Nas has come out and said that his upcoming "Hip Hop is Dead" will be his best album yet . I'm going to be amazingly controversial and predict...it won't be. I'd love to be proved wrong but I can't see Nas scaling the heights of Illmatic ever again - another decade of relative medicority (with the occasional gem) no doubt beckons unfortunately. He kind of hints at an eventual Jay-Z/Nas collaboration project which could be interesting as [...]
Along with a couple of friends, I've been invited to contribute to a new MP3 blog focusing on the, well, groovier side of things - available here: http://groovinyou.blogspot.com / As there's a few of us, things should keep ticking over pretty steady with a constant stream of tunes both old and new from plenty of different genres. Everyone involved has pretty darn fine taste in music so go take a peek.
I just made a pretty nice post and then Blogger decides to time out and I lose it all, gah. I'm not typing it again but here are the dope unreleased/rare Big L tracks anyway for you to enjoy: Big L â€" Stretch and Bobbito 93 Freestyle (MP3) Big L and Lord Finesse â€" You Know What I’m About (MP3) [...]
The Mark Out
Bison - Quill
Shinichi Osawa – Big Beach Mix 2012
Neutral Milk Hotel- Aeroplane Over the Sea
Mr Fogg - Eleven
