Everyone remembers Mazzy Star for their Buzz Bin jam, "Fade Into You." They overlook that the LA band was one of the greatest bands of the 90s. The evidence is obvious in this Black Session recorded 20 years ago in Paris. Seeing that I'm a sucker for any group who reminds me a little of early Mazzy Star (see also: the first two Beach House albums), I'm smoking all my opium in anticipation of the forthcoming record from Boardwalk . I am mainly joking about the opium. I could probably get DMT faster than I could get [...]
Let's play the Wu-Tang guessing game. When do you think this track was recorded? Son Raw guessed that this is an extra from the early 2000s and judging from the tight verses of Deck and the RZA, that could be accurate. I don't like dissing people who I would be willing to die for, so let's not talk about the latter-day output of the Rebel INS and the Rzarecauteur. In fact, this does sound like something from the Digital Bullet era. Raekwon offers us no clues, because the chef has been consistently excellent for a long [...]
No excuses to ignore Jonwayne. The sandal-sporting savage has made it his mission to murk everything before him in 2013. You liked Madvillain and Edan? This is what those influences produced. What makes it original is that Wayne takes the ideas and spirit rather than the specific sound. So the layered punchlines and syllable practice are here, so is the omnivorous crate-digging mentality, and the caveman in winter hunger. This is the sound of an all-pro offensive lineman pushing back and flattening that every rusher than enters the room. This was originally a Pusha T song that was [...]
James Blake is one of few modern electronic artists who has managed to stay relevant both commercially and within the underground community that birthed him. Since exploding onto the scene with two groundbreaking experimental EPs and a widely applauded commercial full-length, Blake has stayed true to his underground roots by releasing several dancefloor-driven singles and DJing at legendary clubs like Low End Theory and Plastic People. Granted, the new fans he gathered with his self-titled album, structured more along the lines of traditional pop, might sometimes look on in confusion as Blake spins [...]
The photograph above was taken at Flying Lotus' studio shortly after a jarring DMT trip on the morning of February 2nd, 2012. It was Groundhog's Day and someone mistook Snarf for a groundhog and the next thing you know, this jam was recorded. It was epic and transcendent and the sounds of the Snarf are submerged in the recording. HEADPHONE MUSIC. None of this is true. Nor do I have any information that Eddie Murphy's "Party all the Time" played any role in it's influence. Nonetheless, I will believe that it did. The Thundercat album does for jazz [...]
Everything amazing and asinine about Ricardo Morales is contained in this video, short of off-putting references to all the Adolfs. You have the needless intro where Gunplay flexes his Vincent Chase in Medellin Spanish. You also have lines like "I asked the pastor, what's the fastest way to heaven for a bastard/With a tarnished past, give me your honest answer/With all this Hannah Montana, without the Arm and Hammer/Am I going to get the slammer or the casket?" It might be his most powerful verse aside from "Cartoons & Cereal." There are those who think he's [...]
For our latest foolhardy adventure in the world of semi-professional talking, myself and Nocando welcomed Wax onto Shots Fired . If you're unfamiliar with the Maryland-raised, LA-based rapper, he used YouTube to build himself into an indie-rap star and leveraged his fanbase and skill into a a deal with Def Jam. As most major label deals go, they wanted him to wear all leather and write pop-rap songs and so on. Even Y.G. couldn't get his album released on that label and Y.G. is more loved in LA than the Lakers and Dodgers at this point. But [...]
Chris Daly is smoking Optimos in Orlando. Enter Cole Williams aka The Child of Lov, a 25-year-old Dutch musician whose age and location belie a musical kinship with everyone from George Clinton to D’Angelo. With his eponymous LP out now on either Double Six Records or Domino Records depending on which side of the pond one hails, TCOL takes old school, Parliament-style funk and liberally updates it with hip-hop and dance floor sensibilities. Opener “Call Me Up” is a slowed down version of “Mothership Connection,” all blunt smoke and layered vocals, falsettos and [...]
The review will come later. Tree has earned the right to get his new mixtape posted sound unseen. After all, the singles he's been leaking off the project have all been leafy and nutritious in a harrowing decayed plant life sort of way. I don't know if that sentence makes any sense, but the mixtape will do that for me. The magic of Internetting. Behold.... Download: ZIP: Tree - Sunday School 2
I will accept no slick talk about Salva remixing "Like Whaa." Unlike most of the people listening to it on LA radio, Salva first heard this on the I'm Bout It soundtrack. Like his work on "Mercy," he's achieved the highest possible achievement in that the remix can play in both clubs full of day-glo tanktop bros and tabernacles of miscellaneous ratchetdom. Synergy. He strips the track of most of the raps, save for a few phrases. Lots of space with which to throw uppercuts or awkward arms akimbo dance moves. Bonus points for keeping the [...]
Max Bell has been known to sit on park benches. Snoop is a stoned lion who thought making an anti-gun song with wheelchair Jimmy was a sound decision. Dre continues to make headphone money (and will probably never release another album in his lifetime). Ice Cube makes more movies and TV shows than music, if you can even say that of his recent work . Basically, the faces of L.A. rap in the early/mid '90s, at least on a national scale (Pac obviously notwithstanding), are all on some other shit. It’s unfortunate, but [...]
Ask Slava P about hockey right now and you will get cross-checked. One day, in the not too distant future, we'll look back on the A$AP Mob with fond memory. As your read this, there are no doubt children in high-school who are digesting every song in A$AP Rocky's catalog, pouring over each lyric and quote with the same youthful vigor as the previous generation did to Curtis Jackson and G-Unit, Cam'ron and Dipset, and the generation before to Wu-Tang. Whether we like it or not, millennials have placed the generational pin in A$AP [...]
I host a podcast with Nocando , so it's pretty easy for me to take for granted that he's a great rapper. He didn't listen to my advice to call this mixtape, 85% Tits and Explosions, but everything else here is certified. There will be a review of this sooner than later. In the meantime, soak up the rap game Michael Bay movie. It's free, but the 3-D Shutter Shades will cost you extra. Tits 'N Explosions by Nocando
If you're unfamiliar with Freddie McGregor, allow me to temporarily redirect you to a post that Son Raw wrote five years ago when he was operating under his serf name, Sach O. To call McGregor an O.G. does him a bit of a disservice. He has been doing it since he was 7 years old, boasting the nickname Little Freddie, and railing against oppression and ruthlessness. He's lesser known among Americans who rarely go past the Marley, Lee Perry, Congos opening round of reggae classics, but if you dig a little deeper you get to [...]
There are two essential reasons why this post exists: the first is obviously Mystikal. Every time I write one of these posts, I feel a twinge of uneasiness considering Mystikal was convicted of an indefensible crime. It's a little strange to write posts in all caps about OMG MYSTIKAL, but yo, listen to this man rap. I don't even care if it's on the 427th Louisiana rap song about someone's dick. He is really operating at a level only known by James Brown and R Kelly. He is not singing or rapping, he is acting out scenes set to music, [...]
Jordan Pedersen plans to name a mixtape after an obscure Omar Epps movie. There's blood in Chicago. The question for Chicago rappers is not, "Do we deal with it?" but rather, "How do you deal with it?" Chief Keef and the Glory Boyz have taken to recreating it, their catalog an Apocalypse Now evocation of what it feels like to duck strays south of I-55. Tree has settled on serving up sweet soul trap, certainly not escapist but decidedly comforting. And the Treated Crew take refuge in fashion, in the hope that if we all [...]
Despite having spent most of his formative years far beyond the Capital Beltway, Tracey Lee's name rings out in Washington, D.C. Like thousands of other transplants, the city welcomed him with open arms, functioning as a springboard for an admirable career and livelihood. His 1997 debut single, "The Theme (It's Party Time)," is still one of the few rap songs released by a D.C. resident, native or otherwise, to make an impact nationwide. Fresh home from a business trip overseas, Tracey opened up about his fascination with go-go culture, attending law school and recording with The Notorious B.I.G. — [...]
Blunt smoke, semi-automatic weapons and grimy New York rappers produce a conflagration that rarely extinguishes. The vocoder hook had me sold. Straight out of the opium den underneath the ruins of Fat Beats. This is great and I can't stop listening. You can download this song for free below the jump. Keep both eyes open going forward for the 20-year old's music.
At this point, any new Boosie is good Boosie. Reports out of Baton Rouge have pegged his official release at November 2014, but his attorneys estimate that he could come home sooner than that. Odds are he won't be home for another year, at which point he will be booked for three months solid, at a minimum of $20,000 per show. Cash only. Boosie's hard drives were confiscated during the police investigation and to my knowledge, have not been returned. I'm not sure how Mista got this verse from Bad Azz, but I imagine it was [...]
Amber fields of grain? Check. Meditative poses. Check. All white pantsuits. Evangelical overtones. Mike Epps baptizing K. Dot in a pool of liquor? Triple check. I don't know how I feel about the "Death to Molly" banner at the end of this video. I understand that Kendrick is mostly drug free and believes in intense devotion and hard work as a means for uplift. I respect and generally agree with this position (my own personal agnosticism aside). But there are a lot of people who hate their lives and recreational weekjend drug use (in moderation) offers a mostly [...]
The Passion of the Weiss
![Gunplay - Bible On The Dash [Music Video]](http://cdn.elbo.ws/youtube/pOys4uYn-b0_130.jpg)
Eurovision Song Contest 2013, vince la Danimarca con Emmelie De Forest. Marco Mengoni è settimo.
Lana Del Rey is the “Queen of Disaster” on New ‘Born To Die’ Leak
Drake will also be in Anchorman 2
