Underground Hip Hop For Dummies

Check

2009-03-17T02:19:00.001-07:00

Check-Check!

El-P - I'll Sleep When You're Dead Sendspace

2007-03-24T07:29:00.000-07:00

El-P - I'll Sleep When You're Dead 2007 (Definitive Jux) Sendspace MP3 Download

Tracklisting:
1 Tasmanian Pain Coaster (6:54)
Vocals [Featuring] - Cedric Bixler-Zavala
2 Smithereens (Stop Cryin) (4:32)
Vocals [Additional] - Hangar 18
3 Up All Night (2:36)
Vocals [Additional] - Mr. Lif
4 EMG (4:31)
Scratches - DJ Big Wiz
5 Drive (4:13)
6 Dear Sirs (1:32)
7 Run The Numbers (4:41)
Rap [Featuring] - Aesop Rock
8 Habeas Corpses (Draconian Love) (4:34)
Rap [Featuring] - Cage
Vocals [Additional] - Mr. Len , Victoria Allen
9 The Overly Dramatic Truth (4:30)
Vocals [Additional] - Daryl Palumbo
Vocals [Additional] - Camu Tao
10 Flyentology (4:01)
Co-producer, Vocals [Featuring] - Trent Reznor
Vocals [Additional] - Rob Sonic
11 No Kings (3:05)
Vocals [Additional] - Tame One
12 The League Of Extraordinary Nobodies (2:34)
Vocals [Additional] - Joey Raia , Murs , Slug
13 Poisenville Kids No Wins / Reprise (This Must Be Our Time) (7:00)
Vocals [Featuring] - Chan Marshall

Sorry, i was forced to remove the download link due to copyright violation

Underground Rap Instrumentals Rapidshare (Pt.1 - Madvillain, Madlib, Necro, Jay Dee, Jurassic 5, RJD2, A Tribe Called Quest)

2007-03-12T17:02:00.000-07:00

Madvillainy Instrumentals:
rapidshare.com /files/7197848/Madvillain_-_Madvillainy__Instrumentals___Stones_Throw___200.rar.html

Madlib - Expressions Instumentals
http://rapidshare.de/files/19844579/...trumentals.zip

Necro Instrumentals Vol 1 http://www.megaupload.com/?d=33KW3T3F

Common - . Be (Instrumentals) http://rapidshare.de/files/18288920/Common-Be-Instrumental_LP-2005-sc.rar (2005) (prod. Jay Dee, Kanye West)
pass= scalp66

Jurassic 5 - Feedback INSTRUMENTALS (2006)

RJD2 - Magnificent City Instrumentals (2006)
(or Megaupload)

http://rapidshare.de/files/11549251/A_Tribe_Called_Quest_-_The_Love_Movement__Instrumental_.zip.html

Gangsta Rap Definition & History

2007-03-07T05:46:00.000-08:00

Gangsta rap is a subgenre of hip hop, which developed during the late 1980s. With the popularity of Dr. Dre's The Chronic in 1992, gangsta rap became the most commercially lucrative subgenre of hip-hop. Since then some former gangsta rap artists have moved towards a more pop-friendly mainstream sound.

The subject matter inherent in gangsta rap has caused a great deal of controversy. Criticism has come from both right wing and left wing commentators, who have accused the genre of homophobia, misogyny, promiscuity, racism, and materialism.

Gangster rappers often defend themselves by claiming that they are describing the reality of inner-city life, and that they are only adopting a character, like an actor playing a role, which behaves in ways that they may not necessarily endorse.

Some commentators (for example, Spike Lee in his satirical film Bamboozled) have criticized it as analogous to black minstrel shows and blackface performance, in which performers -- both black and white -- were made up to look African American, acted in a stereotypically uncultured and ignorant manner for the entertainment of white audiences.

Gangster themes before hip-hop

The album Hustler's Convention by Lightnin Rod was released in 1973. The lyrics deal with street life, including pimping and hustling. The Last Poet Jalal Mansur Nuriddin delivers the rhyming vocals in the urban slang of his time, and together with the other Last Poets was quite influential on later hip-hop groups such as Public Enemy.

Ice-T, as well as many other rappers, has credited pimp and writer Iceberg Slim with influencing his rhymes.

There is also a long tradition of "gunman" lyrics in Jamaican music, which had a strong influence on South Bronx MC KRS-1.

Early hardcore rap and gangsta rap (1984-1990)

Schooly D and others
Philadelphia MC Schoolly D can probably be credited as the first rapper to use the word "gangster" in one of his songs. In his 1984 12" single "Gangster Boogie" he mentions it with "I shot call a ? with my gangster lean". He released the 12" single "P.S.K." (short for Park Side Killers) in 1985. In this song Schoolly D makes direct references to his crew or gang (PSK) as well as describing putting his pistol against another rapper's head.

The rap group Run DMC are often credited with popularizing hardcore and abrasive attitudes and lyrics in hip hop culture, and were one of the first rap groups to dress in gang-like street clothing. Their socially conscious lyrics would later influence socially conscious gangsta rappers and hardcore rappers such as Ice Cube and Nas.

Rappers such as Slick Rick, LL Cool J, the group EPMD, and the seminal hardcore group Public Enemy (which even sported a crosshair as its trademark symbol) would further popularize hard-hitting, aggressive, often socio-political lyrics, sometimes revolving around street violence, poverty, and gunplay.

Ice-T
In 1987,Angeles-based rapper Ice-T released "6 n the Mornin", which is often regarded as the first gangsta rap song. Ice-T had been MCing since the early '80s; his first song, "The Coldest Rap", was the first hiphop song to use the words ho and nigga, and included references to guns and pimping.

In an interview with PROPS magazine Ice-T said: "Here's the exact chronological order of what really went down: The first record that came out along those lines was Schoolly D's 'P.S.K.' Then the syncopation of that rap was used by me when I made Six In The Morning. The vocal delivery was the same: '...P.S.K. is makin' that green', '...six in the morning, police at my door'. When I heard that record I was like "Oh shit!" and call it a bite or what you will but I dug that record. My record didn't sound like P.S.K., but I liked the way he was flowing with it. P.S.K. was talking about Park Side Killers but it was very vague. That was the only difference, when Schoolly did it, it was "...one by one, I'm knockin' em out". All he did was represent a gang on his record. I took that and wrote a record about guns, beating people down, and all that with Six In The Morning. At the same time my single came out, Boogie Down Productions hit with Criminal Minded, which was a gangster-based album. It wasn't about messages or "You Must Learn", it was about gangsterism."

Ice-T continued to release gangsta albums for the remainder of the decade: Rhyme Pays in 1987, Power in 1988 and The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech...Just Watch What You Say in 1989. Ice-T's lyrics also contained strong political commentary, and often played the line between glorifying the gangsta lifestyle and criticizing it as a no-win situation.

Beastie Boys
The Beastie Boys, while never truly credited as gangsta rappers, were actually one of the first groups to identify themselves as "gangsters" on their acclaimed and commercially successful 1986 debut album, Licensed to Ill. They were also one of the first popular rap groups to talk about violence, drug and alcohol use, and themes common in gangsta rap today. According to "Rolling Stone" magazine, "Licensed to Ill is filled with enough references to guns, drugs, and empty sex (including the pornographic deployment of a Whiffle-ball bat in "Paul Revere") to qualify as a gangsta-rap cornerstone." In their early underground days, the seminal gangsta rap group N.W.A. rapped over Beastie Boy tracks for songs such as "My Posse" and "Ill-Legal", and the Beastie Boys' influence can be seen significantly in all of N.W.A's early albums.

The Beastie Boys continued to produce proto-gangsta rap tracks on their 1989 album Paul's Boutique, which included such hardcore tracks as "Car Thief," "Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun," and "High-Plains Drifter."

Boogie Down Productions
Boogie Down Productions released their first single, "Say No Brother (Crack Attack Don't Do It)", in 1986. It was followed by "South-Bronx/P is Free" and "9mm Goes Bang" in the same year. The latter is the most gangsta-themed song of the three; in it KRS-1 describes shooting rival weed-dealers after they try to kill him in his home. The album Criminal Minded followed in 1987. Shortly after the release of the album, BDP's DJ Scott LaRock was shot and killed. After this BDP's subsequent records focused on conscious lyrics instead.

N.W.A.
N.W.A. released their first single in 1986. They were crucial to the foundations of the genre for introducing more violent lyrics over much rougher beats. The first blockbuster gangsta album was N.W.A.'s Straight Outta Compton first released in 1988. Straight Outta Compton also established West Coast hip hop as a vital genre, and a rival of hip hop's long-time capital, New York City. Straight Outta Compton sparked the first major controversy regarding hip hop lyrics when their song "Fuck Tha Police" earned a letter from the FBI strongly expressing law enforcement's resentment of the song. Due to the influence of Ice T and N.W.A., gangsta rap is often credited as being an originally West Coast phenomenon. In 1990, former N.W.A. member Ice Cube would further influence gangsta rap with his hardcore, socio-political solo albums.

Others
Aside from N.W.A. and Ice T, early West Coast rappers include Too $hort (from Oakland, California), Kid Frost (who was an important Latin MC), and others from Compton, Watts, Los Angeles, Oakland, San Diego and San Francisco. On the East Coast, New York's Kool G Rap began to use more and more crime-related themes in his lyrics towards the end of the decade.

Gangsta rap after 1990

Ice-T
Ice-T released one of the seminal albums of the genre, OG: Original Gangster in 1991. It also contained a song by his new thrash metal group Body Count, who released a self titled album in 1992. The group attracted a lot of media attention for the Cop Killer controversy.

His next album, Home Invasion, was postponed as a result of the controversy, and was finally released in 1993. While it contained gangsta elements, it was his most political album to date. After that, he left Time-Warner records. Ice-T's subsequent releases went back to straight gangsta-ism, but were never as popular as his earlier releases. He had alienated his core audience with his involvement in metal, his emphasis on politics and with his uptempo Bomb-Squad style beats during a time when G-funk was popular. He published a book "The Ice Opinion: Who Gives a Fuck?" in 1994.

G-funk and Death Row Records
Eric Martin and Tupac were best of friends in 1992, it is said that Tupac found insparation in Eric as a friend. Also in 1992, former N.W.A. member Dr. Dre released The Chronic, which further established the dominance of West Coast gangsta rap and Death Row Records, and also began the subgenre of G-funk, a slow, drawled form of hip hop that dominated the charts for some time. Extensively sampling P-Funk bands, especially Parliament and Funkadelic, G-funk was multi-layered, yet simple and easy to dance to, with anti-authoritarian lyrics that helped endear it to many young listeners. Another G-Funk success was Ice Cube's Predator album, released at the same time as The Chronic in 1992. It sold over 5 million copies and was #1 in the Charts, despite the fact that Ice Cube wasn't a Death Row artist. One of the genre's biggest crossover stars was Dre's protégé Snoop Doggy Dogg (Doggystyle, 1993), now known as Snoop Dogg, whose exuberant party-oriented themes made songs such as "Gin and Juice" club anthems and top hits nationwide. Tupac Shakur (Me Against the World, 1995) has endured as one of the most successful and influential West Coast hip hop artists of all time. Snoop and Tupac were both artists on Death Row Records, owned by Dre and Marion "Suge" Knight. Many of Tupac's greatest hits sampled or interpolated earlier music by Zapp & Roger.

Mafioso rap

Cover of Raekwon's mafia-influenced debut solo, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx...Mafioso rap is a hip hop sub-genre which flourished in the mid-1990s. It is the pseudo-Mafia extension of East Coast hardcore rap, and was the counterpart of West Coast G-Funk rap during the 1990s. In contrast to West Coast gangsta rappers, who tended to depict realistic urban life on the ghetto streets, Mafioso rappers' subject matter included self-indulgent and luxurious fantasies of rappers as Mobsters, or Mafiosi, while making numerous references towards .

East Coast Hardcore and gangsta rap
Meanwhile, rappers from New York City and Philadelphia, such as Black Moon (Enta Da Stage, 1993), Wu-Tang Clan (Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), 1993), Onyx (Bacdafucup, 1993), Mobb Deep (The Infamous, 1995), Nas (Illmatic, 1994), the Notorious B.I.G. (Ready to Die, 1994), and Raekwon (Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, 1995) pioneered a grittier sound known as East Coast hardcore rap. B.I.G. and the rest of Puff Daddy's Bad Boy Records roster paved the way for New York City to take back chart dominance from the West Coast as gangsta rap continued to explode into the mainstream. It is widely speculated that the "East Coast/West Coast" battle between Death Row Records and Bad Boy Records resulted in the deaths of Death Row's Tupac Shakur and Bad Boy's Notorious B.I.G. This had a knock-on effect on Death Row itself, which sank quickly when most of its big name artists like Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg left and it found itself on the receiving end of multiple lawsuits. Dr. Dre, at the MTV Video Music Awards, claimed that "gangsta rap was dead". Although Puff Daddy's Bad Boy Entertainment fared better than its West Coast rival, it continued to lose popularity and support of the hip hop fan base with a more mainstream sound, and challenges from Atlanta and, especially, Master P's No Limit stable of popular rappers.

Southern and midwestern gangsta rap
After the deaths of Biggie and Tupac, gangsta rap remained a major commercial force. However, most of the industry's major labels were in turmoil, or bankrupt, and new locations sprang up.

Atlanta had been firmly established as a hip hop center by artists such as Goodie Mob and Outkast and many other Southern hip hop artists emerged in their wake, whilst gangsta rap artists achieving the most pop-chart success. Jermaine Dupri, an Atlanta-born record producer and talent scout, had great success after discovering youthful pop stars Kris Kross (Totally Krossed Out, 1992) performing at a mall, and later masterminded a large roster of commercially successful acts on his So So Def label which although mostly weighted towards pop-rap & R&B, also included rap artists such as Da Brat (Funkdafied, 1994), and himself. Perhaps the most famous gangsta rapper from the South is Scarface.

Master P's No Limit Records label, based out of New Orleans, also became quite popular, though critical success was very scarce, with the exceptions of some later additions like Mystikal (Ghetto Fabulous, 1998). No Limit had begun its rise to fame with Master P's The Ghetto Is Trying to Kill Me! (1994, 1994 in music), and subsequent hits by Silkk the Shocker (Charge It 2 Da Game, 1998) and C-Murder (Life or Death, 1998). Cash Money Records, also based out of New Orleans, had enormous commercial success with a very similar musical style and quantity-over-quality business approach to No Limit but were less ridiculed.

Cleveland based rap group Bone Thugs-N-Harmony also had a monumental impact on the Midwestern gangsta rap scene. The mid-1990s saw Bone metamorphose into an extremely popular commercial rap assemblage with the release of their critically acclaimed album E 1999 Eternal. Their fast, harmonizing vocals (coupled with their fast rap delivery) changed the limitations of gangsta rap.

Mainstream era

Before the late nineties, gangsta rap and hip hop in general, while being extremely popular, had always been seen as a fringe genre that remained firmly outside of the pop mainstream. However, the rise of Bad Boy Records signalled a major stylistic change in gangsta rap (or as it is referred to on the East Coast, hardcore rap), as it morphed into a new subgenre of hip hop which would become even more commercially successful. Notorious B.I.G. is seen by many to have initiated gangsta rap's move towards conquering the pop charts, as he was the first hardcore gangsta rapper to produce albums as a calculated attempt to include both gritty gangsta narratives and polished, catchy, danceable pop productions entirely aimed at the clubs and at the mainstream pop charts. Between the release of Biggie's debut album Ready to Die in 1994 and his follow-up Life after Death in 1997, his sound changed from the darker, sample-heavy production to a cleaner, more upbeat sound fashioned for popular consumption (though the references to guns, drug dealing and life as a thug on the street remained). R&B-styled hooks and instantly recognizable samples of well-known soul and pop songs from the 1970s and 1980s were the staples of this sound, which was showcased primarily in his latter-day work for The Notorious B.I.G. ("Mo Money, Mo Problems"), Ma$e ("Feels So Good"), and non Bad Boy artists such as Jay-Z ("Can I Get A...") and Nas ("Street Dreams").

Also achieving similar levels of success with a similar sound at the same time as Bad Boy was Master P and his No Limit label in New Orleans, as well as the New Orleans upstart Cash Money label. A Cash Money artist, The B.G., popularized a catch phrase in 1999 that sums up what the majority of late-nineties mainstream hip hop focused on subject-wise: "Bling-Bling." Whereas much gangsta rap of the past had portrayed the rapper as being a victim of urban squalor, the persona of late-nineties mainstream gangsta rappers was far more weighted towards hedonism and showing off the best jewelry, clothes, liquor, and women. Many of the artists who achieved such mainstream success, such as Ma$e, Jay-Z and Cam'Ron, originated from the gritty East Coast rap scene and were influenced by hardcore artists such as the Notorious B.I.G and Nas. Ma$e, Jay-Z and Cam'Ron are also typical of the more relaxed, casual flow that became the pop-gangsta norm. Many of these artists are viewed as being rather illegitimately "gangsta" compared to their West Coast counterparts.

Pop-inflected gangsta rap continues to be successful into the 21st century, with many artists deftly straddling the divide between their hip hop audience and their pop audience, such as Ja Rule and Jay-Z. The influence of West Coast gangsta rapper 2Pac on the East Coast rap scene has also become increasingly apparent in the new century.

from en.wikipedia.org

J Dilla Ruff Draft Rapidshare

2007-03-07T05:23:00.000-08:00

J Dilla Ruff Draft Promo 2007 Rapidshare:

01 00:18 Intro --
02 02:11 Lets Take It Back --
03 02:42 Reckless Driving --
04 02:34 Nothing Like This --
05 02:44 The Money --
06 00:49 Interlude --
07 02:28 Make'em Nv --
08 00:45 Interlude --
09 03:43 Crushin (Yeeeeaah!) --
10 00:52 Shouts --
11 00:48 Intro (Alt) --
12 02:20 Wild --
13 04:25 Take Notice --
14 01:47 Shouts (Alt) --
Totals --
14 28:26 min --

http://rapidshare.com/files/11137966/J_Dilla-Ruff_Draft-Promo-2007-.rar

How to Graffiti / How to Do Graffiti / How to Paint Graffiti

2007-03-07T04:18:00.000-08:00

Steps

Know and respect the history of the art. Graffiti is a hobby with a long history. Look at early hip-hop and the first writers (people who write graffiti), such as Taki in NY. The worst thing to experienced writers are "toys" making fools of themselves and destroying the scene for everyone else.

Pick a name. Practice drawing letters and pick some that you like drawing. Do not try to get too crazy with extensions and bending at first. Take it slow and make everything as clean as possible. It is very helpful at this point to find inspiration from other pictures you see. However, in the future, you will want to develop your own, unique style. A very important aspect to creating a good style with your name is flow. Keep characteristics of letters common throughout the rest of your name. Style is everything.

Carry a sketchbook and pencil with you wherever you go. Practice your craft as much as possible. As you come up with new ideas for tags and designs, sketch them in your book and develop the concept by trying out different variations. If possible, carry pencils of a few different colors. Eventually, you can move to using permanent marker.

Work with your cans. Buy a piece of plywood from Home Depot to practice on. At this point, colors and styles should be simple. Practice your can control and your techniques for painting and steps for putting together a clean "piece."

Be smart. Many cities also have "permission" or "legal" walls specified for graffiti art. Legal graffiti is often more respected than street art. You have unlimited time and freedom to do what you please. Compare legal walls to quick throw-ups found on the street. You will find that legal walls are intricate and aesthetic. Street art is just trying to be seen. Legal graffiti art is more remembered and respected by those who do not completely understand the artform.
Try to meet experienced writers who can help you learn the ropes. (However, be cautious; you do not want to come off like an undercover officer.) Show your appreciation for their work and their skills.

Tips

Don't get frustrated with lettering, it takes time.

Wherever you write, keep in mind that you are representing the entire graffiti culture anytime anyone else sees it. People usually don't differentiate between writers, they just know that somebody destroyed their property. Stay away from privately-owned businesses, worship areas, high profile business buildings. The experienced writers nowadays tend to stick to low-profile spots such as tunnels, abandoned buildings, and, if so desired, legal spots.

It's a lot easier to use stencils. Buy some sticky paper and put it in your printer. Use Photoshop or any other graphics program to make the paint layers. Print them.

from wikihow.com

Aesop Rock All Day Rapidshare

2007-03-07T00:24:00.000-08:00

Aesop Rock - All Day: Nike+ Original Run (continuous mix)(2007)

This is one continuous 45 minute track, so no song list. Also includes the digital booklet in PDF format. Here's the description from Aesop Rock's myspace blog:

"All Day" Nike + Original Run series

hey all
i was asked to do a 45 minute long (mostly) intrumental song for nike's 'original run' series. i wouldnt call it my first intrumental album as i kind of approached it differently then i would a true inst album, but it is primarily intrumental, with some areas of vocals. this project has lots of live intrumentation, bass, guitars, keys, etc., and really has a consistently changing sound. there were a couple rules to follow, as i kinda had to make something that was as 'functional' as it was kinda cool to listen to. it really runs the gamut from super light and almost ambient to pretty dark and tuff, to eerie, to funky, etc etc. I really got to try things i dont think i would have ever tried elsewhere on this thing. dj big wiz does cuts throughout. allyson baker (former parchman farm member) plays guitar a lot. also, the music will come with a 'digital booklet' featuring 6 photos by the lovely and talented chrissy piper. should be available thru itunes feb 13th if youre interested. heres a snippet from the press release that went out:

AESOP ROCK COMMISSIONED FOR NIKE + ORIGINAL RUN SERIES!
Joining the ranks of renowned artists The Crystal Method and LCD Soundsystem, MC/Producer Aesop Rock has joined forces with Nike to release an original composition in the third installment of the "Nike + Orignal Run" series, available exclusively in the Nike Sport Music store on iTunes. All Day: Nike + Original Run, a 45-minute continuous mix, was created specifically with runners in mind and reflects Aesop Rock's distinct and unique style. "I wanted to create something that evolved enough that the sound was constantly fresh and attractive, as if the runner were moving through a set of differing cities or landscapes."

http://lix.in/cf4871

Grandmaster Flash Rapidshare

2007-03-07T00:00:00.000-08:00

Grandmaster Flash Rapidshare:

The Message (1982) 62247 kb

hxxp://www.egoshare.com/3f58a0550f0305caab7c30a5457d62 13/grandmaster_flash__the_message rar.html

parol: raplover

xx=tt

The Source 54840kb

hxxp://www.egoshare.com/66150fcc5906a0d10d64612df2483f 36/grandmaster_flash__the_sourcer ar.html

pw: raplover

xx=tt

They Said It Couldn't Be Done (1985) 65179kb

hxxp://www.egoshare.com/7acd095c624b093eea57e9d472f0f9 5f/grandmaster_flash__they_said_i t_couldnt_be_done_1985rar.html

pw: raplover

xx=tt

LMNO - Workethic (2007) Rapidshare

2007-03-06T23:56:00.000-08:00

LMNO - Workethic (2007) Rapidshare:

http://rapidshare.de/files/37645294/LMNO-Workethic-PROPER-2007-FTD.rar

Dj Kentaro Enter Rapidshare

2007-03-06T14:22:00.000-08:00

Dj Kentaro Enter Rapidshare

01. Enter The Newground [02:21]
02. Keep On (Ft. Pharcyde) [03:45]
03. Free (Ft. Spank Rock) [03:13]
04. Tasogare Highway High (Bass Wanna Be A Singer) [03:37]
05. Rainy Day (Ft. New Flesh) [04:34]
06. Uminnaka [00:37]
07. Handmade Gift (Ft. Little Tempo) [04:27]
08. Space Jungle [04:22]
(Ft. MC SPanl Rock Ronnie Darko And Chris Rockswell)
09. Nursery Room [00:40]
10. Harvest Dance (Ft. Hifana) [03:16]
11. Trust [04:49]
12. One Hand Blizzard [02:19]
13. Brightin Star Enter [00:48]
14. Let It Go (Ft. Fat Jon) [05:09]
15. Hatsuyume (Ft. Hunger) [03:50]
16. Grateful To You [02:17]
-------
50:04 min
69,7 MB

After announcing himself to a worldwide audience with his Solid Steel mix "On The Wheels Of Solid Steel", Japan's DJ Kentaro returns with his full production debut, "Enter". Forty minutes of beautifully structured beats, musical smarts and occasional smattering of turntable magic, the record also features guest turns from The Pharcyde (Not on promo), Spank Rock, New Flesh, Little Tempo, Hifana and Fat Jon.

Kentaro is best known as a phenomenal turntablist and former DMC World Champion, but on this debut record, he's more concerned with showing his muscle as a music producer. Which is why "Enter" runs from the funk of "Free" to the dubby downtempo soul of "Tasogare Highway…", through the drum and bass attack of "Rainy Day," the live reggae feel of "Handmade Gift," the squelching dance aesthetic of "Space Jungle," on into the tribal space-jazz of "Harvest Dance," the epic turntable cut-up of "One Hand Blizzard" and, finally, the cosmic hip hop of "Let It Go". It's not that he can't scratch the shit out of a piece of vinyl when he wants to (check finale "Grateful To You") it's just that he understands that making a great album demands a wider palette.

Utterly contemporary, completely rooted in hip hop's old skool aesthetics and with a magpie naivety which gives him a freedom within them...

Kentaro enters your musical consciousness so that you can enter his. Come in…

RS>
http://link-protector.com/151614/

FTO>
http://files.to/get/381467/9641/DJKEnterAdv.rar

Abdominal Escape From The Pigeon Hole Rapidshare

2007-03-06T14:19:00.000-08:00

Abdominal-Escape_From_The_Pigeon_Hole-2007-

R e l e a s e D a t a

Artist : Abdominal
Album : Escape From The Pigeon Hole

Genre : Hip-Hop
Label : Handcuts
Cat # :
URL :

Ripper : E. Gnore
Ripped : 2007-02-27
Store : 2007-00-00

Source : CD
Encoder : LAME v3.97 --vbr-new -V2
Grabber : EAC
S/Rate : 44.1 KHz
Bitrate : 144 kbps (average)
Mode : Joint Stereo

Playtime: 00h 50m 44s
Tracks : 14

T r a c k L i s t

1 1:20 The Escape
2 3:52 Breathe Later
3 4:00 T. Ode feat. Notes To Self
4 2:44 Radio Friendly
5 3:29 Pedal Pusher
6 2:29 Big Track
7 3:01 Abdominal Workout
8 5:28 Walk Left / Stand Right
9 5:05 Open Relationship
10 4:32 Sex With The Girls (Skip This One Mom)
11 4:10 Heaven's Demon
12 2:51 Girl Shit
13 3:35 Flyer Antics
14 4:08 Abdominal Workout (Speech Defect Remix)

R i p N o t e s

production credits:

01, 13 - DJ Fase
02, 07, 11 - DJ Format
03 - Bronze
04 - Cut Chemist
05 - Young Einsten
06, 09 - Morgan Smietana
08 - Bird
10 - Circle Research
12 - Phat Tony
14 - DJ Prao-D and Mr. Linus of Speech Defect

if u like it buy it and show artists some love...
enjoy...

http://link-protector.com/151119/

RZA Afro Samurai Rapidshare

2007-03-06T14:18:00.000-08:00

RZA PRESENTS AFRO SAMURAI THE SOUNDTRACK (KOCH, 2007) Rapidshare:

http://rapidshare.com/files/14904566/Afro_Samurai_The_Soundtrack_2007_-_The_RZA_-_41st.rar

De La Soul De La Mixtape Rapidshare

2007-03-06T13:55:00.000-08:00

De La Soul De La Mixtape Rapidshare

http://www.zshare.net/download/de-la-rar-sha.html

OneSelf Organically Grown Rapidshare MP3 Download

2007-03-06T13:46:00.000-08:00

Here's a new song from One Self Organically Grown EP

http://www.zshare.net/audio/02-one_self-caravan_vs_black_ink-mp3.html

How to Scratch or Be a Turntablist

2007-03-06T13:25:00.000-08:00

Here's an introduction to the basics of turntablism, or how to manipulate records or CDs and a crossfader in order to create music. This guide is not for absolute beginners.

Steps
Learn your music theory. Many DJs - even professional DJs - have no knowledge of music theory. Begin your education now. A turntablist is a percussionist, which means you need to have a good understanding of rhythm. You will be practicing scratching to music and then eventually making music using records. When you are scratching to a beat, you are scratching out a rhythm. If you have a complete understanding of rhythm, you can develop your skills to recreate these rhythms properly.

Learn about rhythm: most hip hop and dance music is in 4/4. That means for each bar of music there are 4 beats. Each beat can be subdivided in only a finite amount of ways. Count these out loud while you listen to music. Each beat will be place between [brackets]:
[1] [2] [3] [4]
[1 and] [2 and] [3 and] [4 and]
[1 trip let] [2 trip let] [3 trip let] [4 trip let]
[1 e and a] [2 e and a] [3 e and a] [4 e and a]
[i trip let and trip let] [2 trip let and trip let] [3 trip let and trip let] [ 4 trip let and trip let]
These are quarter notes, 8th notes, 8th note triplets, 16th notes, and 16th note triplets, respectively. Learn how to count these to the beats of songs you already like. You will have to increase the speed of your counting as you progress. Remember that triplets are just playing 3 notes in the time it usually takes to play two. Once you have mastered these subdivisions you will have to throw in rests to really have an understanding of the complexities of rhythym. Just remember that there are a finite way in which each beat can be subdivided. A good way to introduce youself to beats is to play the snare drum. You can go to the Vic Firth website listed below to get a feel for how each of these subdivsions and how the subdivisions that include rests, that were not written out here, sound. Once you can sing these rhythms or at least some of them out loud, you can start using these as a foundation for the scratches you develop.

Find a mixer that has a curve adjustment. This means that the crossfader does not have to be exactly in the middle before the sound is fully crossed over into the new channel. You dont absolutely have to have one of these mixers, but they make mixing a lot easier later on when you start doing advanced techniques.

Find a slipmat to put between the turntable's table and the record. This allows the record to spin freely. (Most turntables come with a rubber disc that keeps the record in place and you don't want it.) You want to be able to put a finger or your hand on the record and stop the record from moving without stopping the whole platter from moving. If you have a cheaper set of turntables you may need to cut additional pieces of plastic, wax or parchment paper (plastic carrier bags from the supermarket works really well) in circles that fit under the slipmat in order to reduce the fricion enough so that the platter does not stop when the record is stopped. You can buy a product called "majic carpets" that will help reduce friction. If you want to use your own slipmats or have a problem with stoppage or you can pick up a product called "butter rugs" and just use those as your permanent slipmat. You may still need to reduce the friction further but it depends on your taste and equipment.

Pick up some scratch records. You can use a cappella records or records that you already have and try and find a sample to use, but most DJs normally end up picking up a few scratch records to use in practice and battles. Most scratch records have a series of samples and then a beat and then some more samples and a different beat and so on. Dont just buy any record you find online, it's best to listen to the records to make sure they have something on it that is usable in your practice/performance. There are records that are unskippable which basically means that they repeat the samples in a way that if your needle skips (as it will) you will remain on the sounds you are trying to use. If you don't have an unskippable record, then try and wear in the record a little by finding the samples that you like and then pushing the record back and forth to get the needle and the groove groovin, baby.

Find a sample or sound on your record to practice scratching on. Longer sounds are the best.

Put the needle on the record and let it play until right before the sound.

Take a marker or sticker and put it somewhere on the record so you will have a visual cue to where the sample starts. It does not have to be on the vinyl itself. You can put it on the paper and when you get better you can worry about marking up your records with stickers that actually go on the vinyl itself in order to allow you to just place the needle on the paper and have the sounds cued up.

Start with no fader movement; just the hand on the record. When doing these scratches, first do them to a slower beat and then get faster and faster as you go along. When you are able to do them at a good speed, try and vary the rythyms by throwing in rests to the beats you develop.
Allow the sample to play at normal speed forward.

Stop the record with your hand or finger after the sound finishes playing and then slowly bring the record backwards at close to the same speed as it played forward. Pretend that you just hit reverse on your turntable and try to mimic the sound it would make.

Put on another song and do this to the beat.

Keep your hand on the record and slowly push the record forward; do it backward at the same speed. Then do this to the music.

Push the record forward over the sample instead of allowing the sound to play at regular speed or slowing it down. You will get a high pitched sound. Do the same for the reverse, pull it back at a similar speed. Then, do this to music. This is known as the baby scratch.

Tips
Rent/buy qbert's Do It Yourself Skratching Volumes 1 and 2
Rent/buy DJ Shortee's DJ 101 and DJ 102
Search for DJ performances on the internet
Go to the DMC website and see past winners of the yearly competition for the best DJs.
Protect your ears so you don't go deaf later on.
Don't use drugs or drink.

Warnings
Protect your ears! Wear earphones or earplugs if you have to play with the volume turned up.

from wikihow.com

Dilated Peoples Rapidshare Megaupload

2006-11-21T10:13:00.000-08:00

the platform
http://rapidshare.de/files/37291887/all_movements_start_underground.rar
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=WGSX8JP9
http://files.filefront.com/DPPlatzip.../fileinfo.html

Neighborhood Watch
http://rapidshare.de/files/2647175/Neighborhood_Watch__2004_.part1.rar.html
http://rapidshare.de/files/2647485/Neighborhood_Watch__2004_.part2.rar.html
http://rapidshare.de/files/2647841/Neighborhood_Watch__2004_.part3.rar.html
pass : chill

20-20
http://rapidshare.de/files/16412757/20-20.rar
http://download.yousendit.com/8231323723435972

Method Man & Redman - Blackout Rapidshare

2006-11-20T09:37:00.000-08:00

This one is not actually underground hip-hop, but it's kinda hip-hop classic, so i post it here. btw, it's not that easy to find this album for free download. if you got some megaupload, sendspace, rapidshare links - let me know

Method Man & Redman - Blackout

Del the Funky Homosapien - Profile + Bio + Rapidshare

2006-11-19T02:23:00.000-08:00

Del was born and raised in Oakland. In 1991, Del, with his cousin Ice Cube’s support and with part of Ice Cube's backing band Da Lench Mob, made his first solo album, I Wish My Brother George Was Here, marking the first appearance of Del's crew Hieroglyphics. Despite mixed reviews, the album was generally well received. Del, however, was unhappy with the album, believing it was over-produced and phony. He decided to break away from Ice Cube's influence on his next album, No Need for Alarm, a break which (along with their disappointment in demos for his 3rd LP) caused the record label Elektra to drop Del's contract.

In 1998, Hieroglyphics came out with their first full length album, Third Eye Vision. This album was well received by both fans and critics[citation needed]. Two years later, Del came out with Both Sides of the Brain, and in 2000 he released Deltron 3030 with Dan “the Automator” Nakamura and Kid Koala, which garnered praise from critics[citation needed] and helped expand Del's audience. This project was particularly interesting because the CD was a work of science fiction, telling stories about life and hip hop in the year 3030.

Del collaborated with Gorillaz for two songs on their debut album, both of which became singles: "Clint Eastwood" and "Rock the House". In their videos he was portrayed as a ghost. Del later commented on the success of "Clint Eastwood" by saying that he actually wrote the song with the book "How to Write a Hit Song," a book that he bought with a coupon his mother gave him[citation needed]. After the song went platinum he gave the plaque to his mother[citation needed]. As part of Russel Hobbs' backstory, the character of Del was one of Russel's friends that was gunned down in a drive-by shooting, whose ghost possessed Russel. When Del was not invited to work on the Demon Days album, a story was written that Del and the other spirits that possessed Russel were exorcised in 2003.

Most recently, 2003 saw the release of Full Circle, a second album with the Hieroglyphics crew. This latest album has received mixed reviews[citation needed].

In 2004 Elektra released "The Best of Del The Funky Homosapien: The Elektra Years" -- without the approval of Del. The CD only includes songs from his first two albums, along with a handful of b-sides from that era. Del was not pleased and advised people to not buy the CD, saying it was just Elektra trying to make money off of him due to his newfound fame.

Together with his crew, Del has established his own independent record label, Hieroglyphics Imperium, which primarily consists of Hieroglyphics and a few other artists with whom the group collaborates regularly.

Del’s lyrics often reflect his interests, offering humor and themes that differ from mainstream hip hop. His songs have discussed video games, bad hygiene, intergalactic rap battles, and more. In 2000, the song "Jaw Gymnastics", featuring Casual, was featured in the game Knockout Kings. In 2000, the song "Positive Contact" from Deltron 3030 was featured in the game Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX. In 2001, the song "If You Must" was featured in the game Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3. In 2003, the song "Positive Contact" from Deltron 3030 was featured in the game Tony Hawk's Underground. In 2005, the song "Burnt" featuring Hieroglyphics was featured in the game Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland. In 2006, the song "Catch A Bad One" was used in the game Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure. Also in 2006 his song "Dr. Bombay" was used in commercials for the movie Beerfest and more recently his song "At the Helm" was featured in commercials for Tony Hawk's Project 8.

Currently there is a DVD available called 11th Hour, which DVD contains some live footage, footage of him in the studio and around the house, as well as footage of him recording 11th Hour.

According to an interview with Del on the latest edition of the Hierocast, Hiero's official podcast, progress has been made on 11th Hour and the beats and the cuts for the sequel to Deltron 3030 are complete.

from wikipedia.org

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien [2000] Both Sides of the Brain Rapidshare

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien-I wish my brother george was here megaupload

Deltron 3030 Rapidshare

What is Turntablism? - Definition & History

2006-11-16T05:30:00.000-08:00

Turntablism is the art of manipulating sounds and creating music using phonograph turntables and an audio mixer. The term was created in 1994 by DJ Supreme to describe the difference between a DJ who just plays records, and one who actually performs, by touching and moving the records to manipulate sound. The word was never meant to be the actual title of the art form. It was regularly stated as an example, while explaining the need for a new word to describe a newly emerging and totally unique instrumental artform. The intention was for the original creators of the artform to confer, and decide on a title. While the idea of the need for a new word spread, some DJs just began to use the example word "turntablist" before the originators had a chance to proclaim an actual title.

DJ Babu has defined a turntablist as "One who has the ability to improvise on a phonograph turntable. One who uses the turntable in the spirit of a musical instrument;" while the Battlesounds documentary film suggests a definition of :"A musician, a hip-hop disc jockey who in a live/spontaneous situation can manipulate or restructure an existing phonograph recording (in combination with an audio mixer) to produce or express a new composition that is unrecognisable from its original ingredients."

Turntablist DJs use turntable techniques like scratching or beat juggling in the composition of original musical works. Turntablism is generally focused more on turntable technique and less on mixing. Some turntablists seek to have themselves recognized as legitimate musicians capable of interacting and improvising with other performers.

The history of the turntable being used as a musical instrument has its roots dating back to the 1940s and 1950s when musique concrète and other experimental composers (such as John Cage and Pierre Schaeffer), used them in a manner similar to that of today's producers and DJs, by essentially sampling and creating music that was entirely produced by the turntable.

Even earlier, Edgard Varèse experimented with turntables in 1930, though he never formally produced any works using them. This school of thought and practice is not directly linked to the current definition of hip hop-related turntablism, though it has had an influence on modern experimental sound artists such as Christian Marclay, Otomo Yoshihide, Philip Jeck and Janek Schaefer. These artists are the direct descendants of people like John Cage and Pierre Schaeffer and are often credited as a variant to the modern turntablist DJ and producer.

Turntablism as a modern art form and musical practice has its roots within hip hop and Hip Hop culture of the early 1970s. It stems from one of the culture's "four pillars" - DJing (see "four elements," Hip Hop Culture). Scratching was already widely spread within Hip Hop by DJs and producers by the time turntablists started to appear.

Kool DJ Herc, Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash are widely credited for having cemented the now established role of DJ as Hip Hop's foremost instrumentalist (and historically the genre's only instrumentalist). Kool Herc's invention of break-beat deejaying is generally regarded as the foundational development in Hip Hop history, as it gave rise to all other elements of the genre. His influence on the of concept of "DJ as turntablist" is equally profound. To understand the significance of this achievement, it is important to first define the "break." Briefly, the "break" of a song is a musical fragment only seconds in length, which typically takes the form of an "interlude" in which all or most of the music stops except for the percussion. The break is roughly equivalent to the song's "climax," as it is meant to be the most exciting part of a song before returning once more to its finale (usually a return to the main chorus). In addition to raising the audience's adrenaline level, the percussion-heavy nature of the break makes it the most danceable as well, if only for seconds at a time. Kool Herc introduces the break-beat technique as a way of extending the break indefinitely. This is done by buying two of the same record and switching from one to the other on the DJ mixer: e.g., as record A plays, the DJ quickly backtracks to the same break on record B, which will again take the place of A at a specific moment in which the audience will not notice that the DJ has switched records.

Kool Herc's revolutionary technique set the course for the development of turntablism as an art form in significant ways. Most important, however, he develops a new form of deejaying that does not consist of playing and mixing records one after the other (incidentally, the type of DJ that specializes in mixing is well-respected for his own set of unique skills, but this is still deejaying in the traditional sense). Rather, Kool Herc originates the idea of creating a sequence for his own purposes, introducing the idea tof the DJ as the "feature" of parties, whose performance on any given night would be examined critically by the crowd.

However it was Grand Wizard Theodore, an apprentice of Flash, who accidentally isolated the single most important technique in turntablism: scratching. He put his hand on a record one day, to silence the music on the turntable while his mother was calling out to him and thus accidentally discovered the sound of scratching by moving the record back and forth under the stylus. Though Theodore discovered scratching, it was Flash who helped push the early concept and showcase it to the public, in his live shows and on recordings.

DJ Grand Mixer DXT is also credited with furthering the concept of scratching by practicing the rhythmic scratching of a record on one or more (usually two) turntables abd using different velocities to alter the pitch of the note or sound on the recording (Alberts 2002). DXT appeared ( as DST ) on Herbie Hancock's hit song "Rockit."

Together these early pioneers cemented the fundamental practice that would later become one of the pillars of the emerging turntablist artform. Scratching would during the 1980s become a staple of hip hop music, being used by producers and DJs on records and in live shows. By the end of the 1980s it was very common to hear scratching on a record, generally as part of the chorus of a track or within its production. On stage the DJ would provide the music for the MCs to rhyme to, scratching records during the performance and showcasing his skills alongside the verbal skills of the MC. The most well known example of this 'equation' of MCs and DJ is probably Run DMC who were composed of two MCs and one DJ. The DJ, Jam Master Jay (RIP), was an integral part of the group and his scratching an integral part of their productions and performances.

The appearance of turntablists and the birth of Turntablism was prompted by one major factor - the disappearance of the DJ in hip hop groups, on records and in live shows at the turn of the 1990s. This disappearance has been widely documented in books and documentaries (such as Black Noise and Scratch The Movie), and was linked to the increased use of DAT tapes and other studio techniques that would ultimately push the DJ further away from the original hip hop equation of the MC as the vocalist and the DJ as the music provider alongside the producer. This push and disappearance of the DJ meant that the practices of the DJ, such as scratching, went back underground and were cultivated and built upon by a generation of people who grew up with hip hop, DJs and scratching. By the mid-90s the disappearance of the DJ in hip hop had created a sub-culture which would come to be known as Turntablism and which focused entirely on the DJ utilising his turntables and a mixer to manipulate sounds and create music. By pushing the practice of DJing away, hip hop created the grounds for this sub-culture to be birthed and evolve.

The origin of the terms Turntablist and Turntablism are widely contested and argued about, though over the years some facts have been established by various documentaries (Battlesounds, Scratch The Movie), books (DJ Culture), conferences (Skratchcon 2000) and interviews in online and printed magazines. These facts are that the origins of the words most likely lay with practitioners on the US West Coast, centered around the San Francisco Bay Area. Some claim that DJ Disk, a member of the Invisibl Skratch Piklz, was the first to coin the term, others claim that DJ Babu, a member of the Beat Junkies, was responsible for coining and spreading the term Turntablist after inscribing it on his mixtapes and passing them around. Additional claims credit DJ Supreme, a UK DJ and producer for the group Hijack, though the claims that the terms were birthed in the Bay Area are the most widely acknowledged and established ones. The truth most likely lies somewhere in between all these facts.

In an interview with the Spin Science online resource in 2005, DJ Babu added the following comments about the birth and spread of the term:

Spin Science: First thing was about your role in the spread of the word turntablist. I'm sure you must have spoken on it many times, but I was wondering if you could give us some details about how it all came about, as you're widely credited for birthing the term in a way. DJ Babu: Well I humbly accept the position I've now been given for this whole thing, but I want to stress that I was just part of a whole load of DJs who really made this whole thing happen. People like DST are in a way those who really deserve the credit for it all because they gave the bug to scratch to our whole generation, he started it by being part of the Herbie Hancock band and doing his thing on 'Rockit'. Without him and the other pioneers, probably none of us would have got into this thing. After that well... It was around 95, I was heavily into the whole battling thing, working on the tables constantly, mastering new techniques and scratches, and all the while working in a gas station and spending my spare time concentrating on all these things. One day I made this mixtape called 'Comprehension', and on there was a track called 'Turntablism' which featured Melo-D and D-Styles. And this is part of where this whole thing about turntablist came from. This was a time where all these new techniques were coming out, like flares and stuff, and there were probably 20 people or so, in around California between Frisco and LA, who knew about these. So we worked on them, talked about it and kicked about the ideas that these techniques and new ways of scratching gave us. And what I would do is write 'Babu the Turntablist' on tapes I was making at the time, and somehow it got out a bit, the media got hold of it and it blew into this whole thing we now know. But it was really nothing to start with. We'd all talk about these new scratches and how they really started to allow us to use the turntable in a more musical way, how it allowed us to do more musical compositions, tracks, etc. and then we'd think about how people who play the piano are pianists, and so we thought "we're turntablists in a way, because we play the turntable like these people do the piano or any other instrument". Beyond that, it was just me writing 'Babu the Turntablist', because it was something I did to make my tapes stand out. I'd just get my marker pen out and write it on there.

So by the mid to late 1990s the terms Turntablism and Turntablist had become established and accepted as defining the practice, and practitioner, of using turntables and a mixer to create or manipulate sounds and music. This could be done by scratching a record or manipulating the rhythms on the record either by drumming, looping or beat juggling.

The decade of the 1990s is also important in shaping the Turntablist artform and culture as it saw the emergence of pioneering artists (D-Styles, Q-Bert, A-Trak, Ricci Rucker, Mike Boo, Tony Vegas, Prime Cuts) and crews (Invisibl Skratch Piklz, Bullet Proof Scratch Hamsters, Beat Junkies, The Allies, The Scratch Perverts, X-Ecutioners), record labels (Bomb Hip Hop, Asphodel, Tableturns), DJ Battles (DMC, ITF) and the evolution of scratching and other turntablist practices.

More sophisticated methods of scratching were developed during that decade, with crews and individual DJs concentrating on the manipulation of the record in time with the manipulation of the cross fader on the mixer to create new rhythms and sonic artefacts with a variety of sounds. The evolution of scratching from a fairly simple sound and simple rhythmic cadences to more complicated sounds and more intricate rhythmical patterns allowed the practitioners to further evolve what could be done with scratching musically. These new ways of scratching were all given names, from flare to crab or orbit, and spread as DJs taught each other, practiced together or just showed off their new techniques to other DJs.

Alongside the evolution of scratching, which deserves an article in itself, other practices such as drumming (or scratch drumming) and beat juggling were also evolved significantly during the 1990s.

Beat Juggling was invented, or discovered if you will, by Steve Dee, a member of the X-Men (later renamed X-Ecutioners) crew. Beat Juggling essentially involves the manipulation of two identical or different drum patterns on two different turntables via the mixer to create a new pattern. A simple example would be for example to use two copies of the same drum pattern to evolve the pattern by doubling the snares, syncopating the drum kick, adding rhythm and variation to the existing pattern. From this concept, which Steve Dee showcased in the early 90s at DJ battles, Beat Juggling evolved throughout the decade to the point where by the end of it, it had become an intricate technique to create entirely new 'beats' and rhythms out of existing, pre-recorded ones. These were now not just limited to using drum patterns, but could also consist of other sounds - the ultimate aim being to create a new rhythm out of the pre-recorded existing ones. While Beat Juggling is not as popular as scratching, due to the more demanding rhythmical knowledge it requires, it has proved popular within DJ Battles and in certain compositional situations.

One of the earliest academic studies of the turntable (White 1996) argued for its designation as a legitimate electronic musical instrument -- a manual analog sampler -- and described turntable techniques such as backspinning, cutting, scratching and blending as basic to the repertoire of the virtuoso hip hop DJ. White demonstrated that the proficient hip hop DJ must possess many of the same skills required by trained musicians, including a keen sense of timing, sharply-developed hand-eye coordination, technical competence and creativity with his material.

By the year 2000 Turntablism and turntablists had become widely publicised and accepted in the mainstream and within hip hop as valid artists. Through this recognition came further evolution.

This evolution took many shapes and forms: some continued to concentrate on the foundations of the artform and its original links to Hip Hop culture, some became producers utilising the skills they'd learnt as turntablists and incorporating those into their productions, some concentrated more on the DJing aspect of the artform by combining turntablist skills with the trademark skills of club DJs, while others explored alternative routes in utilising the turntable as an instrument or production tool solely for the purpose of making music - either by using solely the turntable or by incorporating it into the production process alongside tools such as drum machines, samplers, computer software, and so on.

In the 1990s, turntablism achieved new levels of attention. Dedicated DJs had gradually refined the practice, and it expanded on its own, apart from the MCs who had largely neglected DJing as rap developed.

New DJs/turntablists/crews like DJ Craze, Roc Raida, DJ Focus, DJ Q-Bert, Gunkhole, DJ Woody, A-Trak, Noisy Stylus, D-Styles, Birdy Nam Nam and Kid Koala owe a distinct debt to Old School DJs like DJ Kool Herc, Grand Wizard Theodore, Grandmaster Flash, DJ Jazzy Jeff, DJ Cash Money, Afrika Bambaataa and DJs of the golden age of hip hop, who originally developed many of the concepts and techniques that evolved into modern turntablism.

Within the realm of hip hop, notable modern turntablists are the cinematic DJ Shadow, who influenced Diplo and RJD2, among others, and the experimental DJ Spooky, whose Optometry albums showed that the turntablist can perfectly fit within the classic jazz setting.

Jurassic 5 members Cut Chemist (who left the group in 2005 to concentrate on his solo career) and DJ Nu-Mark, Kid Koala, and Mix Master Mike, who collaborated with the Beastie Boys on 1998's Hello Nasty and To The 5 Boroughs in 2004 and was also a founding member the Invisibl Skratch Piklz, are also known as virtuoso of the turntables.

Like many other musical instrumentalists, turntablists compete to see who can develop the fastest, most innovative and most creative approaches to their instrument. The selection of a champion comes from the culmination of battles between turntablists.

Battling involves each turntablist performing a routine (A combination of various technical scratches, beat juggles, and other elements, including body tricks) within a limited time period, after which the routine is judged by a panel of experts. The winner is selected based upon score. These organized competitions evolved from actual old school "battles" where DJs challenged each other at parties, and the "judge" was usually the audience, who would indicate their collective will by cheering louder for the DJ they thought performed better. Often, the winner kept the loser's equipment and/or records.

from wikipedia.org

dead prez Profile / Bio

2006-11-15T05:54:00.000-08:00

dead prez is the pair of underground alternative rappers stic.man and M-1. They have become known largely for their hard-hitting style and politically active lyrics, focusing on racism, critical pedagogy, activism against governmental hypocrisy, and corporate control over the media, especially hip-hop record labels. dead prez made their stance clear on their first album, declaring on the lead song, "I'm A African" that the group is "somewhere between N.W.A. and P.E.".

In 1990, M-1 headed to Tallahassee to attend FAMU (Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University) where he and stic.man met and connected due to their mutual love of music and knowledge. "I was soaking up the Black Panther Party as a whole," M-1 remembers. "I learned about their lives and it helped mold me."

"I realized there's a struggle already going on and I have to try to help ride it out," interjects stic.man. M-1's quest for insight led him to join the International Democratic People’s Uhuru Movement (InPDUM) in Chicago for three years while stic.man remained behind in Florida and started getting into trouble. Burned out by the arduous labor of Uhuru, M-1 decided it was time to focus on music and stic.man agreed.

Dead prez transcribed the political education they acquired into lyrical poetry. Brand Nubian's Lord Jamar discovered them in New York and helped them sign a deal with Loud Records. But being the new kids of the block on a powerhouse label like Loud (home to the Wu-Tang Clan and Mobb Deep) wasn't easy. dead prez wasn't always Loud's top priority but that didn't stop them from building a fan base around their over-the-top performances (they've been known to ignite dollar bills and toss apples into the audiences, declaring that they must eat healthily).

Their debut album was 2000's Let's Get Free, which featured a minor hit with the song "Hip Hop" from the year before. The album was critically well-received, and included intense political diatribes featuring prominent black activist Omali Yeshitela, as well as "Animal in Man" - a retelling of George Orwell's Animal Farm. The instrumental version of their song "Hip Hop" was used as Dave Chappelle's entrance music for his show on Comedy Central, and can be heard on every episode. In 2001 they collaborated with The Coup, another politically active hip-hop outfit, to release Get Up. In 2002, dead prez released the independent mix tape Turn off the Radio: The Mixtape Vol. 1, followed by the release of Turn off the Radio: The Mixtape Vol. 2: Get Free or Die Tryin' in 2003. In 2004, Columbia Records finally released Revolutionary But Gangsta. They were featured performers on the film Dave Chappelle's Block Party, released in 2006. In 2006, they and former 2Pac collaborators the Outlawz will jointly release an album titled Can't Sell Dope Forever.

Some of dead prez's fan base have accused them of giving up on their revolutionary aspects, in exchange for their 'Gangsta' side after Revolutionary But Gangsta was released, while others say the group has begun to emphasize their black nationalism (especially in the Turn Off the Radio mixtapes) over their original views of radical socialism, and that this is alienating to previous fans of their work. It is worth noting that cultural nationalism of the sort evident in many of dead prez's songs was heavily criticized by the Black Panthers (which dead prez also claims to uphold), as was described in Panther Bobby Seale's Seize the Time, in which Seale describes Panther Minister of Defense Huey Newton's condemnation of the "jive-ass cultural nationalism" of Kwanzaa founder Ron Karenga. Even still, other fans insist that the revolutionary lyrics are still prominent.

Critics also accuse the group of lifestylism, the practice of adopting superficial attributes of a revolutionary culture while doing little or nothing to objectively advance revolution. They point to lyrics such as those in the song "Hell Yeah," which advocate a method of identity theft in which one person applies for and receives credentials under the name of a friend and then adds charges to a credit card linked to these credentials, as by a bank account. The description evinces a lack of actual experience with credit card fraud, since typically in such a case the friend would be held accountable for the resultant charges, resulting in substantial debt and/or damage to his credit. Lyrics such as these indicate to critics that the members of dead prez are not, in fact, professional criminals, but merely posture as such.

from wikipedia.org

RJD2 Rapidshare Downloads

2006-11-11T15:00:00.000-08:00

Constant Elevation, The Say Word Mix (Seld Released)

Aceyalone & RJD2 - Magnificent City

Your Face Or Your Kneecaps (Mixtape)

8 Million Stories

8 Million Stories (Instrumentals)
password - scalp66

Here's What's Left 12''
password - zades

In Rare Form (Unreleased Instrumentals)

The Horror Part 1
The Horror Part 2
password - zades

Deadringer

RJD2 Rapidshare Downloads

Mos Def Rapidshare & Megaupload Free MP3 Downloads

2006-11-11T14:48:00.000-08:00

1998 - Mos Def & Talib Kweli - Black Star
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VY1URW5Z

1999 - Mos Def - Black On Both Sides
http://rapidshare.de/files/22674064/mos-blk_on_bs.ace

2004 - Mos Def - The New Danger
http://khon5boqeqqecejk4k.usercash.com/
PASSWORD: http://thephoenixsspot.blogspot.com/

Mos Def Rapidshare Free MP3 Downloads

ILL BILL Is The Future Vol.2: I'm a Goon (2006, Uncle Howie Records) Full Album MP3 Rapidshare Download

2006-11-08T07:43:00.000-08:00

ILL BILL - ILL BILL Is The Future Vol.2: I'm a Goon (2006, Uncle Howie Records) Full Album MP3 Rapidshare Download

http://rapidshare.de/files/36671353/...A_Goon-VTC.rar

Tracklist:

1. Ill Bill - 'Focus On Bill'
2. Ill Bill - 'Billon$ On My Mind'
3. Ill Bill feat. Raekwon - 'Brazil'
4. La Coka Nostra - 'It's a Beautiful Thing'
5. Ill Bill - '21'
6. Ill Bill feat. Slaine, Sick Jacken - 'Violent Times'
7. Ill Bill feat. Raekwon - 'Enemy (Remix)'
8. Ill Bill feat. Big Noyd - 'Street Villains'
9. Ill Bill feat. Born Unique & Killa Sha - 'Stick N Move (Remix)'
10. Ill Bill & Skam2 - 'Push The Button'
11. Ill Bill feat. Block McCloud & MF Grimm - 'Karma'
12. La Coka Nostra feat. B-Real & Sick Jacken - 'Fuck Tony Montana'
13. Ill Bill & Big Left - 'La Coka Starsky & Hutch'
14. Raekwon - Cocaine World
15. Ill Bill feat. Verbal Kent & Lance Ambu - 'Dead Serious'
16. Ill Bill feat. Raekwon & Skam2 - 'Thousands To M's (Remix)'
17. Ill Bill & El Gant - 'Metal Music'
18. Ill Bill & Mad Joker - 'Keep Firin'
19. La Coka Nostra - 'This Is War'
20. Ill Bill & Onry Ozzborn - 'Goons & Assassins'

Equipment used for making underground hip hop beats (RJD2, RZA, Madlib, Dj Vadim, Dj Krush, etc)

2006-09-29T03:10:00.000-07:00

Famous underground hip-hop beatmakers talk on the equipment they use. Here are the quotes:

RJD2: I use an MPC 2000XL and two 1200 turntables. That's all you need. That's what I used to make Deadringer on. I'm not computer literate. So I don't fuck with ProTools or anything.

RZA: As far as the equipment, when I'm scoring I basically use a lot of different keyboards because I'm looking for certain sounds, certain vibes, certain things and some of these sounds you may not hear in Hip-Hop. For this particular score I used mostly a keyboard called Korg Triton and used some older material, MV8000, which I use for Hip-Hop, as well, but I use it in a different capacity for the scoring. And not only am I using Pro Tools but I use Logic and other programs, as well. One machine may not have the right vibe for the scene and then you gotta try another machine or try a different sound that may not be available on SoundLink.

Necro: THE BEST SHIT IN THE WORLD, $1,000 AN HOUR STUDIOS, BUT THE ASR 10 DOES THE JOB FOR MAKING BEATS EVEN THOUGHT THE REBOOTING SHIT GETS ANNOYING

Madlib, J Dilla, Clouddead: The Roland Boss Dr.Sample SP-303

9th Wonder, Little Brother: The programs we use are Cool Edit Pro and FL Studio. Those are the two programs that we use, and that's what we did the whole album on.

Dj Krush: To create tracks I used to exploit the AKAI S-1000, Roland MC-50 and SP-1200 as my main equipment, but I can now say that Ableton Live has completely taken over. At times, I sample once with the SP-1200 and then resample with Live.

MF Doom: I did all the of album (Operation Doomsday) on the Roland VS 1681 as far as recording and MPC2000 studio plus. Did all the tricks on those two bad boys.

Dj Vadim: In terms of equipment, its all done on a Mac G4 Cubase VST 5 with loads of compressors, eq's, valve stuff, MPC 3000, SP1200, AKAI 3000xl. Loads of keyboards like Clav, Rhodes, Wurly, Mini Moog, Nord lead, Oberheim DBX, Hammond b3, guitar pedals and Kaos pads.

Danger Mouse: However, Danger Mouse will say that a couple of his favorite keyboards of the moment are a Korg MS-2000 and a Roland Saturn 09. “Money Mark [who plays on Dangerdoom] has been getting me more into a lot of stuff keyboardwise,” he says. As for software, DM has used Digidesign Pro Tools and Apple Logic in other people's studios, but he prefers Sony Acid Pro at home. “I used to use old samplers and a lot of old drum machines and samplers, and then I made a switch years back,” DM says. “I basically use that program now in the same way I used those.” Although DM buys a new PC every year, it's not to increase his processing power. “I use very basic PCs,” he says. “I don't have any special soundcards or anything. The reason I get a new one every year is because there always winds up being some fucked-up virus or some kind of crash, or something ends up broken on it, so I wind up getting a new one all the time.”

How to Rap Freestyle / Freestyle Rapping Tips

2006-09-24T09:48:00.000-07:00

1. Listen to previous freestyle flows and battles by great artists (e.g., rappers like Jin, Jay-Z, Yusaf, Benefit, Rakim, Big L, Eminem, and any other great artist that spits hardcore rap).

2. Understand the techniques those artists use to flow and battle, which will help you enhance those techniques yourself.

3. Start writing rhymes. Write down anything that comes to mind and try to rhyme it. Using your emotions is a good way to describe what you're feeling when you spit or write lyrics. Make sure you eat a hearty meal before attempting a battle.

4. Practice free-styling -- anytime, anywhere, as much as you can. Even if you run out of things to freestyle about, just continue spitting, no matter how wack you think you sound. It helps you develop better rhymes and your mind becomes more focused on what sounds good when you spit. It's like a mental workout. So always practice spitting anywhere.

5. Once you've noticed you can spit on spot (when you want to), try to spit about more specific things. Direct your raps toward things that bother you or upset you. Anything you dislike or want to talk about, try to spit about it. Once again, practice this until you feel you've got it down.

6. Start freestyle battling. The first step to freestyle battling is to practice the first 5 techniques in a battle against a friend or someone who it wouldn't matter to if you messed up. Constantly battle like that with people, especially if you can find a friend who is actually good at battling so they can teach how to improve what you lack. Again, continue to practice this until other friends you know (especially those into hip-hop music) think you're pretty good.

7. Have your first real battle against someone you at least somewhat dislike. If you can find someone who just gets you emotional or who angers you, it makes it easier to flow about them. You want to make sure when you flow about them you include 3 major things.

- Metaphors - Making comparisons with your target (the person you're battling) to something that denigrates them.
- Disses - Saying things that either make fun of them in general (e.g., how they dress, speak, spit, look, walk, talk, act, or their personality) or about them personally (e.g., the way they live, their past, their lifestyle, weaknesses about them, anything that directly goes against them in a way that makes fun of them).
- Punch-Lines - a Punch-Line basically is a bar (2 lines you spit) that incorporates a Metaphor, Dis, and/or anything else to enhance the flow directed at your opponent.

8. Don't worry if you lose your first few real battles, the point is to constantly practice spitting. Continue practicing until you've got it down. And pay attention to how other people spit whom the crowd/judges enjoy. There are many techniques to battling, but these are just the basics.

Tips
- If someone beats you in a battle and it gets to you, practice more until you think you're really ready. Then challenge them again: if you win, you will earn a lot of respect back. It's a great feeling, and chicks or dudes will dig your system and flair.
- When you think you lost it, don't worry - just relax. The worst thing to do is freak out. Just relax and keep going. You might still ace it.
- While your opponent is rapping, think how you can come back to what he says, so you get a better punchline.

Warnings
"Spit" as used in the context of this article is a synonym for rapping, not the forcible expulsion of saliva from the mouth. Please do not practice the latter kind of spitting; it does not make you look nearly as cool.

from wikihow.com

Paris Hilton was targeted by Banksy

2006-09-24T09:09:00.000-07:00

Controversial artist Banksy has targeted Paris Hilton with his latest stunt.

The Bristol born artist, famous for his distinctive graffiti artwork, tampered with 500 copies of Hilton's debut album in 48 record stores across the UK.

Banksy replaced the official CD with his own remixes, giving the tracks titles such as Why am I Famous?, What Have I Done? and What Am I For?.

The CD artwork was also doctored to show Hilton 'topless' on the album sleeve and with a dog's head in other images.

The tampered CDs still retained the original barcode and were purchased by unwitting customers.

Obviously considered artwork by some, the altered CDs have now appeared on eBay.

One auction, by seller 'thiethooitbeg', hit £298 before the listing was cancelled by the auction site because it "contravened eBay regulations". The relisted item is currently selling for £97.

Another listing by 'loveishell2005' with a starting price of £200 is currently selling for £205.

from vnunet.com

Living Legends Bio / Discography

2006-09-24T09:01:00.000-07:00

The Living Legends crew is a family of independent hip-hop creators. From primary earth bases in Los Angeles and Oakland, the Legends extend worldwide and beyond.

It all started with BFAP (now known as Sunspot Jonz) and PSC (Luckyiam), who laid claim to the name of Mystik Journeymen in the early 1990s. By '94 they were locally legendary for throwing Underground Survivors shows, houseparty style at their loft - 4001 San Leandro Street in East Oakland. That's where the Grouch hooked up with the Journeymen in 1995, just before they took off on their renowned first European tour.

Around the same time in the southern part of the state, Mid-city Los Angeles to be exact, 3 Melancholy Gypsys (Murs, Scarub & Eligh) were part of the almost mythic Log Cabin crew going back to 1993. Log Cabin later broke up and the Gypsys wandered separately. As it turned out, the 3 would cross paths again in the Bay Area and became Living Legends.

Aesop came to Oakland from Fresno, Arata from Osaka, and Bicasso from various points, East, West and elsewhere...

In 1999 the Legends shifted their center of gravity to Los Angeles, but their presence has definitely not diminished in Oakland and the Bay. You know it makes no difference where they stay because the universe revolves around them anyway. Over the years, the Journeymen and the Legends have rocked Europe, Japan, Australia and Canada numerous times, plus they've toured the USA, north and south, east coast, west coast and beyond ...

In the years since the Legends have continued releasing solo and crew projects and now have a catalog of over 50 full-length albums and numerous singles. All in all, this crew of motivated do-it-yourselfers has sold over 200,000 albums collectively. The latest crew album "Creative Differences" has turned in to their best selling album to date, (with Soundscan numbers just under 23,000 so far) and continues to sell. Other recent releases are from CMA (Grouch & Luckyiam), Scarub, and Sunspot Jonz. New projects by Eligh, 3MG, Bicasso and Aesop are expected in 2005. March 8, 2005, will see the release of the Legends highly anticipated new album "Classic," a project the crew got together to record earlier this year. That was the first time in recent memory all 8 members were together with the purpose of recording a new project and what came out of those sessions is definitely their strongest material yet. Expect to see them spring 2005 coming to a city near you on tour promoting the new project. The group has no plans to let up, they're only turning up the fire, see if you can keep up. Legends Baby!!!!

Discography
Down For Nothing 12" (2005)
Classic (2005)
Blast Your Radio 12" (2004)
Awakening 12" (2004)
Damn It Feels Good 12" (2004)
Creative Differences (2004)
Crappy Old Shit (2003)
Almost Famous (2001)
Gotta Question For Ya 12" (2001)

from legendarymusic.net

Talib Kweli Rapidshare / Megaupload / Sendspace Full Albums / Mixtapes MP3 Downloads

2006-09-24T08:27:00.000-07:00

Talib Kweli-Reflection Eternal
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=38WHIBUW
OR http://www.megaupload.com/?d=UVNY8A9A

Talib Kweli & Mos Def are-Blackstar
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=22UDW0ID
OR http://storeandserve.com/download/263902/Mos_Def_&_Talib_Kweli_-_Black_Star_(UPLOAD_BY_DJ_HARDCORE).rar.html

Talib Kweli-Quality
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=26C7A9CM
OR http://www.megaupload.com/?d=TEGH2LMQ

Talib Kweli-Beautiful Mixtape vol. 1
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=24KKKVJE

Talib Kweli-Beautiful mixtape vol. 2
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=221CX72R

Talib Kweli & Hi Tek - Train OF Thought
http://www.sendspace.com/file/5y8fr5

Talib Kweli - Beautiful Struggle
http://rapidshare.de/files/16648631/Talib_Kweli-The_Beautiful_Struggle-2004-RTB.rar.html
OR http://www.megaupload.com/?d=S3R2F0RF

Talib Kweli - Right About Now
http://rapidshare.de/files/12966476/Talib_Kweli_Right_About_Now.rar.html

Talib Kweli - The Taliban
http://files.filefront.com/TKTTrar/;4618965;;/fileinfo.html

Talib Kweli & Rakim - Getting Up
http://www.sendspace.com/file/56e3lh

Talib Kweli - Kwelity Music
http://rapidshare.de/files/23649906/TK-KM.rar.html

Talib Kweli - Confidential
http://www.sendspace.com/file/8ud3a8

Peanut Butter Wolf Presents Chrome Children Rapidshare Download

2006-09-20T09:31:00.000-07:00

1. Oh No – Oh Zone
2. Guilty Simpson – Clap Your Hands
3. Madlib – Take It Back
4. Koushik – None In Mind
5. J Dilla – Nothing Like This
6. James Pants – Do a Couple of Things
7. Madvillain – Monkey Suite
8. Georgia Anne Muldrow – Simply a Joy
9. M.E.D. - All I Know
10. Dudley Perkins – Wassup World?
11. Percee P & Quasimoto – Raw Heat
12. Jaylib – No $ No Toke (aka "Blaze Up")
13. J.Rocc – Drama
14. Roc C – Movin’
15. Gary Wilson – Dreams
16. Pure Essence – Third Rock
17. Aloe Blacc – What Now
18. Baron Zen – Turned Around (PBW Remix)
19. Young Jazz Rebels - Nino's Deed

Rapidshare link UPDATED!!

Organized Konfusion Interview

2006-09-20T09:03:00.000-07:00

"When you make it a point to bring light into manifestation, you are metwith an opposite force of darkness," hypothesizes Pharaoh Monch, one halfof the severely under appreciated hip-hop group Organized Konfusion. "Let’s say I attest that there is a truth and the truth is…’If you put yourhand to the fire you will get burned.’ If someone stands to gainfinancially or whatever from people getting burned, they will make it apoint to lie and be like…’That’s not necessarily true because if you wearthis glove, you won’t get burned,’" Monch explains. Light versus dark,truth versus lies, positive versus negative- all opposite, but not alwaysequal, forces working in everyday life. When your life is hip-hop, whichforce is pushing harder? Where is your balance?

Pharaoh Monch and his lyrical comrade, Prince Poetry, are a couple ofhardheaded muthafuckas. Neither of them can boast of having a single"murder/death/kill" notch on their glocks, the death toll remains at zerofor now. Shit, last I heard, they aren’t even prone to flashin’ steel muchless bustin’ it. They also have very few "bitches" making their way throughthe revolving door of a posh hotel and up to their penthouse. Not enoughhoes are getting served…you gotta wonder why. Maybe it’s because they haveyet to pop the cork on a bottle of Cristal. Then, if they aren’t burning anacres worth of herb a day - forget about it. What are they…blind? Didsomeone forget to hip them to the formula for becoming a (in)famous hip-hop"artist?" Bitches + Blunts + Bustin’ Steel = Beaucoup Bucks. Are theytrying NOT to make some ends? Perhaps shit doesn’t go down like that forthem. You gotta wonder.

Since their eponymous debut in 1991, Organized Konfusion has been aboutelevating heads to higher echelons of emcee technique. As hip-hop was onthe verge of being swept away on billows of blunt smoke, heralding the dawnof "The Chronic" era, Organized were on some straight cerebralmanipulation of a different fashion. They extended the mind-fuck on 1994’svirtually ignored Stress - the extinction agenda (Hollywood BASIC). Imaginethis…academically enhanced, urban intelligentsia stilos executed overbutter smooth production, leaving the average listener cramming tounderstand and the active listener - awestruck. On both previous albums,folks were hit with some old next shit.

Emerging from a three year hiatus, the group has just dropped theircinematic opus, The Equinox (Priority). Using several skits interspersedthroughout the fourteen musical tracks, The Equinox tells the story ofLife and Malice, two friends careening towards adulthood, faced with everyexternal and internal obstacle imaginable. Life and Malice are two sides ofthe same coin, good and bad, pleasure and pain, hope and despair,understanding and confusion. In short, and as the title of the albumimplies, they represent balance. The songs on the album also reflect thatbalance. From the battle rhymes of "Questions" and "Confrontations,"heading towards the party mode of "Move" and "Sugah Shorty," and settlingin the troubled introspection of "Invetro" and "Hate," each song presentsdifferent facets of Life and Malice’s coexistence, illuminating every highand low that can be associated with trying to survive in this world. Thewhole story is narrated by a much older Life who comments on his pastactions with the kind of wisdom that can only be attributed to experience.The Equinox is yet another ambitious effort by a group that is known forgoing against the grain. In this age of "guns, money greed, and sex"rhymes, Organized Konfusion’s decision to stay true to form reads like adeath sentence.

"I like a lot of rappers today but 9 out of 10 of them are based off ofwitty metaphors," muses the forthcoming Prince Poetry. "’I’m this andyou’re that. I’m like a Benz and you’re like a Volkswagen buggy.’Everything is sounding stagnant." Yeah, things are sounding rather(e)motionless right now. And whether it’s nihilistic tales of gangsterismor play by play accounts of Cristal soaked parties, the vantage point israrely one actually familiar to the emcee much less his/her audience. Thesedays, most emcees put no heart in their rhymes. Consequently, hip-hop’sheart has slowed, approaching a life threatening state of inertia."People, to me, make ‘dream’ albums," continues Prince Po, his gruffbaritone voice exhibiting equal amounts of disgust and worry for thepresent state of hip-hop. "You can’t hustle everyday. You can’t hang outand party everyday. These things just don’t happen everyday. It seems likea lot of people be sellin’ themselves out for not diggin’ inside themselvesand pulling out more intellect. It just proves to me that you’re shallow."On the contrary, Monch and Po’s songs are often on some "Captain Nemo" typeformat - 20,000 leagues and under most people’s understanding of how lifeshould be portrayed on wax. We’re talking head crushing depths here."Great balls o’ fire/ I’m traveling at higher speeds to proceed topenetrate flesh/ Hitting the spleen after splitting the chest of a Queensteenager/ Pager shredded to pieces from the glock 9 inch hollow tips itreleases/ The police is in the back of the ambulance/ Blood loss as Ishook across your chest/ I rest, rupture/ I’m the slupture, slasher/ I’llbust your liver faster/ blood pours - now it’s up to the master…"-Prince Poetry, "Stray Bullet"

"The whole beauty of being a writer is to allow yourself 100% ability totouch upon infinite subject matter. To say to yourself, ‘If it could besaid…if a bullet or an unborn fetus could speak, what would it say,"explains the more reserved Pharaoh Monch, highlighting a classic rhymingm.o. for Organized Konfusion - the group’s tendency to give voice to thevoiceless, to speculate on the thoughts and feelings of persons or thingsthat don’t usually get to express themselves.

On The Equinox the group has recorded the amazing "Invetro," where Monchand Po assume the perspective of unborn twins, broadcasting live from theircrack mother’s womb. Over a Roy Ayers inspired track, Monch relays thevision of the twin who sees no chance for himself in an apocalyptic worldand would prefer to be aborted, while Po counters with the optimism of thetwin who would like to give life a shot, despite the adversity that hefaces in the womb and the trials that lie ahead. It’s all another part ofthe "balancing act" that is The Equinox. Quite frankly, the song is a thingof beauty, equally imparting utter hopelessness as well as the unfettereddetermination that it takes to get through this thing called life - evenmore profound when coming "from the mouths of babes." Thought provoking asit is, it’s no wonder that the song’s concept is one that has beenmarinating in the minds of Monch and Po for about two years."

Most of the time I second guess my statements. I try to be cautious," saysMonch, the silent intervals between his words conveying his analyticalnature. "Although it’s a conceptual song, I start to question….’Do I reallywant to say this? Am I saying that or is the character? How are peoplegonna take it?’ That matters to me." It’s THAT kind of respect, for theaudience and for the art, which distinguishes Organized Konfusion fromrun-of-the-mill emcees who will rap about anything that makes them money -fact or fiction. Sometimes it’s not all about the Benjamins."We’re making hybrids/ Created potent enough to open eyelids and leavepupils dilated…/ Now it’s easier/ Plus economically feasible for me toleave rap if it’s queasy and inebriated/ We made it/We came/ Dedicated - werated supreme/ Either with or without the cream. -Pharaoh Monch, "Questions"

With unadulterated talent and innovation acknowledged, the questionremains, "Why are Organized Konfusion still slept on?" Outside of the lovefrom their small but loyal fan base, Po and Monch are treated like they’repushing a demo. Been there - done that. Record labels still don’t know whatthe fuck to do with a group whose fans range, as Po puts it, from "b-boyswith mad jewels and diamonds" to "white kids with backpacks who rideskateboards and listen to rock music."

Prince Poetry tries to break down the record label hierarchy and how the"hard sell" gets lost in the shuffle: "There’s a big gap between thepresident and the vice president and their assistants and promoters. Thepresident and vice president generally don’t give a fuck until sales comein. But they don’t know that the person they hired to do your in-storedidn’t have your shit set up when you got there. All they know is that yourrecord is not selling and they’re ready to kick you off the label or shelfyou. They want music that will sell itself. Sex and violence sells itself.Basically, they’re on some genocide shit."

So maybe record execs are addicted to fat pockets and any money devoted topromoting "experimental" stuff could possibly mean they won’t get a thindime in return. Pharaoh Monch doesn’t see it that way. "If I was presidentand there was a song that was selling itself, I would give it a banister tolean on. But at the same time, to flip the company, I would redirect somefunds and try to make a million dollars out of the stuff that needed thesupport. If you work something like that into the program, you’re settingup a whole fuckin’ lifetime of sales for those types of groups."

As the story goes, Organized Konfusion’s record sales have not been theobject of envy. Most recently, their contract with Hollywood BASIC wasbought by the more diesel Priority Records - The Equinox is their firstPriority release. A sign of good things to come? More exposure maybe? Thatremains to be seen.

"I don’t know what Priority’s game plan was but it seemed to be ‘let’spick them up from a label that has bad distribution and make theirdistribution better.’ We’re still screwed ‘cause I walk into stores to thisday and my shit is not there," explains Prince. Not once though does eitheremcee delude himself about their "challenging" marketability. "By puttingout albums that are lyrically, emotionally, and musically versatile , Iunderstand from jump that it would be harder to market than someone justsaying ‘I’m all about fuckin’ the bitches and ice diamond rings!’"

"How did hip-hop get caught up in this ill rap game?" "In hip-hop, whothey following - the niggas with skills or the niggas who be hollerin’?"These are only two of the questions posed by Organized Konfusion on TheEquinox, but they are easily questions that every so-called emcee and everyso called hip-hop head should be asking themselves. There are a few groupslike Organized who are illuminating truth, trying to protect their peepsfrom getting burned by the "fire" that Monch talks about. Still, the powersthat be would have fools believe that true fulfillment comes in the questfor the almighty dollar. So we put on the gloves they give us, as well asthe matching jacket, skully, boots, and goggles, and we leap into theflames. We are so far removed from the days when hip-hop was about takingwhat little resources you had to lace folks with the illest rhyme, thedopest beat, the unbridled truth about life and how you live it. We nowsettle for silly rhymes, jacked beats, and fabricated lies…and all thistime, Prince Poetry and Pharaoh Monch have been diligently putting in workto insure that hip-hop remains original, artistic, and above all, honest.As Plug 1 would say, they’ve been "keepin’ it right." So while we race atbreakneck speeds to fork over dough for the next ghetto fable, one morequestion begs to be answered. Is Organized Konfusion hardheaded or are we?

from bombhiphop.com

De la Soul Rapidshare / Megaupload Full Albums MP3 Download

2006-09-20T06:12:00.000-07:00

De La Soul - 3 Feet High And Rising Rapidshare link

De La Soul - De La Soul Is Dead Rapidshare link

De La Soul - Buhloone Mind State Megaupload link

Mos Def Bio

2006-09-19T09:17:00.000-07:00

Initially regarded as one of hip-hop's most promising newcomers in the late '90s, Mos Def expanded his reach in the years to come, establishing himself as a serious actor and also making a bid to reshape the rap-rock genre. His artistic career began in the late '80s as a television actor, a profession he began directly out of high school. By the mid-'90s though, Mos Def turned to rap music as his new profession, frustrated by how little acting paid relative to rapping. Based in Brooklyn, he began affiliating himself with the local hip-hop scene, appearing on tracks by such esteemed groups as De La Soul and da Bush Babees. Following these guest appearances and some singles for Royalty (most notably "Universal Magnetic"), Mos Def began recording for the upstart Rawkus label. His first full-length album, Black Star (1998), a collaboration with Talib Kweli and DJ Hi-Tek, shook the hip-hop community, which embraced the album and spoke of a Native Tongue revival. His solo debut, Black on Both Sides (1999), did much the same a year later. For the most part though, Mos Def maintained a low profile in successive years, rediscovering his passion for acting and forming the rap-rock supergroup Black Jack Johnson.

Born in Brooklyn, Mos Def pursued the arts at a young age, excelling as a performer. After high school, he began acting in a variety of television roles, most notably appearing on a short-lived Bill Cosby series in 1994, The Cosby Mysteries. He soon grew frustrated with life as an actor and switched to rapping. Appearances on songs by De La Soul ("Big Brother Beat") and da Bush Babees ("S.O.S.") -- both released in 1996 -- began Mos Def's rap career with much propulsion. A year later, he released a single of his own for Royalty Records, "Universal Magnetic," and it created quite a stir. Soon he moved to Rawkus Records, which was just getting off the ground at the time, and began working on a full-length album with like-minded rapper Talib Kweli and beat maker DJ Hi-Tek. The resulting album, Black Star (1998), became one of the most discussed rap albums of its time. A year later came Mos Def's solo album, Black on Both Sides, and it inspired further attention and praise.

Rap groups such as De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, and Brand Nubian -- loosely known as the Native Tongue collective -- had set a precedent years earlier for socially conscious, thoughtful rap music more likely to celebrate Afrocentricity than gangsta culture. Yet these artists had fallen out of favor by the late '90s as they aged. Mos Def, on the other hand, was young and charismatic, an apparently capable and willing heir. Thus, listeners, critics, and everyone else who had heard Mos Def's work for Rawkus championed him as a sort of savior, a genuine, important MC in an age of flossin' gangstas and angry thugs. And Mos Def certainly fit the role as newly crowned king of the new-school Native Tongue artists such as Common and Kweli. However, for whatever reason -- the hype, the pressure, the attention -- he shied away from the recording studio after Black on Both Sides and began pursuing other interests.

During the early 2000s, he acted in several films (Monster's Ball, Bamboozled) and even spent some time on Broadway (the Pulitzer Prize-winning +Topdog/Underdog). He simultaneously worked on the Black Jack Johnson project with several iconic black musicians: keyboardist Bernie Worrell (Parliament/Funkadelic), guitarist Dr. Know (Bad Brains), drummer Will Calhoun (Living Colour), and bassist Doug Wimbish (the Sugarhill Gang, Grandmaster Flash, Living Colour). This project aimed to reclaim rock music, especially the rap-rock hybrid, from such artists as Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst, who Mos Def openly despised. What made Black Jack Johnson so anticipated though was not so much the supergroup roster of musicians or even Mos Def himself, but rather the lack of black rock bands. Following the demise of Living Colour, there were few, if any, that had attained substantial success. Mos Def hoped to infuse the rock world with his all-black band and during the early 2000s, he performed several small shows with his band around the New York area. In October of 2004, he finally delivered a second solo album (The New Danger), which involved Black Jack Johnson on a few tracks.

from starpulse.com

Think Differently Music Presents - Wu-Tang Meets Indie Culture Full Album MP3 + Instrumentals Download @ Rapidshare, Megaupload

2006-09-19T08:17:00.000-07:00

Tracklist
1. Lyrical Swords - GZA & Ras Kass
2. Slow Blues - Vast Aire, Timbo King, Prodigal Sunn & Byata
3. Still Grimey - Sean Price, U-God, C-Rayz Walz & Prodigal Sunn
4. Think Differently - Casual, Rock Marciano, Vordul Mega & Tragedy Khadafi
5. Biochemical Equation - RZA & MF Doom
6. O.D.B. Trinute - DJ Noize
7. Fragments - Del The Funky Homosapien
8. Street Corners - Bronze Nazareth, Solomon Childs & Byata
9. Listen - Little Khalid & Planet Asia
10. Verses - La The Darkman, Scaramanga Shallah, Ras Kass & GZA
11. Preservation - Aesop Rock & Del Tha Funky Homosapien
12. Cars On The Interstate - C.C.F. Division
13. Give It Up - J-Live & R.A. The Rugged Man
14. Black Dawn - Bronze Nazareth

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The Ultramagnetic MC's History / Bio

2006-09-19T07:58:00.000-07:00

The Ultramagnetic MC's are a rap group whose members included Kool Keith, Ced Gee, TR Love, Moe Love and later Tim Dog. Their work was associated with unorthodox sampling, polysyllabic rhymes, and bizarre lyrical imagery.

The group formed in 1984. Many believe that without the group's primary producer, Ced Gee, the sound and samples, mostly James Brown, would not have been as prominent. Their worldwide buzz started with "Ego Trippin'", their 12" single on Next Plateau Records in 1986 which featured the infamous "Substitution" drum break sample, but their break-out single was "Funky/Mentally Mad", one of the most sought 12" singles of their career. It was released in 1987. This led to the release of the album, Critical Beatdown.

The Ultramagnetic MC's released a new school classic in 1988, Critical Beatdown, with typical James Brown samples. However, they disappeared after that for several years. They returned on Mercury Records in 1992, with the album Funk Your Head Up. 1993's The Four Horsemen was considered extremely strange though still brilliant. It was the last album the Ultramagnetic MC's released.

There were several semi-legitimate and compilation albums to follow, many with outtakes or older material not released (such as The B-Sides Companion). In 2001, they released a single, "Make It Rain/Mix It Down" which whetted fans' appetites for a reunion album.

The Ultramagnetic MC's launched the career of self-proclaimed "Bronx Nigga" Tim Dog who brought out the very successful single "Fuck Compton". Kool Keith and Tim Dog reunited on the Ultramagnetic MC's semi-reunion album Big Time. Kool Keith went on to record many solo CDs, including one as Dr. Octagon. His abstract rhymes influenced many rappers, including Pharoahe Monch from Organized Konfusion.

In a December 9, 2005 interview on Houston's Late Nite Snax radio show, Kool Keith confirmed rumours that the Ultramagnetic MC's had reformed and recorded a new album. Founding Ultramagnetic MCs member Ced Gee has set up Factshen Records. A new Ultramagnetic MCs LP, Back To The Future—The Bronx Kings Are Back, is scheduled to be released in 2006. It features the original line-up of Kool Keith, Ced Gee, Moe Love, TR Love, Tim Dog, and newcomer Grafiq Malachi Sebek.

from wikipedia.org

Ultramagnetic Mc's All Albums Free mp3 Download @ Rapidshare, Sexuploader, Filefactory

2006-09-19T07:52:00.000-07:00

Ultramagnetic Mc's 'Critical Beatdown' (1988) Full Album MP3 Rapidshare Download

"Watch Me Now"
"Ease Back"
"Ego Trippin'"
"Moe Luv's Theme"
"Kool Keith Housin' Things"
"Travelling at the Speed of Thought" (Remix)
"Feelin' It"
"One Minute Less"
"Ain't It Good to You"
"Funky" (Remix)
"Give the Drummer Some"
"Break North"
"Critical Beatdown"
"When I Burn"
"Ced-Gee (Delta Force One)"

Ultramagnetic MC's - The Basement Tapes 1984-1990 (1994) Full Album MP3 Sexuploader Download

1. Make You Shake (Original Lab House Demo)
2. Space Groove
3. Get A Job
4. Ced-G, Tim-Dog (Lab Free Style)
5. Smack My Bitch Up
6. Ya Not that Large
7. You Got to Feel It
8. Crush Kill Destroy
9. Brainiac
10. Scientist
11. We're Ultra (Part III)
12. Ya Nobody
13. Ya Sleepin'
14. Smoking Dust

ULTRAMAGNETIC MC'S - FUNK YOUR HEAD UP (1992) Full Album MP3 Filefactory Download

01 Introduction to the Funk
02 Intro
03 MC Champion
04 Go 4 Yourz
05 Blast From The Past
06 Funk Radio
07 Message from the Boss
08 Pluckin' Cards
09 Intermission
10 Stop Jockin' Me
11 Dolly and the Rat Trap
12 The Old School
13 Bust the Facts
14 Murder and a Homicide
15 You Aint Real
16 Make It Happen
17 I Like Your Style
18 Bi-Lingual Teaching
19 Poppa Large
20 Moe Love on the 1 and 2
21 Porno Star
22 The P.M.R.C. ID
23 Chorus Line Pt. 2

Ultramagnetic MC's - The Four Horsemen Full Album MP3 Sexuploader Download
GBR 2xLP 1993
Label: Wild Pitch

1. We Are The Horsemen
2. Checkin My Style
3. Two Brothers With Checks (San Francisco, Harvey)
4. Raise It Up
5. Saga Of Dandy The Devil, The Devil & Day
6. Delta Force II
7. Adventures Of Herman's Lust (Moe Love III)
8. See The Man On The Street
9. Bring It Down To Earth
10. Don't Be Scared
11. One, Two, One, Two
12. Time To Catch A Body
13. Yo Black
14. Big Booty

CunninLynguists Bio

2006-09-17T04:03:00.000-07:00

CunninLynguists consists of two individuals, Deacon The Villain and Kno, who aim to make music that reminds listeners why they starting liking hip-hop in the first place. Backed with quality beats and rhymes, gritty sounds, witty lyrics, an occasional curse word and low ends that jump out the trunk like Rae Carruth, the 'Lynguists recapture the soul in southern hip-hop, with what Spin Magazine calls "Outkast's tragicomic poignancy".

Their critically acclaimed debut LP, Will Rap For Food, released in October 2001, features guest appearances by Celph Titled, Tonedeff, and others. It has recently been re-released through Caroline Distribution.

CunninLynguists were joined by Floridian emcee Mr. SOS for their 2nd LP, Southernunderground, which was independently released April 1, 2003 on Freshchest Records. Guests included Masta Ace, Supastition and others, with production from Domingo (Big Pun, KRS-One, Eminem etc.), RJD2 (Cannibal Ox, Mos Def, Copywrite etc.), and Kno. Since the release of Southernunderground, CunninLynguists have received tremendous press in various outlets including The Source, URB, Spin, XLR8R, Import Tuner, The Onion, and others. The group toured throughout the USA, Canada and Europe in 2003 and 2004 alongside acts like The Pharcyde, People Under the Stairs, Raekwon and Brand Nubian. Southernunderground's success with such limited distribution and budget helped win Freshchest Records a distribution contract with Caroline Distribution and was the first project released after inking the deal.

Hailing from Versailles, Kentucky, Deacon has also established himself as a skilled producer, having appeared on Yosumi Record's internationally distributed Game Over 2 compilation as well as The Difference LP. His beats have been blessed by the likes of KRS-One, Masta Ace, King Tee, J-Ro from The Liks, Ruck of Heltah Skeltah and many others.

Kno, hailing from Georgia and described as "one of the top loop-miners east of the Mississippi" by URB Magazine, produced the majority of Will Rap For Food and Southernunderground. He has also recieved critical acclaim in The NY Times, Rolling Stone and other magazines for his remix of Jay-Z's Black Album, entitled Kno vs. Hov : The White Albulum, with copies of the project being personally requested by Black Album producers Just Blaze and 9th Wonder. Jerry Barrow, feature editor of The Source, also praised the album. Elemental Magazine suggested Kno "[will definitely be] known by all very soon", and JuJu of the legendary hip-hop group The Beatnuts (as quoted by allhiphop.com) feels the same: Kno is an up-and-coming producer to keep an eye on. He is currently working with Jurassic 5, Chapter 13, Immortal Technique and others.

Deacon and Kno are currently working on their third release, A Piece Of Strange, which promises to raise the already high bar for quality they have set with their first two albums. The production is being handled entirely by Kno.

from true-skool.org

Planet Asia Bio

2006-09-17T03:52:00.000-07:00

Planet Asia is well known throughout the hip hop community. As a solo artist and one half of the duo Cali Agents (with Rasco), he has been tearing up airwaves and stages around the globe. Numerous banging 12-inch single releases including "Definition of ILL" (Stonesthrow 1998), "Place of Birth" (ABB 1999), "Pure Coke" (Interscope 2002), and "The Golden Age" (Threshold 2003) have ensured his place in hip hop history. In 2001, The Source Magazine named him First Round Draft Pick and gave him Independent Album of the Year credit for Cali Agents "How The West Was One".

That year, Planet Asia's fire and drive landed him a record deal with Interscope Records. Not many people out of Fresno, California, make it to a huge record label -- especially one that is home to some of the biggest artists in the world including 50 Cent, Dr. Dre, and Eminem. But being signed to such a large label definitely had its drawbacks. Interscope, with many artists on its roster and a huge bureaucracy to deal with could not focus properly on the release of Asia's CD. Even though, Planet Asia was arguably the hottest name in the underground. Despite the fact that Asia was nominated for a 2002 Grammy Award for his collaboration with hip-hop diva Mystic on "W" and even though he was called upon by multi-platinum selling rock super group Linkin Park for his vocal skills on their song "Ppr:Kut"on the highly successful "Re-Animation" LP, Interscope still could not find the time to release Asia's record. Asia also had collaborations with everyone from Black Thought of The Roots, BT, the Dub Pistols, Talib Kweli, & Ghostface Killah of Wu-Tang Clan. After waiting three years for his debut CD to be released, Planet Asia decided to take his future into his own hands. He walked away from the hottest record label in the business. It took confidence. It took determination. But most of all, it took courage.

Within days, Asia had a brand new contract. Early 2004 saw the release of Planet Asia's much anticipated and highly acclaimed debut LP, "The Grand Opening," securing yet another Independent Album of the Year credit in The Source. In November 2004, he founded Gold Chain Music with Walt Liquor and took his show on the road with the sold out 26-day Gold Chain Music Tour in Europe. Currently, Planet Asia is in the studio with successful producers, Evidence and The Alchemist, working on his sophomore effort titled, "The Medicine," slated for release in the summer of 2006.

from projectblowed.com

Ugly Duckling Bio / Full Albums Mp3 Download @ Rapidshare

2006-09-17T02:58:00.000-07:00

Ugly Duckling are a hip hop trio, formed in 1993 in Long Beach, California. Ugly Duckling's members are Dizzy Dustin, Young Einstein and Andy Cooper. Their style is alternative hip hop, influenced especially by old school performers such as the Zulu Nation and the Native Tongues Posse. Most of their songs follow the creed that hip hop is about having fun and often mock the clichéd gangster rappers who dominate the mainstream. An example of this can be heard in the song "A Little Samba", in which they rap about the enormous wealth mainstream rappers brag about, and the ridiculous nature of their possessions, such as gold name plates on their cars, pet sharks and jetting off to Bermuda on private planes.

Being heavily influenced by old school hip hop, they conform to the original basics of rap music; turntablism and MCing. Their DJ, Young Einstein, forms the backbone of the group; he is renowned for performing very complex scratches both on the record and live, unlike in most modern rap where the DJ has been pushed to the back in order to emphasize the MC. They are renowned for their live shows in which they perform various antics on stage and interact with the crowd getting them very hyped and affording them the reputation as brilliant live performers.

from wikipedia.org

DOWNLOADS:

Ugly Duckling Fresh Mode 1999 Rapidshare Download

Ugly Duckling Journey to Anywhere 2000 Rapidshare Download

Ugly Duckling Bang for the Buck 2006 Rapidshare Download

Aloe Blacc Shine Through Review + Rapidshare MP3 Download

2006-09-16T22:54:00.000-07:00

What you might want to know first and foremost about Aloe Blacc’s new album Shine Through is that it is not his heavily influenced hip-hop group Emanon. Nor does it follow in the footsteps of his guest spot on Oh No’s late-2004 debut album, or does it feature the superbly crafted conscious rhymes that he has come to be known for. Though he does don his MC cape for parts of this album, Shine Through is mostly a compilation of thoughts, musings and “spirit” that have grown in Blacc throughout his tenure in the music business.

For example, the Oh No produced “Long Time Coming,” is a cover of the classic Sam Cooke song, mixing Aloe’s developing vocal range with No’s vibrant and pulsing beats. While “Busking” is a stripped down acappella tune featuring nothing but Aloe and a typical street corner crooning about awaiting a city bus ride. And the title track itself is comprised of nothing more than vocals and guitar. “One Inna,” one of only two outside produced songs features the evil genius that is Madlib, not subverting his talents, but rather melding them to the style of this artist. Elsewhere on the record you’ll find the classic salsa cover, “Severa,” a world beat record, “Whole World,” and a dancehall inspired riddim, “Are You Ready.”

Blacc wanted this album to reflect all of the inspirations and favorite works he’s experienced over the years. On that note, he succeeds by offering a cohesive reflection of his tastes while showcasing his growth as an artist. But, again, if you’re looking for the DJ Exile and Aloe Blacc reunion album, you’ll be sadly disappointed.

from kaffeinebuzz.com

Tracklisting:

Whole World (3:57)
Long Time Coming (4:13)
Are You Ready (3:21)
Busking (2:17)
Bailar - Scene I (4:14)
Nascimento (Birth) - Scene II (4:31)
Dance For Life (3:41)
Patria Mia (4:28)
Shine Through (1:04)
Caged Birdsong (3:47)
Arrive (3:11)
Want Me (3:31)
One Inna (3:48)
I'm Beautiful (3:50)
+ bonus

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Roots Manuva Bio

2006-09-16T10:49:00.000-07:00

Roots Manuva (born Rodney Smith in Stockwell, South London, 1972) is a rapper.

Manuva grew up around Stockwell in South London. His parents were from a small village in Jamaica called Banana Hole where his father was a preacher and tailor. Spending much of his early years in poverty, this and his strict Pentecostal upbringing clearly had an influence on his music as can be seen in many of his tracks such as "Sinny Sin Sins" and "Colossal Insight".

A quote from Smith himself sums up his early discovery of music: “I was a kid. Before I even knew what a soundsystem was. I was walking past Stockwell skateboard park and there was this sound being set up. They were probably just trying out their speakers. I was with my mum, holding my mum’s hand. And I remember my mum being quite intimidated by the whole affair. Such a barrage of bass coming from it! And these dodgy-looking blokes standing beside it just admiring the sound of their bass. It’s just a bass thing. A volume thing. I don’t know if I rose-tint the memories, but I remember it sounded so good, so rich. It’s not like today when we go to clubs and it hurts. It was more of a life-giving bass.”

Smith made his recorded debut in 1994 as part of IQ Procedure through Suburban Base’s short-lived hip hop imprint Bluntly Speaking Vinyl. He debuted as Roots Manuva the same year on Blak Twang’s “Queen’s Head” single, before releasing his own single, “Next Type of Motion” the following year through the same label, the hugely influential Sound of Money. 1996 saw the release of his collaborations with Skitz (“Where My Mind Is At”/“Blessed Be The Manner”) on 23 Skidoo’s Ronin label. The release of “Feva” on Tony Vegas’s Wayward imprint followed in 1997. This was also the year that saw the first releases from Big Dada, a collaboration between Coldcut’s Ninja Tune label and hip hop journalist Will Ashon.

Releasing for Coldcut's renowned experimental/hip-hop label Ninja Tune in 1998, some of his music may be seen as a predecessor of grime. The following year he released his fearsome debut album, Brand New Second Hand. A reference to his family's modest lifestyle as a phrase his mother used for presents he often got as a youngster that were pre-used. He had such an impact on the UK rap scene that The Times declared that “his is the voice of urban Britain, encompassing dub, ragga, funk and hip hop as it sweeps from crumbling street corners to ganja-filled dancehalls, setting gritty narratives against all manner of warped beats.” Manuva was rewarded for his breakthrough with a MOBO as Best Hip Hop Act that year.

The lyrics of his songs are usually known to take a distinctly British edge, with many critics highlighting his references of eating cheese on toast and drinking bitter as examples of this. His warm and easily recognizable voice can be heard on many songs he performed with other artists such as Chali 2na (of Jurassic 5 & Ozomatli), DJ Shadow, U.N.K.L.E., Nightmares on Wax, The Cinematic Orchestra, Beth Orton and Leftfield. He also made an appearance on the Gorillaz latest album, Demon Days, lending his distinctive vocals to the track, All Alone.

Roots Manuva's "Witness the Fitness" track was parodied by MC Pitman and renamed; "Witness the Pitness".

Roots Manuva produces much of his own music, under his own name and also under the pseudonyms Lord Gosh and Hylton Smythe.

from wikipedia.org

You may also enjoy KRS One reviewing Roots Manuva Run Come Save Me

The Roots Bio / Profile

2006-09-16T10:39:00.000-07:00

The Roots, who have also been known as The Legendary Roots Crew, The Fifth Dynasty, The Square Roots and The Foundation, are an influential, Grammy winning Philadelphia-based hip hop group, famed for a heavily jazzy sound and live instrumentation. Inspired by the "hip-hop band" concept pioneered by Stetsasonic, the Roots themselves have garnered critical acclaim and influenced later hip-hop and R&B acts.

The Roots' original lineup included Black Thought (MC) and Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson (drums), who were classmates at the Philadelphia High School for Creative Performing Arts. As they began to play at school and on the streets, they added a bassist named Josh "The Rubberband" Abrams, who went on to form the Jazz group The Josh Abrams Quartet. They later added another MC named Malik Abdul Basit-Smart, a new bassist Leonard Nelson Hubbard, and a keyboardist Scott Storch. Another MC, Kid Crumbs, was a part of the group for their first album, Organix, but did not appear on any later albums. Another MC, Dice Raw, joined on for cameos in later albums. Scott Storch also left to pursue a producing career following the Do You Want More?!!!??! album, though the split was on amicable terms, and Storch continues to produce tracks for Roots albums to this day. The Roots filled his void with another keyboardist, Kamal, who is still a member.

A beatboxer named Rahzel also joined the group and contributed from 1995-1999. Alongside Rahzel was vocal turntablist Scratch, who DJ'd for them during live concerts. He abruptly left in 2003. Malik B. left the group in 1999 due to drug problems but continued to record, making occasional cameos on future albums. A guitarist, Ben Kenney, had a short stint with the group and contributed to their Phrenology album, but left to join Incubus. A percussionist, Knuckles, was added in 2002 and guitarist, Kirk Douglas (a.k.a. "Captain Kirk") replaced Kenney. A vocalist, Martin Luther, toured with The Roots in 2003 and 2004 and contributed to their Tipping Point album. The current members of The Roots are Black Thought (MC), ?uestlove (drums), Hub (bass), Kamal (keyboard), Knuckles (percussion), and Captain Kirk (guitar).

All members have worked with PETA to promote animal compassion and vegetarian lifestyle.

Organix
The group's original lineup was formed in Philadelphia around 1987. They began to do shows around Philly and in 1992 or 1993 left to perform in Europe. They rented out a flat in London and performed in Europe for approximately one year. In order to sustain themselves financially, The Roots released what would be known as their debut album: Organix. The album went on to sell about 150,000 copies. Following the release of Organix, several major record labels offered deals, and the band signed with DGC Records, which at the time was better known for its grunge music releases. With their new record deal, the quintet travelled back to states.

Do You Want More?!!!??!
The Roots' first album for DGC, Do You Want More?!!!??! (recorded live without the use of samples), was a moderate hit on alternative radio. Also lauded for its jazziness, the album was equal parts jazz improv/instrumentation and rap music. It just reached gold staus in 2005, with sales of 501,000 copies.

Illadelph Halflife
The 1996 release Illadelph Halflife was the group's first album to crack the Top 40 on Billboard's album chart, spurred in part by MTV's airplay of the video for "What They Do" (a parody of rap video clichés) and "Clones," which was their first to single to reach the top five on the rap charts. While continuing on the path of live instrumentation, the album's sound was somewhat darker and the band begun integrating programmed drums and samples into their sound. It was also The Roots' first album to include prominent guests, such as Common on "UNIverse At War", D'Angelo and Erykah Badu on "Hypnotic" and Q-Tip on "Ital (The Universal Side)."

Things Fall Apart
Despite rumors of a possible break up, they stayed together and released Things Fall Apart in 1999 (named after Things Fall Apart, a novel by Chinua Achebe). This was their breakthrough album sales-wise, peaking at #4 on the Billboard 200 charts and earning a gold record, signifying U.S. sales of at least 500,000 units. The track "You Got Me," duet with R&B singer Erykah Badu, peaked inside the top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts and earned them a Grammy award for Best Rap Performance By A Duo Or Group.

Like "Illadelph Halflife", TFA was not quite as jazzy as previous works. First-time cameos on TFA for Philly natives Beanie Sigel and Eve helped to earn them major record deals later (with Roc-A-Fella and Ruff Ryders, respectively). After this album, Dice Raw left the collective to record his solo debut album, Reclaiming the Dead.

The group's popularity continued to rise through the album. With a Grammy under their belts, they were able to perform an extended set at the now infamous "Woodstock '99".

Phrenology
A hectic time ensued for The Roots; several members left, and their popularity increased with their sales and a spot backing Jay-Z for his MTV Unplugged album. With heightened popularity came mounting pressure. The Roots released "Phrenology" (named after the pseudoscience of Phrenology) in 2002, which took a turn away from their jazzy influences and further into rock territory. While commercially successful and nominated for a Grammy for "Best Rap Album," some fans claimed The Roots had sold out because of their focus on rock, electronica and sonic experimentation rather than jazz-influenced Hiphop.

During this time the band also backed Jay-Z for his 2003 farewell concert in Madison Square Garden, and appeared in the accompanying "Fade to Black" DVD.

Tipping Point
After Phrenology, Ben Kenney and Scratch both left the group. Their major label deal with Geffen began to sour, as pressures were mounted on the group to sell more records. This culminated with the release of 2004's The Tipping Point, which took its name from a 2000 book The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. The album earned two more Grammy nominations: one for Best Urban/Alternative Performance for the track "Star," and another for Best Rap Performance By A Duo Or Group for the track "Don't Say Nuthin'."

It debuted at #4 on the Billboard album chart, selling over 100,000 copies in its first week of release, but failed to go Gold. Subsequently, the group left the label after the album's release. Contractual obligations resulted in the release of Home Grown! The Beginner's Guide To Understanding The Roots, Volumes 1 & 2 in 2005, a two-disc compilation album.

Game Theory
The Roots' newest album is entitled Game Theory, and was released August 29th, 2006, on Def Jam records. ?uestlove describes the album as being very dark and reflective of the political state in America[2]. The first single from the album, "Don't Feel Right", appeared on the internet in May, 2006, and is available for free download on several web sites. Various guest appearances have been rumored, but Scratch Magazine confirmed only two: Peedi Peedi and Malik B. The late producer J Dilla also produces one song on the album. The album's first video, titled "The Don't Feel Right Trilogy", premiered on August 21, 2006, and features three songs, "In the Music", "Here I Come" and "Don't Feel Right".

During an interview with MTV, ?uestlove said that The Roots are already working on their 10th album. "As of this speaking, anything to do with the term 'game theory' is strictly past tense only," he said, clearly still relieved that the album is finished. "I'm working on [album] number 10 right now — I want to be the first rap artist to actually make a good 10th record, that's my goal. [We're already] four songs into the next project."

The band tours extensively, and their live sets are frequently hailed as the best in the hip-hop genre. Recently, the band played a concert in NYC's Radio City Music Hall with Common, Nas, Talib Kweli and Big Daddy Kane. They also backed Jay-Z a third time, for his Reasonable Doubt Concert, a celebration of the 10-year anniversary of the release of his first album. The Roots have been featured in three movies: Dave Chappelle's Block Party, both performing album songs and playing as a backing band for other artists; Spike Lee's Bamboozled, and Marc Levin's "Brooklyn Babylon," in which Black Thought plays the protagonist, Solomon, and former band member Rahzel narrates.

Recently, ?uestlove reported that he is thinking of adding fellow Philadelphia rapper and Def Jam labelmate Peedi Peedi to the fold as a second group MC. Peedi recently guested on their latest album, and he will join for a set amount of time to "see how it goes."

from wikipedia.org

You may also be interested in the Roots Game Theory Mp3 Downloads

Prince Po Pretty Black Full Album Download @ Rapidshare

2006-09-15T06:42:00.000-07:00

Download Prince Po Pretty Black Full Album @ Rapidshare here

Tracklist:

1. Intro
2. Prettyblack
3. Mecheti Lightspeed
4. Ask Me feat. 2Mex (of The Visionaires)
5. Right 2 Know feat. Chas West (Tribe Of Gypsies)
6. Holla (L. Boogie's Theme) feat. Presto (GBG), C.J.
7. Feel It 4 U
8. Breaknight
9. Family
10. Purple Kush Ritual feat. China Black
11. Creep On It
12. Interlude
13. U Right Hear (J. Dilla Tribute) feat. Concise Kilgore
14. The City Sleeps

La Coka Nostra The LCN LP Bootleg Download @ Sendspace

2006-09-15T06:12:00.000-07:00

La Coka Nostra The LCN LP Bootleg 2006

01 (3:52) Head Nod Shit
02 (3:18) Bloodshed Pt.2
03 (3:46) Rich Man Poor Man
04 (3:12) Whiteys Revenge
05 (3:09) Starksy and Hutch
06 (1:55) La Coka Nostra
07 (4:38) Revolution Up to Left
08 (3:08) Nc Anthem
09 (4:18) Surgical Tactics
10 (2:54) Sometimes
11 (4:23) Fuck Tony Montana (Feat. B-Real)
12 (3:34) Get Outta My Way

La Coka Nostra The LCN LP Bootleg Download @ Sendspace Link

MF Grimm - American Hunger (Day by Day Ent.) - 2006 - First 3CD EVER! Full Album MP3 Download @ Sendspace

2006-09-14T08:55:00.000-07:00

MF Grimm - American Hunger (Day by Day Ent.) - 2006 - First 3CD EVER!

BREAKFAST:

1. American Hunger (BREAKFAST) 3:02
2 When Faith Is Lost 2:58
3. Page Six 3:48
4. The Life I Lead 4:20
5. Wonderland 2:13
6. Code Noir (Revenge of the Masked Avengers) 2:25
7. Right There 3:51
8. I Rather Be Wrong 5:27
9. Watch Out! 3:07
10. Yes or No 3:27
11. The Trees (feat. Baron from Red Clay) 3:24
12. The Path (feat. Monsta Island Czars) 4:17
13. Still My Love 3:40
14. Steal It 3:31
15. My Mentality 2:30
16. A Mother’s Heart 2:49
17. Street General 4:23
18. M.I.C.- (feat Monsta Island Czars) 3:05
19. The Gingerbread Man 3:29
20. I Don’t Know 4:06

LUNCH:

21. American Hunger (LUNCH) 2:11
22. Playground 4:13
23. Boing (Feat PMD, MF MEZ) 2:52
24. It’s No Secret 2:58
25. I Remember 1:26
26.United (Feat Large Pro) 2:56
27. I Love You 3:31
28. Traveling (feat Kurious and Lord Smog (Scotch)
and Bashton the Invizabul Mang) 3:47
29. Delilah 2:21
30.Vultures 3:35
31. Everyone 2:44
32. Agony (No Jugamos) 2:58
33. Master Builders 3:33
34. Things I’ve Said (Feat Baron of Red Clay) 3:01
35. Broken Glasses 2:46
36. Dark Skies (No Jugamos) (Feat Nate Denver, Bashton the Invizabul Mang) 3:39
37.Teacher 2:44
38. Crazy (feat Block McCloud and MF MEZ) 4:13
39.Who Rock (Feat Duece Gangsta) 3:44
40. F_ _K YOU* 3:15

The Last Supper:

41. American Hunger (THE LAST SUPPER) 1:29
42. Children Of Abel 3:32
43. Give 2:56
44. Adam & Eve 3:12
45. Lift Me Up (Snakes & Ladders) 5:28
46. Heaven Can Wait 2:18
47. Children of Cain 3:20
48. Revolution 2:04
49. Manhattan Murder (Feat MF MEZ) 2:29
50. Karma (Feat ILL BILL and Block McCloud) 4:08
51. Government Of Deception 3:36
52. Brand New (Feat Monsta Island Czars) 4:25
53. No One 2:59
54. Elevate (Featuring Majesty & Infinite Evolution) 4:37
55. Everything (Feat Block McCloud, Majesty, Mr. Met and Baron from Red Clay) 4:04
56. The Whole World (Feat Infinite Evol) 2:23
57. Ten Stories 4:13
58. Twin Peaks (Feat MF MEZ, Hasan Salaam) 4:35
59. Simple Rhyme 3:26
60. The Book Of Daniel (feat. MF MEZ and Bashton The Invizabul Mang aka MF Bash of M.I.C) 6:66

Here are the download links:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/b5za5g
http://www.sendspace.com/file/3wcdzm

Jedi Mind Tricks, Army of the Pharoahs, Demigodz, King Syze Free MP3 Download!

2006-09-13T09:34:00.000-07:00

Woohah! Look what we've got here! Seems like today is a good day to give you some underground hip hop full albums mp3.

Army Of The Pharoahs - Battle Cry.mp3 Download Link
Army Of The Pharoahs - Tear It Down.mp3 Download Link
AOTP - Silence And I.mp3 Download Link
06 Virtuoso vs Jin.mp3 Download Link

Jedi Mind Tricks - Legacy of blood (2004)[img]
1. Intro
2. The Age Of Sacred Terror
3. Scars Of The Crucifix
4. Death Falls Silent (Interlude)
5. Saviorself
6. On The Eve Of War (Julio Caesar Chavez Mix)
7. The Darkest Throne (Interlude)
8. The Worst
9. Verses Of The Bleeding
10. Beyond The Gates Of Pain
11. Farewell To The Flesh (Interlude)
12. And So It Burns
13. The Spirit Of Hate (Interlude)
14. Me Ne Shalto
15. On The Eve Of War (Meldrick Taylor Mix)
16. Winds Devouring Men (Interlude)
17. The Philosophy Of Horror
18. Of The Spirit And The Sun (Interlude)
19. Before The Great Collapse

Jedi Mind Tricks - legacy of blood Download link

Demigodz - The godz must be crazy (2002)[img]
│ │ 01 │ Intro │ 01:13 │ │
│ │ 02 │ Science of the Bumrush 2 │ 03:48 │ │
│ │ 03 │ Captivate Deactivate │ 03:15 │ │
│ │ 04 │ The Demigodz │ 04:41 │ │
│ │ 05 │ Off the Chrome │ 04:56 │ │
│ │ 06 │ Dont You Even Go There │ 03:27 │ │
│ │ 07 │ The Godz Must Be Crazy │ 05:39 │ │

Demigodz - Godz must be crazy Download link

Jedi Mind Tricks - Saviorself (2005)[img]
1. The Age Of Sacred Terror (radio)
2. The Age Of Sacred Terror (dirty)
3. The Age Of Sacred Terror (instrumental)
4. Saviorself feat. Killah Priest (radio)
5. Saviorself feat. Killah Priest (dirty)
6. Saviorself (instrumental)

Jedi Mind Tricks - saviorself Download link

King Syze - Syzemology (2006)[img]
1. On A Mission - King Syze
2. Blitz Inc - King Syze & Vinnie Paz/7L & Esoteric
3. Global Warming - King Syze & Block McCloud/Pumpkinhead/Archrival
4. OE Pounder - King Syze & Des Devious
5. Roll Out The Red - King Syze
6. Spittin' Heavy - King Syze
7. Who Gonna Ride - King Syze & Rocky Reyes/Faez One
8. Truancy - King Syze
9. Da Storm - King Syze & Iron Kong/Des Devious
10. Band Of Brothers - King Syze & Crypt Of Outerspace
11. Machine Gun Rap - King Syze
12. Reign Of Tyrants - King Syze & Poynt Blanc
13. Day After Tomorrow - King Syze & Reef The Lost Cause/El Dorado
14. Nonbelievers - King Syze
15. Onslaught - King Syze & Vinnie Paz/Sabac Red/Planetary

King Syze - Syzemology Rapidshare Download link

MF DOOM / KMD / Viktor Vaughn Full Albums Free MP3 Download - Rapidshare & Megaupload

2006-09-13T08:47:00.000-07:00

Aesop Rock Full Albums MP3 Downloads @ Megaupload

2006-09-13T08:32:00.000-07:00

Check Check Check it out! All Aesop Rock Full Albums Mp3 Download @ Megaupload - Right Here, Right Now!

Aesop Rock "Appleseed EP" (Megaupload)

Aesop Rock "Music For Earthworms EP" (Megaupload)

Aesop Rock "Float" (Megaupload)

Aesop Rock "Labor Days" (Megaupload)

Aesop Rock "Bazooka Tooth" (Megaupload)

Aesop Rock "Fast Cars, Danger, Fire And Knives EP" (Megaupload)

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Battle Axe Records News: Swollen Members - 'Black Magic' 2006 + Full Album MP3 Download @ Rapidshare

2006-09-13T06:45:00.000-07:00

1. Intro -
2. Blackout -
3. Swamp Water feat. Phil The Agony, Planet Asia, DJ Revolution
4. Pressure -
5. Press Forward -
6. Grind feat. Moka Only -
7. Torture feat. Casual, DJ Revolution -
8. So Deadly feat. Evidence -
9. Weight feat. Ghostface Killah, Alchemist
10. Prisoner Of Doom -
11. Heart -
12. Too Hot feat. Babu
13. Dark Clouds feat. Evidence -
14. Ritual -
15. Massacre -
16. Go To Sleep feat. Barbie Hatch -
17. Sinister feat. Jacken -
18. Dynamite feat. Mr. Vegas -
19. Put Me On feat. Everlast, Moka Only -
20. Black Magic feat. DJ Swamp
21. Brothers

Swollen Members 'Black Magic' 2006 Full Album MP3 Download @ Rapidshare here

Over two years in the making, Black Magic sees Swollen Members returning to the dark signature sound they have become synonymous with since first busting out to become the best-selling hip hop group in Canadian history. Black Magic is a melting pot of introspective lyrics, bookworm intellectualism, aggressive beats and party-rocking jams, and features collaborations with Ghostface Killah (Wu-Tang Clan), Everlast, Dilated Peoples, Mr. Vegas, Hieroglyphics, The Alchemist, Mix Master Mike, Planet Asia, Phil Da Agony, and more, plus production by The Alchemist, Evidence, Kemo, Rob The Viking, & Squeak E. Clean (Yeah, Yeah Yeahs).

How to Beatbox // How to Be a Human Beatbox // Beatboxing Tips

2006-09-07T19:54:00.000-07:00

Have you ever seen people like Rahzel or Matisyahu create beats using nothing but their own body as an instrument? Here's how you can do it, too.

Steps:
1. Listen to some music by famous beatboxers such as Killa Kela, Rahzel, Biz Markie, Doug E. Fresh, Matisyahu, or even Bobby McFerrin (The artist of 'Don't Worry Be Happy.' He created the whole song using only his voice dubbed on different tracks to create many different 'instruments'). This will show you what is possible with the human body.
2. Develop a good bass drum sound. This is done by pressing your lips together and building up pressure with your tongue and jaw, pushing your tongue forward from the back of your mouth and closing your opened jaw at the same time. Let your lips part toward the side for just a moment so the air can escape, and it should make a bass drum sound. You want to add pressure with your lungs, but not so much that you have an airy sound afterward. If you're not making a bassy enough sound, you need to relax your lips a bit. If your sound isn't making a bass drum sound at all, you need to tighten your lips, or make sure that you're doing it off to the side of your lips. Another way to approach it is to say "puh." Then, take off the "uh" so that all you hear is the initial attack on the word, so that it comes out like a little puff. Try your hardest to not let any of the "uh" sound come out, and also try to not have any breathy sound or air noise with it. Once you feel comfortable with that, you can slightly tighten your lips and force a larger amount of air through your lips to make a bigger sounding kick drum.
3. Get a good snare drum sound. This is can be done several ways, but here are the two most common. The first is similar to the bass drum, only you use the very front of your lips instead of the side, and you tighten them more. Most beatboxers put an "f" or "sh" sound afterward to make it sound more like a snare drum. Another way to make a snare sound is to bring your tongue to the back of your mouth and build up pressure with your tongue or lungs. Use your tongue if you're looking for speed, or use your lungs if you want to breathe in at the same time as you make the sound. Try saying "pff," making the "f's" stop just a millisecond or so after the "p." Lifting the corners of your mouth and holding your lips really tight when making the intial "p" will help it sound more realistic. You can also use the same technique to change the apparent pitch of the snare.
4. For a more drum-machine type snare sound, first say "ish." Then, try saying "ish" without adding the "sh" at the end, again going only for the intial attack. Make it very staccato (short), and you should get a sort of grunt in the back of your throat. Push a little bit when you say it, so that it has a big, accented attack. Once you're confortable with that, add the "sh" on the end and you'll get a synth-like snare sound. You can also work on moving the grunt so that it feels like it's coming from the top of your throat, for a higher drum sound, or so that it feels more like it's coming out of the lower part of your throat, for a lower drum sound.
5. Develop your crash cymbal. This is one of the easier sounds to make. Whisper (don't say) the syllable "chish." Then, do it again, but this time clench your teeth and take the vowel out, going from "ch" straight to "sh" without little or no transition, and you'll have a basic crash cymbal.
6. To do a synth-like reversed cymbal, place the tip of your tongue so that it touches the place where your top teeth meet your palate. Keeping your lips about a half-inch apart, breath in forcefully through your mouth. Notice how the air blows past your teeth and tongue and makes a sort of small rushing sound. Then, breath in forcefully again, and this time close your lips as your breathing in; they should sort of feel like they're popping closed, without making a popping sound.
7. Make a good hi-hat sound. There are a few ways to go about this. First, you can make a "t" sound. You can push a little air behind it, making a "ts" sound. You can also do successive hi-hats by making a "tktktktk" sound, using the mid-back of your tongue to make the "k" sound. You can make an open hi-hat sound by drawing out the breath in the "ts" hi-hat, so it's more like "tssss".
8. Practice each sound individually until you can make a good sound consistently the first time.
9. Breathe. You would be surprised at the number of human beatboxes who pass out because they forget that their lungs need oxygen. You may want to start by incorporating your breath into the beat. Eventually you will gain a great deal of lung capacity throughout your practice. An intermediate technique is to breathe in during a tongue snare, since it requires the least amount of lung capacity. An expert will have slowly practiced breathing whilest beatboxing each sound independently (see previous step), thus separating their breathing from the beat, allowing several kinds of bass sounds, snare sounds, and even some hi-hat sounds to continue without pause. As an alternative to breating exercises, there are many sounds that can be done breathing inwards such as variations on the snare and handclap sounds.
10. Start a basic beat. A good beat to start out with is the basic beat below.
11. Start coming up with your own beats. Start out with the basic structure and build upon it, adding basses and hi-hats where you see fit. Most patterns have a snare on beats 2 and 4, but don't be afraid to fool around with the location of the second one. Don't be afraid to use odd sounding beats, as long as they flow.

Patterns
Modified drum tab

The first line is for the snare sound. This can be a tongue snare, a lip snare, or any other snare. Next is the Hi-hat line, and the third is the Bass line. Another line can be added at the bottom for miscellaneous sounds, which should be defined below the tab and apply only to that pattern. Here's an example:

S ----K-------K-------K-------K---
H --T---T---T---T-----------------
B B-------B-------B-------B-------
V ------------------W---W---W---W-
W = Vocalized "What?"

Beats are separated by single lines, bars by double lines. Here's a key for the symbols:

Bass:
JB= Bumskid bass drum B = Strong bass drum
b = Soft bass drum
X = Sweeping bass drum
U = Techno bass drum

Snare:
K = Tongue snare (without lungs)
C = Tongue snare (with lungs)
P = Pff or lip snare
G = Techno snare

Hi-Hat:
T = "Ts" snare
S = "Tssss" open snare
t = front part of successive hi-hats
k = back part of successive hi-hats

Other:
Kkkk = Click Roll

Basic Beat

This is the basic beat. All beginners should start here and work their way up.

S ----K-------K-------K-------K---
H --T---T---T---T---T---T---T---T-
B B-------B-------B-------B-------

Double Hi-hat

This one sounds cool and is a good exercise for speeding up your hi-hats without using the sucessive hi-hat sounds.

S ----K-------K-------K-------K---
H --TT--TT--TT--TT--TT--TT--TT--TT
B B-------B-------B-------B-------

Modified Double Hi-hat

This is a more advanced beat that should only be attempted if you can successfully do the Double Hi-hat pattern with perfect accuracy. It switches up the rythms in the Double Hi-hat pattern to make it more interesting.

S ----K-------K-------K-------K---
H --TT----TT----TT--TT----TT----TT
B B-----B---B-----B-----B---B--B--

Advanced Beat

This is a very advanced beat. Only try it if you've mastered the above patterns as well as the successive hi-hat(tktktk).
S ----K-------K-------K-------K---
H -tk--tk-tk-t-tkt-tk--tk-tkSS--tk
B B--b---B--B-----B--b---B--B-----

Techno Beat

S ----G-------G-------G-------G---
H --tk--tk--tk--tk--tk--tk--tk--tk
B U-------U-------U-------U-------

Advanced Techniques
Here's where you'll find out how to do some of the more interesting techniques. Don't worry if you aren't getting it at first, all of these techniques will come with time.

Sweeping bass drum (X) This should be used in place of a bass drum. It takes about 1/2-1 beat to perform. To do a sweeping bass drum, start out like you're about to do a bass drum. Then let your lips loose so they flap when you push air past them. Then touch the tip of your tongue to the inside gum of your bottom teeth and push it forward to perform the technique.

Techno Bass (U) This is done by making an "oof" sound, as if you've just been hit in the stomach. Do it while keeping your mouth closed. You should be able to feel it in your chest.

Techno Snare (G) This is done the same way as the Techno Bass, but position your mouth as if you were going to make a "shh" sound. You'll still get the bass sound underneath.

Scratching This is done by reversing the airflow of any of the previous techniques. A commonly misunderstood technique, scratching involves different tongue and lip movements depending on the instrument you are trying to "scratch" with. To understand better, record yourself laying down a beat. Then using a music program, like windows recorder, listen to it in reverse. Learning to emulate those reversed sounds literally doubles your known techniques. Also, try making the sound, and then its reverse immediately afterwards (Ex: A bass sound followed by its reverse in quick succession make the standard 'scratch' noise).

Jazz Brushes Lightly blow out through your mouth while trying to sustain the letter "f." By blowing slightly harder on the beats 2 and 4, you'll have the accents.

Rimshot Whisper the word "kaw," then say it again without letting any of the "aw" through. Push on the "k" a little harder and you'll get a rimshot. Closed Hi-Hat Whisper "tuh" and take out the "uh," leaving the initial attack to sound like a closed hi-hat.

Click Roll (Kkkk) This is a very difficult technique to perform at first, but once you know how, you can use it any time. To start, position your tongue so that the right (or left, depending on preference) side is resting right above where your top teeth meet your gum. Then pull the back of your tongue toward the back of your throat to do a click roll.

Humming the Baseline and beatboxing at the same time
This technique isn't as difficult as singing, but when you're just starting off, it is easy to get lost. To start, you must first realize that their are two ways to hum: one is from the throat (say "ahh") and the other is through the nose ("mmmmmm"), which is considerably harder to get used to but immeasurably more versatile. The key to humming and beatboxing at the same time is to start with a baseline or melody in mind. Listen to rap hooks, whether they be hummed or not (For example, listen to Parliament Funkadelic's "Flashlight" and practice humming the melody, then try beatboxing over top of it; James Brown is also great for melodies). Scour your music collection for baselines and melodies to hum, then try and put some of your beats or someone else's beats over top of it.It is necessary to learn how to hum a melody or baseline for several reasons, especially if you plan to learn to start singing. This is the area of beatboxing that takes some originality! If you've tried to beatbox and hum at the same time, you must have realized that you've lost of some of your proficiency with certain beat techniques (the Techno Bass and Techno Snare are severely limited, as well as the click roll becomes, if not totally unusable, very hard to hear). Learning what works takes time and practice. If you ever find yourself in a beatbox battle, don't forget that while your endurance and speed are important, using new and interesting melodies and baselines win always win the crowd.

Inward Humming
This is an advanced technique which is not widely used in the realm of beatboxing. There are several resources available on how to sing/hum inwards. For the purposes of beatboxing, when you need to breathe really bad, it may be a good idea to hum inwards. You can always continue humming the same melody, but the pitch (note) will change drastically. With practice, you can correct this pitch change to some extent, but many beatboxing experts who use inward humming decide to change the melody when switching from outward humming to inward humming.

Singing and beatboxing at the same time
This isnt a very hard technique,once you get to know the basic principles. The key to singing and beatboxing at the same time is to line up consonant sounds with the bass and vowel sounds with the snare. Don't try to add hi-hats in, as even the best beatboxers have trouble in that respect.Here is an example: (b)if your (pff)mother (b)(b)on(b)(pff)ly knew(b)new Here are some good combinations:

Bass:
B as in bus
M as in mother
H as in home
L as in listen

Snare:
I as in if
O as in only
N as in knew

Holding the Mic

While you can just hold the mic as you would while singing, some beatboxers find that putting the mic between your ring and middle fingers and then gripping it with your first two fingers on top of the bulb and you thumb at the bottom results in a cleaner, more crisp sound.

Tips
Practice wherever possible, whenever possible. Since you don't have to have anything but your body, you can practice at home, at work, at school, on the bus, just about anywhere is appropriate.
Always practice with a consistent tempo. This means that you should try to keep the same speed throughout a pattern.
Try to find other beatboxers and beatbox together. It's fun and you can learn things from your new friends.
Periodically take a drink of water to keep your mouth from drying out.
Warnings
When you first start out, you'll probably feel a bit goofy. But if you stick with it, you'll find that you'll have lots of fun and make some awesome music at the same time.
Your mouth probably won't be used to the sudden new pressure you're putting on it. Your jaw may feel sore at first, and your lips my get the pins-and-needle feeling like sitting on your foot for too long. Try to limit yourself at first as the muscles in your face get used to being exercised like this. If you're feeling sore, stop for a while.

from wikihow.com

Metal faces, rap masks: identity and resistance in hip hop's persona artist

2006-09-07T19:53:00.000-07:00

This paper studies two specific examples of the rap artist persona as resistance strategy, and builds upon several theories of hip-hop identity and resistance. Using Tricia Rose's concept of rap music as hidden transcript, and Russell A. Potter's idea of rap's postmodern play-as-resistance, I argue that certain hip-hop acts intentionally split or obscure their artist identities to subvert material conditions for the rap performer, and to negotiate their own position within the conflicting standards of authenticity and marketability put forth by the ghetto and recording industry.

**********

Hip-hop authenticity is a commercial value that grew in importance as the music gained a substantial market share of commercial radio. By 1990, with MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice albums at number one on the Billboard pop charts, increased mainstream interest began to foster among hip-hop artists challenges to the authenticity or "realness" of acts making money from rap music and marketing their music to an ever-expanding audience. Scholars such as Tricia Rose, Christopher Holmes Smith, and Adam Krims have theorized the performance of authenticity as necessary to establishing credibility as an artist within hip hop, which values a discourse of lived experience, and has roots in oral traditions of testimony and bearing witness. A successful performance of hip-hop authenticity is one which positions the artist as experienced knower, as in Ice Cube's claim "I'm from the street, so I know what's up" on the NWA song "I Ain't Tha One." This focus on performed authenticity was complicated by the crossover of rap albums, such as MC Hammer's Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em (1990), to the Billboard pop charts. Even such a dance/pop-oriented album as Hammer's, which spent twenty-one weeks at number one, included the track "Crime Story," which centered its subject matter on the artist's lived experience in the ghetto. And Vanilla Ice lost all credibility after The Dallas Morning News (Perkins) revealed several discrepancies between his label's official artist bio, which claimed Ice had grown up in a poor, urban neighborhood, and the artist's lived experience growing up in suburban Dallas.

A theory of hip hop's seemingly conflicting concerns of authenticity and marketability may work to reframe W. E. B. Du Bois' concept of double-consciousness in commercial terms as artists work to produce marketable music for mainstream listeners yet at the same time to maintain a necessary level of authenticity to a place of cultural origin. Paul Gilroy situates rap music as one of a series of modern black cultural forms that draw special power from "a doubleness" through artists' understanding of their practice as "autonomous domain," and of "their own position relative to the racial group and of the role of art in mediating individual creativity with social dynamics" (73). Smith, illustrating such doubleness for rap music, positions the ghetto as both crucial signifier of authenticity and a marketable aspect of self, arguing that the ghetto becomes "simultaneously commodity and safe-haven" as MCs market themselves through narratives of their place as other within mainstream commercial culture (348). In light of Smith's theory, Ice Cube's claim to be from the streets can work to authenticate his image and at the same time market it to an audience not from the streets. Krims argues that, for a rap act to achieve credibility and marketability, the performer must be symbolically collapsed onto the artist, so that, when O'Shea Jackson performs as Ice Cube, the experiences Ice Cube reports are accepted as Jackson's "speaking from authentic experience" (95).

A consistent performed identity here seems crucial to credibility, but Krims' theory of the collapsed identity ignores hip hop's persona artist. Like David Bowie performing as Ziggy Stardust or Garth Brooks performing as Chris Gaines, certain hip-hop acts perform a second artist persona. This phenomenon can take shape, through costumes, playfully evasive lyrics, and samples, as resistance to the material conditions of the musician. Rose and Russell A. Potter each explore the often subversive politics of hip hop as it grew from an oppressed culture, and cite forms of communal resistance through musical performance. Rose applies James Scott's investigation of power relationships through social transcripts to acknowledge rap music's "hidden transcript" of resistance, which plays a key discursive role, outside the music's direct critique of oppression in the public transcript, in engaging in "symbolic and ideological warfare with institutions and groups that symbolically, ideologically, and materially oppress African Americans" (100-01). Potter explores rap music as radical postmodernism, and he synthesizes Theresa L. Ebert's dichotomy of ludic and resistance postmodernism to argue that hip-hop culture often stages resistance through play itself. For Potter, rap music's resistance through play can become "the mask for a potent mode of subversion" (2).

I argue that such play can take the form of a mask itself, as rap artists obscure, confuse, or split their identities to subvert the often conflicting standards of authenticity and marketability. The persona artist constructs a second, distinct identity that goes beyond a change in name. Although a mainstream artist like Eminem may alternate names to form his trinity of Eminem, Slim Shady, and Marshall Mathers, none of these is an entirely separate persona as much as an aspect of the same MC. Nell Drumming discusses this distinction between naming and performing in persona, by which rap artists experience "much more dynamic character arcs" (1). In one example of such identity play, Greg Jacobs performs in the group Digital Underground both as Shock-G and MC Humpty Hump, distinct artists with individual personalities, vocal styles, and physical images, their identities distinguished Visually through Humpty's trademark mask. Jacobs preserves in Shock-G a traditional, "collapsed" identity, which is presented as authentic both to the performer's experience and to hip-hop culture, while at the same time he performs through Humpty Hump a comic-sexual persona which has proven appeal for the mainstream listener (see Diehl 125-27). Digital Underground uses the Humpty Hump persona to increase the group's commercial appeal and at the same time to criticize mainstream emphasis of image over rhyme skill, thereby aligning themselves with an "underground," "hardcore," or "real" hip-hop aesthetic even as they enjoy widespread commercial success.

Hip hop's ideology of authenticity extends from rock's in that, while rock's live performance works to authenticate the recording, as both Theodore Gracyk and Philip Auslander have argued, rap instead centers live performance as one of a set of cultural values by which the artist's authenticity is judged. As I will discuss in a later section, a live rap performance can often focus on creating musical content onstage through traditions of freestyle rhyming or the MC battle, rather than rock's focus on "re-creating" the music as it exists on record (Gracyk 77). In recorded rap lyrics themselves, power to speak is often negotiated through rhetorical claims to realness and through narrative evidence that those claims are rooted in lived experience. Simon Frith explains the popular music listener's judgement of authenticity as "a perceived quality of sincerity and commitment. It's as if people expect music to mean what it says" (71). Rap music is unique in the extent to which it makes overt claims to such sincerity and commitment in lyrics. Smith explores the use of the term "real" in rap lyrics, and I would add that this term often is extended to the qualities of sincerity within the artist or the recording itself in common lyrical claims to perform "real hip hop" (e.g. Defari) or to perform as a "real MC" (e.g. The Lootpack), or even to be a "real nigga" (e.g. NWA, Nas, Jay-Z, Nelly and the St. Lunatics). Even Eminem claims himself "the real Slim Shady". Hip hop's concepts of realness form a discursive spectrum founded upon standards of authenticity to narratives of hip hop's cultural origins within poor urban neighborhoods with predominantly black and Latino population. Today, more than twenty years after the advent of rap music, to maintain realness is, at one end of the discursive spectrum, to perform dedication to making music rather than making money and, at the other end, to perform an outlaw identity by which the act of selling music is framed as a criminal act well within the bounds of rap's ghetto origins. In this sense, rap artists often argue their realness or authenticity through their skill in performing live, through their skill in selling albums, or through some combination of the two.

Yet this ideology was not always in place, and is in fact rejected by today's underground hip hop, which draws strict lines between performance and commercialism. In that sense, Defari's claim to perform real hip hop excludes the commercial: "Don't mistake this for no pop rap, Pop/But that raw deal feel, that real hip hop" ("Focused Daily"). Standards of authenticity within rap music have often challenged commercial success, as artists and listeners maintain allegiance to a nostalgic authenticity of the culture's brief existence outside the recording industry, which S. H. Fernando Jr. contains to 1975-1979, the period of rap's existence as a distinct musical form before Sugarhill Gang released "Rapper's Delight", the music's first nationwide (and worldwide) radio single, in 1979. Fernando cites tension between the streets and the radio even with this, rap's first radio single, as the group was put together by a record label, and did not write their own lyrics, which is crucial to rap credibility. Grandmaster Caz of the pioneering rap group Cold Crush Brothers claims the group stole the "Rapper's Delight" lyrics from him, and he argues that Sugarhill "didn't really represent what MC-ing was or what rap and hip hop was" (Fernando 21). This notion that authentic hip hop exists in the streets mirrors the authenticating of recorded rock music through live performance that is discussed both in Auslander and Gracyk, but live vocal performance alone has never been enough to link a rap artist to street credibility.

Rap's ideology of authenticity centers also on audience. In 1988, gangsta rap group NWA warned of artists who "forget about the ghetto and rap for the pop charts", and expressed their own pride in being banned from several radio stations ("Express Yourself") even as their album Straight Outta Compton (1988) sold more than one million copies. The audience dichotomy emphasized in such lyrics maintains that an authentic rap artist must direct his or her performance to the ghetto listener rather than to the mainstream. Smith further illuminates the pressure on artists to remain authentic as he asserts:

rappers "keep it real" by foregrounding the duress within which they
wage their struggle for visibility within and against the terms set
by the incessant hails of the mainstream marketplace. In this
respect, a rapper's desire to "keep it real" implies a strategy of
engagement with American commercial culture in which they attempt to
become human valves that regulate the cultural flows streaming from
the ghetto to the outside world, and vice versa. (Smith 346)
While several artists (like NWA, Paris, or The Coup) have engaged in a more public transcript of resistance to commercial radio through their musical style, subject matter, and lyrical content, another hidden transcript of resistance through the identity play of persona may allow rap performers to challenge the dichotomy of authentic vs. marketable music. Auslander finds significant the fact that 1970s rock artists like David Bowie "were more concerned to create spectacular stage personae than images of authenticity" (89), but, while Bowie's "strategy of mutations," according to Auslander, may have foreseen the devaluation of rock authenticity (90), MC Humpty Hump and MF DOOM are personae that specifically critique the existing ideologies of authenticity and marketability within hip-hop music of their specific eras.

This article studies two specific examples of the persona artist as a strategy of Potter's ludic resistance, and extends Rose's work in studying rap music as hidden transcript. While a growing number of rap artists perform in persona (e.g. RZA as Bobby Digital, Kool Keith as Dr. Octagon), I will examine two specific artists, Digital Underground and MF DOOM who each have used identity play to obscure performer identity, and to form multiple artist personae that they, at least initially, do not connect. While RZA titled his 1998 album RZA as Bobby Digital, and has gone on to use the personae almost interchangeably on 2003's Birth of a Prince, Jacobs in Digital Underground maintains two distinct personae, still appearing on albums like Murs' End of the Beginning (2003), billed as both Shock-G and MC Humpty Hump. My second example, MF DOOM, has performed more of an identity shift from Zev Love X of the early 1990s group KMD to his current incarnation, DOOM. As MF DOOM, Daniel Dumile performs strictly in mask and refuses to be photographed out of his costume, thereby avoiding a physical connection to his earlier artist. By intentionally splitting and obscuring performer identities, Digital Underground and MF DOOM both sidestep Krims' concept of a necessary symbolic collapsing of the artist onto the performer. Through hidden transcripts of play as resistance, they subvert commercial presentation of the hip-hop artist and the standards by which his or her marketability and authenticity are judged.

Performing Persona: Shock G and MC Humpty Hump

Before rap music became assimilated with the corporate record industry and rap singles proved themselves more than a novelty on commercial radio as both their frequency of presence and their chart positions increased in 1990-1991, vocalists were judged more by their rhyme skill than by a sense of performed authenticity. MC battles, in which two vocalists challenge each other to rhyme over a DJ's live turntable routine, were won based on crowd reaction, and lyrics generally centered on the rhyme style and skill of the performers involved. In one famous example from 1981, Kool Moe Dee defeated Busy Bee with a direct reference to his overuse of his signature Diggy-Dang routine. Pioneering Top Forty rap act Run DMC's song "Sucker MCs" (1983) issues this challenge to the unskilled rap vocalist:

You can't rock a party with a hip and a hop
You gotta let em know you'll never stop
The rhymes have to make a lot of sense
You gotta know when to start when the beats come in
In the early 1990s, however, after both MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice spent several consecutive weeks at the number one position on the 1990 Billboard pop album charts, rap lyrics began to shift to a focus on authenticity as possibly more important than skill. Eazy-E attacked his former NWA bandmate, Dr. Dre, on his 1993 EP It's On (187um Killa), sampling a self-contradicting anti-marijuana lyric from one of Dre's past recordings. Eazy included in his CD liner notes a captioned photo of Dre in very non-gangsta attire from his 1980s performance with the dance group World Class Wreckin Cru, then completed his challenge to Dre's authenticity by calling Dre's new partner Snoop Dogg a "studio gangsta," borrowing a tactic from old country-western stars who often discredited each other as studio cowboys. None of Eazy's attacks address Dre's musical skill, but only his credibility as hip-hop performer. Eazy's implication that Dre follows trends is a serious charge as hip-hop culture struggles to maintain its identity in the face of commercialization.

Rap's mainstream marketability during 1990-1991 prompted a widespread lyrical shift from claims of performer skill to concerns of crossing over, selling out, and keeping it real. As rap music grew into a viable industry, MCs began to question which artists were in it for profit, especially when these artists came from areas outside the black neighborhoods where the culture originated, and even more so when these new artists were white. As streetwise performativity became the music's strongest selling point, artist Vanilla Ice's claims of ghetto credibility did not match the background of performer Robbie Van Winkle. Vanilla Ice's claim to authenticity was attacked as a marketing strategy, which cost him the respect of the majority of the hip-hop community, and ultimately cost him his mainstream marketability. Fellow white hip-hop artists 3rd Bass directly challenged Vanilla Ice's contribution to rap music in their single "Pop Goes the Weasel," taking the insult further by claiming to have followed Vanilla's "formula" to ensure their response song would be a hit even as it criticized his success (Diehl 125):

Hip hop
Got turned into hit pop
As soon as his album was number one on the pop chart. (3rd Bass)
The era of rap's initial incorporation into the recording industry has been a subject of interest for scholars like Smith, Murray Forman, Kembrew McLeod, and Greg Wahl, who traces rap's move into the mainstream through key groups like Run DMC, Public Enemy, and the Beastie Boys, who during 1983-1987 gave rap a consistent, if not overwhelming, presence on the pop charts and on MTV, and surpassed the commercial success of what Tom Terrell identifies as rap's "second wave" of talent in the years 1980-1983. Dipannita Basu and Pnina Werbner's study of ethnic entrepreneurship in the culture industries and Mark Anthony Neal's examination of black-owned popular music labels both recall David Hesmondhalgh's chronicle of indie rock as anti-corporate enterprise. Hesmondhalgh argues that "indie proclaimed itself to be superior to other genres not only because it was more relevant or authentic to the youth who produced and consumed it (which was what rock had claimed) but also because it was based on new relationships between creativity and commerce" (34). Ultimately the independent record labels of Hesmondhalgh's study have been annexed into the corporate music machine, but the buying of rap music occurred over a much shorter period of time. Rap was not as deliberately anti-corporate as indie, and Wahl cites "the constant tension between succeeding in a commercially driven art form and retaining the oppositionality that engendered the form's success in the first place" (109). Keith Negus examines a similar tension in his article "The Music Business and Rap: Between the Street and the Executive Suite", in which he articulates rap's "deliberate attempts to maintain a distance between the corporate world and the genre culture of rap" (1), an argument that is complicated by the music's recent focus on the figure of the rap CEO in releases like Jay-Z's The Black Album.

I will discuss in a later section the pride certain artists take in their very ability to sell rap music, a lyrical development which coincided with the commercial emergence of two artists, Wu-Tang Clan and Master P, each of whom prided themselves on the alternative marketing and distribution skills which had earned them reputations outside the corporate record industry. When Wu-Tang did sign with a major label, RCA, to release their 1993 album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), they negotiated an unprecedented contract which would allow each separate member of the group freedom to record albums as a solo artist with labels other than RCA. In 1994, Master P released his third album, The Ghetto's Tryin' to Kill Me!, on his own No Limit Records, initially eschewing major media outlets to sell the album from the trunk of his car, and ultimately signing a distribution deal with Priority Records. Such artists challenged industry structure, and, while ultimately both Wu-Tang and Master P have affiliated themselves with corporate record labels, each has carved out a space for more artist control over musical content and the terms of recording contracts.

While such industry developments have worked lyrically to extend claims of credibility to the act of self-marketing, or operating a successful, artist-owned record label, several rap songs also relate a mistrust of the record industry through stories of shady dealings with record executives, A&R staff, and concert promoters. This historical and ongoing tension creates an anxiety, or doubleness, for the rap performer, who must at the same time market himself and maintain ownership and control of his identity. A hip-hop persona may be composed in response to the notion of selling one's identity as artist, and may allow the artist behind the mask to perform as a more marketable alter ego while at the same time performing as Krims' collapsed performer-artist. The persona artist often is marked by a mask or costume that can obscure identity or distinguish between multiple characters. Digital Underground's Humpty Hump is identified by his trademark Groucho Marx-style novelty glasses with an oversized brown nose, yet his playful appearance and vocal style are counterbalanced within the group by the more serious Shock-G. Although Jacobs performs both characters, his identity as performer is collapsed only onto Shock-G, and is distanced from the Humpty Hump persona. He can preserve a level of authenticity in Shock-G while selling records to the mainstream listener through Humpty's "broad, bug-eyed humor," which Diehl cites as a selling feature of pop rap in the early 1990s (125).

Digital Underground reached number eleven on the Billboard pop charts with their 1990 single "The Humpty Dance," a song that showcased Humpty as the sole MC. The track was the second single from Sex Packets, one of only three of 14 tracks to feature Humpty, and the only song to showcase his vocals exclusively. The song's video depicts a live Digital Underground performance in which Humpty takes center stage, in full costume, while Shock-G and the several other members of the group take the position of backup singers. Subsequent DU singles have been very Humpty-centered as well ("No Nose Job," "The Return of the Crazy One"). "The Humpty Dance" pushed Sex Packets to sell platinum, but Shock-G's use of persona goes beyond sales gimmick. Interestingly, Jacobs often uses his Humpty persona to speak against the importance of physical image for the popular hip-hop artist. "The Humpty Dance" begins with a rhyme in opposition to a uniform, stylized appearance for top forty rappers: "All right, stop what you're doin, cause I'm about to ruin, the image and the style that you're used to. I look funny, but yo I'm makin money, see?"

Potter views hip hop as a "collective work" comprised of several characters rather than attributed to a single author. For Potter, the costume is central to hip hop's ludic resistance, and performers stage characters through their fashion, just as gold chains, untied Adidas sneakers, black leather jackets and fedoras mark Run DMC. Through performed characters, hip hop "stages the difference of blackness, and its staging is both the Signifyin(g) of its constructedness and the site of its production of the authentic" (121-22). This analogy, while compelling, fails in that rap musicians perform characters very differently than do dramatic actors. Namely, these musicians cannot step out of character without risking a central element of their credibility. But, as MCs split their identities to perform in persona, Potter's idea of staged blackness becomes more relevant. The costume then goes beyond identification of character to take on an additional role as disguise. Digital Underground videos often show Humpty and Shock-G performing side by side, which further confounds the identity of the two MCs, and an Ernie Paniccioli photograph features Humpty and Shock-G standing together, presumably through use of a body double who wears Humpty's very identifiable costume. Humpty Hump's nose and glasses also play a crucial role in Digital Underground's live show, as Shock-G sneaks off stage to change into his Humpty costume, which can also include a feathered headdress and leopard-print mini-skirt. As Humpty stages his difference, his oversized nose does "look funny", but at the same time is a tactic of resistance to the commodification of black bodies in music videos. [1]

In "No Nose Job," Humpty argues against plastic surgery at both a literal and figurative level as he struggles to maintain black features of his identity in the face of mainstream success. The 1991 single, from DU's second album Sons of the P, opens with a verse from Money B, who recalls Humpty's success with "The Humpty Dance":

People say, yo Humpty now that your records is sellin
Ain't it about time for you to be bailin
Out of the race and community you come from
Yo, your face has gotta change, Hump!
Ice Cube says you're making more than Donald Trump
So yo, go on and get your nose fixed, Hump
The dilemma presented in this verse speaks for a wider crisis for the hip-hop artist: does acceptance by mainstream culture mean the hip hop artist should embrace the dominant culture entirely, reconcile his identity by stepping across the boundary of blackness? To do so would be to ensure commercial success at the cost of losing credibility in his culture of origin, but, through the Humpty Hump persona, Digital Underground is able to straddle this boundary, to participate in and profit from mass commercialization of hip hop even as they make their listener more critically aware of its dangers.

"I Only Play the Games that I Win At": MF DOOM's Ludic Resistance through Persona

The mind teases. Reality, cracked to pieces
Nothin' eases, bein' chastised with blood baptized
Guys revise, acknowledge past lives (Tick, Tick)
The Humpty Hump persona was an early strategy of ludic resistance to hip hop's emerging struggle with market forces that would intensify as gangsta became both villain and selling point for rap music in the mainstream. Amy Binder examines contradictory reactions to explicit content in the music of black rap groups versus white heavy metal groups on the part of moral watchdog organizations like the Parents' Music Resource Center (PMRC) in the 1990s, yet Potter cites cases in which "negative publicity added measurable market value" (112). The 1992 controversy that arose in response to the violent, anti-establishment lyrics of Body Count's "Cop Killer" and Paris' "Bush Killa" and "Coffee, Donuts, and Death" increased sales for certain groups, while posing to others what Potter acknowledges as a "material threat" (113). In one important case, the group KMD lost their recording contract because of political messages in cover art for their second album, Black Bastards. Backing away from potential controversy, the Elektra label pulled KMD's single "What a Niggy Know" and refused to release Black Bastards because of cover art, drawn by Dumile, which depicted a cartoon blackface performer in a hangman's noose. According to Dante Ross, Artist and Repertoire Vice President at Elektra, the artwork "represented the hanging of stereotypes. It was a parody of the game hangman--you get it wrong enough times and you die" (qtd in Lichtman).

Through the very outright resistance of their album cover, KMD urged listeners to kill the stereotype, to do away with this white representation of the black man, a message that became even more powerful in a moment in which hip hop was experiencing an unprecedented level of commercialization as it embraced, through gangsta, the very stereotype of black male violence and misogyny. Elektra's refusal to release the album remains one of the more telling examples of major label treatment of rap artists. Though not one copy was officially sold, [2] Black Bastards became an underground classic via bootlegs of early promotional copies. After the loss of his record contract and the death of his bandmate and brother D] Subroc, KMD vocalist Zev Love X dropped out of sight. Seven years later, as a musician whose once-mainstream career had moved not only underground, but away from the music industry altogether, Zev Love X had a unique opportunity to reinvent himself and reemerge as a new persona, MF DOOM.

MF DOOM recorded his return to hip hop on the tiny and now-defunct Fondle Em label, in conjunction with his own Metal Face Records. DOOM produced his album single-handedly, creating the beats in his home studio and writing lyrics that interact with samples to tell the story of an artist injured by commercial forces, now back in mask to seek revenge on the record industry. Brian Goedde reads Operation Doomsday as an "album of continuous meaning." Lyrical narration is interwoven with samples from two specific sources: Fantastic Four cartoons featuring Dr Victor Von Doom as sympathetic villain, and the hip-hop film Wild Style (1982), in which graffiti artist Lee Quinones struggles to keep his art pure in the face of commercial forces. So hero and anti-hero are juxtaposed with Dumile's own history as a musician to situate MF DOOM as both rap's savior and destroyer.

Unlike Humpty Hump, MF DOOM is in some sense a borrowed persona. Greg Dimitriadus has studied performance in hip-hop culture through its connection to popular texts such as mobster movies, comic books, and martial arts films. Smith calls this "a hybrid narration based on mimicry," and applies, through Michel de Certeau, the Greek concept metis to such narrative strategies (358). For Smith, borrowed narratives of the Italian mafia appreciate the gangster as pinnacle of American consumerism whose wealth was identity built outside the lines of this very society, much as the successful commercial rapper may build his career from narratives of ghetto poverty. The figure of the comic book superhero or super-villain may hold a similar connection to the MC, and the persona artist in particular. Recalling Du Bois and Frantz Fanon, Marc Singer theorizes that "[t]he idea of the split identity, one of the most definitive and distinctive traits of the superhero, is also one of the most powerful and omnipresent figures used to illustrate the dilemmas and experiences of minority identity" (113). Singer's study of race in comic books develops the concept of the "costumed identity," in which superheroes (and super-villains) experience "a noticeable and visually characterized division between their private selves and their public, costumed identities" (113). Singer claims that superhero identities, while not necessarily always secret, must be by nature split in that they cannot reconcile the fantastic with the everyday. Such reasoning for split identity of the comic book character contrasts with Krims' idea of a necessary identity collapsing of the hip-hop performer and artist, who must present the everyday as fantastic.

MF DOOM's identity construction employs bricolage to connect his own artistic trajectory thematically to figures from popular culture. He borrows both a revenge narrative and disguise from Marvel Comics' Dr. Doom. Marvel's Doom puts on a metal mask after his face is injured in a scientific experiment. MF DOOM samples Dr. Doom's dialogue from an episode of Fantastic Four in which his experiment goes wrong. "What have I done to myself? My face is ... hideous.... Now I must hide my face from all mankind." Dr. Doom's experiment blew up in his face, and MF DOOM draws a parallel to Elektra's reaction to KMD's pushing industry boundaries with Black Bastards. Dumile's visage as the artist Zev Love X is irreversibly connected to this experiment, and to his status as industry outcast. His metal mask hides a figurative injury and allows him to stage his comeback as a new artist anonymously. "Hey," DOOM's first single, was released to New York hip-hop stations as a debut single from a new artist, and was promoted with no connection to KMD. Further obscuring the link between his past and present artist identities, MF DOOM never performs live or appears in photographs or videos without wearing his mask. Although DOOM's vocal style and production sound nothing like his earlier incarnation, without the mask he could not have avoided critical comparison, and could not have as successfully negotiated his return to the world of hip hop.

MF DOOM's first album Operation Doomsday is a multi-tiered autobiography composed through persona, samples, and lyrics. At the level of samples, the performer's own musical career, aesthetic, and agenda are chronicled in Von Doom's dialogue from Fantastic Four and Quinones' narration from Wild Style. The two alternate throughout the five skits (three from Dr. Von Doom, two from Quinones) and build up to the track "Hero vs. Villain," labeled in the track listing as an epilogue, adding narrative terminology to the album's continuous narrative structure. "Hero vs. Villain" connects two narrative strands by interspersing dialogue from a seemingly victorious Fantastic Four, who have stopped Doom's attempt at world domination, with Wild Style dialogue in which Quinones argues against media exposure for his graffiti. "Yo, I'm not gonna finish my piece, man, not with this lady around. I don't want no fucking picture taken of my shit." Spoken narration from E. Mason reinforces this connection with a challenge to cultural definitions of hero and villain. Mason's spoken verse adds a third narrative voice to the album's already complex lyrical storytelling. At the lyrical level, MF DOOM plays with narrative perspective. Hip hop's standard self-referential lyrics here are delivered in both first and third person ("He cleans his metal mask with gasoline"). DOOM's lyrics are playfully evasive, and he challenges the listener to follow the narrative strand. In another third-person sequence DOOM says of himself, "He's like a ventriloquist with his fist in the speaker's back," and track 10 is especially revealing in its chorus of "Who you think I am? Who you want me to be?"

On "Doomsday," DOOM rhymes that he "came to destroy rap," and in the following verse identifies the contradictions of his character: "Definition supervillian, a killer who loves children, one who is well-skilled in destruction as well as building." DOOM has resurfaced to take revenge on the industry that injured him, that forced him to wear his mask. His grudge is with not only the record industry, but with artists and producers he feels are controlled by this industry, who are doing exactly what record companies want. KMD lost their contract for pushing the political envelope in their music. Now in this verse from "Hey!" MF DOOM calls out more complacent and derivative artists as trained monkeys to the record executive's ferret, specifically attacking pop rap's watered-down lyrics and use of existing hit music intact rather than the cut-and-paste mixes so important to hip hop:

I heard beats,
That sound like karaoke
With monkey rhymers on a lease
Like "Don't have this ferret choke me"
DOOM's disgust with commercial rappers is further evident in other tracks, such as "Rhymes Like Dimes" ("A lot of em sound like they're in a talent show"), and is representative of contemporary underground hip hop's mistrust of the record industry. Underground MCs often lyrically dissociate themselves from mainstream rap music, and claim to be not only more authentic, but more lyrically skilled than the mainstream artists they often attack for rhyming about expensive cars and clothes (cf. Common, Sage Francis). MF DOOM's perspective as a corporate label's outcast fosters a level of authenticity to less commercial-minded hip-hop culture, and his identity play proves an effective strategy of resistance to corporate music in this new stage of his career.

Conclusion: "I Sell Rhymes Like Dimes"

In the public transcript, the political performance of rap music is often seen as a strategy of marketing and promotion, rather than as one of resistance. Several scholars have examined rap's selling in the corporate marketplace as a central dilemma of the discourse between hip hop and capitalist society at large. Rose states, "Commercial marketing of rap music represents a complex and contradictory aspect of the nature of popular expression in a corporation-dominated information society" (17), yet she and Forman disagree on issues of corporate appropriation and exploitation in the development of rap music into a viable industry. Forman complicates the relationship between hip hop and the market as he challenges Rose's idea of an appropriative, profit-driven media industry rushing to cash in. While he agrees rap music has been exploited by corporate music, Forman at the same time attributes rap's expansion into an industry to "entrepreneurs ... participants and fans" from within hip hop culture itself (107).

In rap performance, the artist himself often takes on the role of entrepreneur. Rap music indeed is sold, and the process of selling records is acknowledged more directly within rap performance than in perhaps any other form of music. Through lyrical references to recording contracts, album advances, and royalties, rap artists foreground their material conditions, often as a form of resistance. Tribe Called Quest's "Show Business" takes the form of a warning to aspiring MCs not to be exploited by industry practices. 3rd Bass's "The Gas Face" follows a rap group into the industry as a record executive tells them "Sign your life on the X. Trust me," and the Beastie Boys assure the listener "If you don't buy my album I got my advance" ("Brass Monkey"). Through a similar approach, MF DOOM's "Rhymes Like Dimes" fits into a larger history of rap songs which share a metaphor of rap music as drug. In likening the selling of his art to the selling of dime bags (a $10 amount) of marijuana, MF DOOM turns a critical eye toward the act of marketing his music, which hip hop historically has positioned as a positive, life-affirming alternative to the drug trade. Such a metaphor is articulated in several songs, such as Ice-T's "I'm Your Pusher" and the Lost Boyz' "Music Makes Me High" and "Legal Drug Money," in which Mr. Cheeks describes his group as "legal drug thugs" selling the most addictive drug in the world, music. In these songs, selling music equals overcoming the drug trade, which a larger rap narrative tells us is the most immediately viable option for ghetto survival. Rap artists, however, traffic in the ghetto itself, as they must sell as part of their images the same material conditions that have placed them outside the mainstream. DOOM puts it this way:

Only in America could you find a way to earn a healthy buck
And still keep your attitude on self-destruct

While still rooted in this entrepreneurial artistic tradition, rap performers through persona can step outside the marketing of a performed authentic self to traffic not in the reality of the ghetto, but in fantasy via MF DOOM's artist as comic book villain or the various sci-fi identities assumed by persona artists like Dr. Octagon, Bobby Digital, or Deltron 3030. As hidden transcript, the fantasy of persona constructs a valuable commentary on hip-hop reality. The persona artist is uniquely positioned to subvert the cultural and commercial gaze by which the rap performer is judged. Jacobs constructs a Humpty Hump persona through which he can at the same time increase Digital Underground's commercial appeal and critique hip hop's concern with image. Dumile uses his MF DOOM persona to critique the industry that wronged him in an earlier stage of his career when he performed as a different artist. These personae, as they split the performer's identity, can at the same time work to strengthen and preserve the rap self that is strained by the differing criteria of the music business and a culture that grew out of the streets.

Potter constructs rap music as a counter-capitalist, rather than anti-capitalist, enterprise. He asserts that "hip hop is not merely a critique of capitalism, it is a counter-formation that takes up capitalism's gaps and contradictions and creates a whole new mode, a whole new economics" (111). Perhaps what rap has accomplished specifically is to create spaces of increased artist control that exist within the corporate industry. The persona artists discussed in this article strategize their position in relation to this industry (even if now from outside it, like MF DOOM), and, as Gilroy suggests, their lyrics and identity play reflect a sense of cultural ownership and at the same an understanding of their music as commodity. It is precisely through their construction of multiple artist identities that they position themselves to critique such contradictions, and the playful nature of their critique allows them also to benefit as artist-entrepreneurs from the contradictory economics of hip hop as business.

Notes

[1] The same issue is addressed in 3rd Bass's "The Gas Face" and The Pharcyde's "It's Jiggaboo Time." Maria L. Shelton explores music video representation of the African-American female body, yet these artists, along with Digital Underground, show that concerns with black body image in video extend to the male performer as well.

[2] Until 2001, when MF DOOM's own Metal Face Records released Black Bastards.

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Discography

3rd Bass. "Pop Goes the Weasel." Derelicts of Dialect. Def Jam, 1991.

Beastie Boys. "Brass Monkey." Licensed to Ill. Def Jam/Columbia, 1986.

Body Count. "Cop Killer." Body Count. Warner Bros, 1992.

Common. "Hungry." One Day It'll All Make Sense. Relativity, 1997.

Defari. "Focused Daily." Focused Daily. Tommy Boy, 1998.

Deltron 3030. Deltron 3030. 75 Ark, 2001.

Digital Underground. "The Humpty Dance." Sex Packets. Tommy Boy, 1990.

--. "No Nose Job." Sons of the P. Tommy Boy, 1991.

--. "The Return of the Crazy One." The Body Hat Syndrome. Tommy Boy, 1993.

Dr. Dre. "Dre Day." The Chronic. Death Row, 1993. Music video. MTV, 4 Aug. 1994.

Dr. Octagon. Dr. Octagynecologist. Dreamworks, 1996.

Eazy-E. "Real Muthaphukkin G's." It's On (187um Killa). Ruthless, 1993.

Ice-T. "I'm Your Pusher." Power. Sire, 1988.

Jay-Z. The Black Album. Roc-a-Fella, 2003.

Kool Moe Dee and Busy Bee. "Kool Moe Dee vs. Busy Bee at the Harlem World, Manhattan, NY 1981." Rap Archives Volume I. Urban London, 1996.

KMD. Black Bastards. Metal Face Records, 2001.

--. "What a Niggy Know?" Black Bastards. Metal Face Records, 2001.

Lootpack. "Questions." Soundpieces: The Antidote! Stone's Throw, 1999.

Lost Boyz. "Legal Drug Money." Legal Drug Money. Universal, 1996.

--. "Music Makes Me High." Legal Drug Money. Universal, 1996.

MF DOOM. "Rhymes Like Dimes." Operation: Doomsday. Fondle Em, 2000.

--. "Tick, Tick." Operation: Doomsday. Fondle Em, 2000.

Murs. End of the Beginning. Definitive Jux, 2003.

NWA. "Express Yourself." Straight Outta Compton. Ruthless, 1988.

--. "I Ain't Tha One." Straight Outta Compton. Ruthless, 1988.

Paris. "Bush Killa." Sleeping with the Enemy. Scarface, 1992.

--. "Coffee, Donuts, and Death." Sleeping With the Enemy. Scarface, 1992.

Run DMC. "Sucker MCs (Krush Groove I)." Run DMC. Def Jam, 1984.

RZA. RZA as Bobby Digital. Gee Street, 1998.

--. Birth of a Prince. Sanctuary, 2003.

Sage Francis. "Narcissist." The Known Unsoldier. Strange Famous, 2002.

St. Lunatics. "Real Niggaz." Free City. Universal, 2001.

A Tribe Called Quest. "Show Business." The Low End Theory. Jive, 1992.

Videography

3rd Bass. "The Gas Face." The Cactus Album. Def Jam, 1989. Music video. MTV. 11 Nov. 1989.

Ahearn, Charlie, Dir. Wild Style. Perf. Lee Quinones, Mr. Wiggles. First Run Features, 1982.

The Pharcyde. "It's Jiggaboo Time." Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde. Delicious Vinyl, 1992. Music Video. MTV. 14 Aug. 1992.

from findarticles.com

DJ SHADOW - The Outsider Review + Full Album Free MP3 Download @ Rapidshare

2006-09-07T08:33:00.000-07:00

In 1994 DJ Shadow released 'Endtroducing', the album many people said invented 'Trip-Hop' (they were, of course, wrong). In the UK at least he was quickly elevated to god-like status, with anorak-clad collectors searching out every remix and B-side available. Cunningly he decided to wait over seven years to release his next album, by which time anticipation levels were through the roof, only to be (partially) dashed by an album that many obsessives felt strayed too far from the blueprint laid down by his debut (they were, of course, wrong). So surely Jesus H. Christ himself only knows what they made of '3 Freaks', the first single from the new album which found its way on to Bay Area radio and the internet some time last year, it being a high energy keyboard-based hip hop track with little sign of the influence of artists like David Axelrod that helped shape his earlier work.

So it is with trepidation and much interest that I find myself the recipient of a last minute invitation to check out DJ Shadow's new LP a few months before its scheduled release date at a small early evening soiree in London's Soho House. Amazingly the man himself has showed up, and proceeds to answer questions from the crowd. The journalistic standard is set high from the first question - "Where's your favourite place to sample a hand clap from?" Seriously, someone asked this. Personally I would have shot the fucker, but Shadow is obviously on some mellow Californian shit so he actually answered the question. This scintillating discussion mercifully didn't last long and we quickly got a chance to hear the new album in its entirety. It was free drinks at the bar, so in order to protect my journalistic integrity I drunk as many Coronas as possible. If I get invited to enough of these events I could probably halve my weekly alcohol budget. Unfortunately they don't respond too well to takeaway requests at these places but I'm working on it.

OUTSIDER INTRO

Some dude waffles on for about a minute over some ambient sounds. Sets the scene for something dark and oppressive...

THIS TIME (I'M GONNA TRY IT MY WAY)

... which this track really isn't. Reminiscent of 'I Changed My Mind' by Quannum. A nice enough summer song.

3 FREAKS featuring Keak Da Sneak & Turf Talk

You may have already heard this. Turns out DJ Shadow has turned hyphy, abandoning his signature sampling sound for 808 drums and bleepy FX. A bit like if DJ Premier suddenly renounced his MPC and started co-producing with Lil' Jon. Fans of his previous work may well be feeling a little unsettled at this point.

DROOP-E DROP

A skit.

TURF DANCING featuring The Federation & Animaniaks

Slightly slower hyphy beats, with the same phased vocal effect as on '3 Freaks'. People who know Shadow only for 'Endtroducing' may well be checking to see if the store gave them the right CD.

KEEP EM CLOSE featuring Nump

3/4 hyphy. Into much darker territory on this track, with foreboding strings, police sirens, gunshots and screams piercing through the beat. Decent enough performance from Nump.

SEEIN THANGS featuring David Banner

Supposedly Shadow wanted Mystikal to also feature on this track, but he's done some very bad things and isn't going to see daylight any time soon. David Banner handles the track solo no problem, delivering the strongest hook of any track on the LP. The beat is a slowed down hyphy lick with ghostly wailing riding over distorted sine-wave bass. Kinda reminded me of Add N To X, but with rapping. Now there's a thought.

BROKEN LEVEE BLUES

A little blues guitar for two or so minutes.

ARTIFACT (INSTRUMENTAL)

Best described as early Beastie Boys’ punk rock on crack. By the end of this track you may well feel like your head has been repeatedly beaten with a stick.

BACKSTAGE GIRL featuring Phonte Coleman

A bit like what The Roots attempted with 'The Seed', a relatively successful blend of blues-rock and rap. Phonte is really coming on as an emcee. Favourite quote? 'I gotta stop fucking with these hoes off of Myspace'. Word.

TRIPLICATE / SOMETHING HAPPENED THAT DAY

Not much happens on this one.

THE TIGER featuring Sergio Pizzorno & Christopher Karloff

People who bought this album for the E40 and Keak Da Sneak tracks will be scratching their heads at this point. Not a million miles away from the UNKLE project he produced with James Lavelle. Features two dudes from the English rock group Kasabian.

ERASE YOU featuring Chris James

Chris James sounds just like the dude out of Coldplay. You will need to be quite stoned to enjoy this.

WHAT HAVE I DONE featuring Christina Carter

I imagine the title was inspired by DJ Shadow's first thought on completing this track. Not even copious amounts of marijuana will help you here, unless of course you like meditation tapes with semi-mystic bullshit about 'healing spirits' and 'hundreds of butterflies'. In which case you should probably sit yourself down and have a 'by-myself meeting'.

YOU MADE IT featuring Chris James

More Coldplay-ness.

ENUFF featuring Q-Tip & Lateef The Truth Speaker

This track isn't a million miles away from T.I.'s 'Why You Wanna?', but with an exceptionally annoying chorus that threatens to totally derail the entire exercise. Fortunately the track just about pulls through, in no small part down to Q-Tip who is right back on form as of late.

DATS MY PART featuring E-40

An enjoyable enough hyphy-by-numbers track, but hardly inspiring considering this is from the man who wrote 'Midnight In A Perfect World'.

COMMENTS

I really can't see your typical DJ Shadow fan going crazy to the hyphy beats on this album, but hey prove me wrong. Meanwhile those dudes who are planning on buying the album 'cause it's got E40 and David Banner on it should probably wait for the promised Bay Area EP, which will round-up all the hyphy essentials in one complete package (nh). Personally I quite liked parts of it, but felt it completely lacked cohesion. Lurking inside 'The Outsider' are three pretty good EPs struggling to get out. Selective downloading shall be the order of the day.

BEST TRACKS: THIS TIME, 3 FREAKS, SEEIN THANGS, BACKSTAGE GIRL.

from http://www.byroncrawford.com/2006/06/dj_shadow_the_o.html

And here's the download link for DJ SHADOW The Outsider Full Album Free MP3 Download @ Rapidshare UPDATED!

BBE News - Nicolay - Here + Rapidshare Download

2006-09-07T08:12:00.000-07:00

Music is the universal language that comes in different forms and for centuries has brought people together from all walks of life. The producers role is crucial in the creation of the music process, with the responsibilities of building the foundation and direction of any masterpiece. In this era of the producer rising to the forefront, Nicolay is making serious international headway.

Born and raised in The Netherlands, Europe, Nicolay's passion for music has dominated his life for as long as he can remember. He was brought up with equal parts of Stevie Wonder and Neil Young, and as a youth, most of his days were spent listening to whatever music he could get his hands on. Nicolays early love for classical music drove him to seek a formal music education. A true multi-instrumentalist, Nicolay is proficient in playing piano and keyboards, guitar, bass and drums. Nicolays diverse understanding of music led him to play in several Hip-Hop and R&B bands, opening up for artists such as K-Ci & JoJo, Boyz II Men, MC Lyte and many others.

After being a live musician and bandleader for nearly a decade, Nicolay started producing in 2000, and shortly thereafter, came across Phonte Coleman of Little Brother through the Okayplayer message boards. The two soon began trading tracks and rhymes back and forth over instant messenger, which in turn created the b-side single for Little Brother's critically acclaimed 2003 album The Listening, titled 'Light It Up'. At the time, neither of them suspected that they were actually laying the foundation for what would become one of the most cohesive and innovative albums of 2004. Together they called themselves The Foreign Exchange, and appropriately titled the project 'Connected'.

In 2006, Nicolay has found himself busier than ever. Facing forward and preparing to leave his homeland, Nicolay presents his long anticipated debut album, 'Here'(June 2006) which creates a harmonious blend of goodbye and hello. Gearing up for his future move to the States, Nicolay takes this album on a musical journey; while traveling through St. Louis alongside Black Spade, to Pittsburgh via Wiz Khalifa, a stop in North Carolina, with Darien Brockington & YahZarah from the Foreign Exchange, right on down to Texas with Kay of The Foundation, and straight on through to L.A. with Sy Smith. Already destined to be a future classic, 'Here' is overflowing in great artistry and musicianship, songs and production. When looking for the music that creates a familiar place, or maybe even just a song that harmonizes your life in one single solitary chorus, you can make your final stop here, with Nicolay.

from myspace.com/nicolay

Tracklist:

Here (Intro)
I love The Way You Love feat. Darien Brockington
I Am The Man feat. Black Spade
Give Her Everything
What It Used To Be feat. Wiz Khalifa
Good Days Are Gone feat. Black Spade
Let It Shine For Me
The End Is Near feat. Black Spade
Adore feat. Yahzarah
Here (Outro)
My Story feat. Kay and Sy Smith

Download Nicolay Here Promo @ Rapidshare here

Babygrande News - Blue Sky Black Death presents: The Holocaust + Full Ablum MP3 Download @ Rapidshare

2006-09-07T07:58:00.000-07:00

Joining forces in 2004, the team has wasted no time in crafting dynamic tracks for some of the most renowned talent in underground hip-hop. To date, Blue Sky Black Death has worked with the likes of Guru, (Gang Starr), Chief Kamachi (Army of the Pharaohs), Jus Allah (formerly of Jedi Mind Tricks), amongst many others.

With a track record that speaks for itself, Black Sky Black Death has already garnered massive critical notoriety. Most recently, they were awarded the prestigious and coveted "Next 100" by URB Magazine.

The tandem's production work can be construed as a prelude to their greatest musical achievement to date: the collaborative concept album (and solo debut) from renowned Wu-Tang affiliate/emcee The Holocaust.

Prominently featured on the RZA's classic album Bobby Digital, fans have long anticipated a solo offering from this underground mainstay. The debut exhibits The Holocaust's verbal ingenuity and penchant for visceral imagery, serving as a validation of his widely acknowledged underground legacy.

Blue Sky Black Death presents: The Holocaust is an unprecedented pairing of some of indie hip-hop's most original and promising new talent.

from babygrande.net

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2006-09-06T10:37:00.000-07:00

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J Dilla - The Shining (2006) Free MP3 Download + Review

JayLib / Jay Dee / Frank-n-Dank Hip Hop Instumentals Free MP3 Downloads

Rapper Mos Def's political performance shut down (Underground Hip Hop News)

2006-09-05T20:56:00.000-07:00

Mos Def was arrested last week while he tried to play for people waiting outside Radio City Music Hall, where the MTV Video Music Awards took place in New York last week.

Mos Def, whose real name is Dante Smith, reportedly drove up to the venue in a flatbed truck and began to set up his own show. NYPD claim they asked the rapper/actor to cease and desist. However, a source close to Smith told MTV news the police first asked whether they had a permit to perform; when told there was a permit they allowed the Ms Fat Booty singer to proceed (Smith's publicist later revealed they did not, in fact, have a permit).

Apparently, it was after Smith sang Katrina Clap, a song attacking the Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina, that more police were called and arrests were made. Some reports suggest police charged Smith with disorderly conduct. He was released the next day. However, a statement from Carleen Donovan, a representative for Smith, said, "Mos Def chose to use his voice to speak for those who are losing their own during this critical period of reconstruction. [He] was in the middle of performing and as soon as he was made aware of the police's presence, he shut everything down. His staff and team were willing to comply as well but the police overreacted. Mos Def was not charged but given a summons for operating a sound-reproduction device without a permit, which he is going to contest."

from insideeonline.com

Keywords: Mos Def, Black Star, MTV VMA 2006, political rap, true school, illegal performing

RZA Interview on Roland MV-8000 // How to Make Hip-Hop Beats with Roland MV-8000

2006-09-05T07:30:00.000-07:00

Armed with a Roland MV-8000, RZA has become the ninja master of slice-and-dice sampling. A native of Brooklyn, the hip-hop icon has brought his signature chopped-audio sound to Tinseltown, and film directors are fighting to get a piece of it. Kill Bill I & II, Blade Trinity, Ghost Dog, and the upcoming Miami Vice big-screen blockbuster are prime examples of RZA’s stylized music for picture.

Film is just one piece of RZA’s creative catalog, however. As a founding member of the Wu-Tang Clan, he played a vital role in shaping hip-hop history by contributing to dozens of influential releases. Log onto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RZA for a crash course.

With his custom-painted Roland MV-8000 in tow, RZA paid a visit to Roland US headquarters recently. What follows are some of the highlights of our in-studio conversation.

How did you get into the Roland MV-8000?

Man, how I got into it is kinda crazy. I was working on the movie Blade Trinity. See, every time I’m working on a new project, I strive to get a new machine. So I was in the store. I’d seen the Roland MV-8000 a few times, played with it, but I never went for it. I own the Roland MC-909, and I like it so much … it has one of the best time-compressors made for digital audio. I thought, “Let me try the Roland MV-8000 and see if it’s up to standards with the 909.” So I bought it, took it home, and … I couldn’t make a beat! I was p---ed off. So I called the guy at the store, he called somebody at Roland, and he figured out what the problem was: I had the old software. So he put the new software in, spent about five minutes showing me a few things, and after that I was hooked on the MV. So I started out with a bad attitude about it, but it turned out that the MV is one of the most friendly drum-machine-type samplers out there. Unlike the MPC, access to your sounds and editing features is at the [snaps fingers] snap of a button.

My production style is chop style. And on the MP, I wouldn’t have been there that quick; it would’ve taken me something like six minutes to get to a point like that. And that’s what hooked me on the Roland MV-8000. So far I’ve probably made over 150 beats on this machine. And also, the sound of this machine is pretty crazy too, yo.

What’s one of your favorite songs or film cues that you’ve used the Roland MV-8000 on?

If you check out the movie Blade Trinity, you’ll hear a song that we did called “Fatal.” That song was based on the Roland MV-8000. That song is another example of how I’d take an old sample [in this case from Lou Reed’s Velvet Underground] and alter it in the machine, chop it up how I wanted, and then do some experimentation on top of it.

What also makes the MV so fat is this — you’ve got the BPM sync. So with that sample, for example [he demonstrates] you can time-stretch it out at any tempo. By doing that, the tempo that I needed for the Lou Reed sound could be stretched quickly without going to my computer. It was all done inside the machine. For the newest project I’m working on right now, Cuban Linx Part 2, which is a follow-up to the Raekwon classic Cuban Linx, at least 60-percent of that album was produced on the Roland MV-8000.

What other features do you rely on when using the Roland MV-8000?

Most beat machines are made for MIDI, and not for MIDI and audio together. The Roland MV-8000 brings both of those worlds together in a unique way. The time-compression, the BPM map, the clipboard, and the quick editing make it so easy and fast for me that I don’t lose my ideas. That’s important for musicians and producers. Ideas come and go [snaps fingers]. I’ve you’ve gotta sit there for ten minutes truncating things and doing whatever you’ve gotta do to make your chop work, you forget what you were gonna do. If you can do it quick, you won’t forget.

I also like the Step Record on the MV, which you can put in by beat or by phrase. In some cases my phrases are off beat; there’s no tempo I can find to match it. But being that the MV can automatically cut samples up, I can just put the phrase in, step record it, go to the next step and put another phrase in, and everything will stay on beat no matter what the tempo is. It’s like a Pro Tools rig inside this machine, which helps me out a lot. Anybody who makes beats on their laptops, and are gettin’ tired of clicking the mouse and doing all those things that don’t make it feel organic, the MV is the solution.

Speaking of audio, how do you typically import audio into the Roland MV-8000 — straight from vinyl, from live sampling, from WAV files through USB?

Everything. You’ve got a turntable jack right on the back, so you can hook your turntable up to it without needing a mixer. You can also plug in a mic. You can plug in a guitar. Just last night I recorded bass. I’ve recorded vocals into it. I’ve also used the internal patches — the keyboard sounds, the 808, which it is just as good as the classic. I use it for about 80-percent of all my beats. The sounds that come with the MV are very, very useful. Being able to combine a bunch of edited audio tracks with MIDI tracks like 808 is super helpful yo.

Other than the Roland MV-8000, what other Roland gear have you used over the years?

One of the most famous pieces that I see in every studio I go to, and I own one myself, is the [JV-] 1080 — and up to the [XV-] 5080. The 1080 basically defined the West Coast sound. I bought a 1080 when I was back up East knowing that the West Coast guys were using it. Some of the sounds in there — the Bass 101, the old Junos ya’ll put in there. . . . It was one of the best modules that ever came out. Now I’ve got the 3080 and 5080. I use many Roland products, including the Fantom and the Roland MC-909, which I love. I used that for Kill Bill.

We went to Mexico when they were filming Kill Bill, and I had the 909 in my room making beats for the film. One night everybody wanted to have a party outside on the beach, so a guy brought some equipment and I brought my Roland MC-909. It was so cool when I was playing the beats, slowin’ ’em down, changing the pitch control. I entertained everybody, man. The girls were going crazy, the homies were like, “Yo, what is that machine?” So that machine is not only a great machine for producing, it’s also a great machine for live action. You can plug up your DJ light system to it. You can synchronize your turntables and CDJs, and you can really put on a unique show. I did a tour in Europe where I took it with me for about 30 days, and I dazzled quite a few crowds with it.

How about BOSS gear?

My first BOSS product was called Dr. Synth [DS-330], which was used on the song “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” by ODB. That part [vocalizes: da dada-da dada-da dada-da da”] was Dr. Synth, which only cost me about 200 bucks. It was my first synth ever. You can also hear it on “Hippa to Da Hoppa” by ODB. Really, on that whole first ODB album, most of the bass and keyboards came from that BOSS sound module. I go back with BOSS, back to the first Dr. Rhythms and all that. I’ve been a geek at this for a while. For people who don’t have the pocket when they’re first starting out, BOSS offers products that you can afford and still get the quality and definitely get the control you need over your sound to get you into the producing world.

Tell us about your custom-painted Roland MV-8000.

Ya’ll are gonna look at this and say, “Hold on, I don’t see that one in the store!” We got this custom painted by Bruce Forat [http://www.forat.com]/, one of the great custom designers of all audio machines. I took my Roland MV-8000 down to Bruce, we chose some colors — yellow and black, the Wu-Tang colors — and he “customed” it out and made it look like a fat car. It almost looks like my Suburban, know what I mean? The original design is cool as well, but if you really wanna get crazy, take it down to Bruce Forat and he’ll hook it up to your own specifications.

from... oops from some forum don't remember ))

Psycho Logical (mr Hyde, Ill Bill, Necro, etc) Hip Hop Instrumentals Free MP3 Download

2006-09-01T02:50:00.000-07:00

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2006-09-01T02:41:00.000-07:00

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2006-09-01T02:33:00.000-07:00

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Madlib / Quasimoto The Unseen Hip Hop Instrumentals Free MP3 Download @ rapidshare.de

2006-09-01T02:28:00.000-07:00

1. Welcome To Violence [produced by Madlib]
2. Bad Character [produced by Madlib]
3. Microphone Mathematics [produced by Madlib]
4. Basic Insinct [produced by Madlib]
5. Goodmorning Sunshine [produced by Madlib]
6. Discipline 99 Pt. 0 ft. Mr. Herb [produced by Madlib]
7. Low Class Conspiracy [produced by Madlib]
8. Return Of The Loop Digga [produced by Madlib]
9. Real Eyes [produced by Madlib]
10. Come On Feet [produced by Madlib]
11. Bluffin [produced by Madlib]
12. Boom Music [produced by Madlib]
13. MHBs [produced by Madlib]
14. Put A Curse On You [produced by Madlib]
15. Astro Black [produced by Madlib]
16. Green Power [produced by Madlib]
17. Jazz Cats Pt. 1 [produced by Madlib]
18. 24-7 ft. Medaphoar [produced by Madlib]
19. The Unseen [produced by Madlib]
20. Phony Game [produced by Madlib]
21. Astro Travellin [produced by Madlib]
22. Blitz [produced by Madlib]
23. Axe Puzzles [produced by Madlib]
24. Discipline 99 Pt. 1 ft. Wildchild [produced by Madlib]

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2006-09-01T02:18:00.000-07:00

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Deadelus Bio

2006-09-01T00:35:00.000-07:00

Daedelus, the eccentric, electronic maestro of the Pacific coast returns with "Exquisite Corpse" his most complete and baffling record to date. One of LA's most daring new artists this young musical romantic weaves together a true "love-sound" that falls between honeyed melody and avant-electronics. Daedelus chops and splices disparate acoustic sources into incredible works of staggering resonance. Contrasting IDM styled cut-ups with childlike arrangements from the 30's and 40's, he has refined a style that has no imitators. Exactly the kind of music you’d expect from a scarily well-connected hip hop nut who happens to dress in Edwardian clothing and names himself after an Ancient Greek Legend.

The album title, as well as the idea, is taken from the old Surrealist game in which a group of random French crazies and intellectuals write down part of a sentence, fold the page and pass it on to the next - 'Consequences' without the consequences. Or if that doesn't make sense, how about this? "A kind of collective collage of words or images" ("Dada & Surrealist Art" by William S.Rubin).

And there's definitely a collective at work here, Daedelus' trademark musicality running up against a slather of maverick talent from the worlds of hip hop and beyond. The performances range from traditional (MF Doom, Sci from Scienz of Life) to poetic (Mike Ladd, CYNE, Laura Darling) to experimental (Prefuse 73, Hrishikesh Hirway of The One AM Radio, TTC, Jogger), but Daedelus moulds the seemingly disparate elements of sound with a single-minded vision.

With a body of work including releases through Mush, Plug Research, Hefty, Tigerbeat6, and Eastern Developments, Daedelus' rep is long since established. At last he has given us the record about which journalists can use the word "surreal" without being lazy. And for this alone we must all be thankful.

from ninjatune.net

A Letter To Ghostface Killah from Comedian Sean Sullivan

2006-08-30T08:27:00.000-07:00

Dear Ghostface Killah

Hello, Mr. Killah. My name is Sean Sullivan. On May 31st at approx 8:13pm, I sent you a friendship request on the popular online social networking website, MySpace. As of right now (June 18th approx 1:57pm), I see that my friendship request has still not been accepted. What's up, Ghostface? Am I that terrible of a person to have as a friend? Are you worried that you'll lose some street cred if someone is searching through your network of friends and sees a fat white guy in a superhero costume standing in front of the Boston skyline? Does this have something to do with the New York/Boston rivalry? I know it is not because you dislike superheroes. In fact, I know that you probably like superheroes as you often refer to yourself as Tony Starks, which as we all know is the alterego for the Marvel Comics superhero, Ironman. Do you know how I know this, GFK? It is because I am very big fan of your music. I'll admit that I am certainly one of your newer fans, having first heard you on the DangerDoom album and sure, I bought your latest album Fishscale on a whim because it was only $8.99 at Newbury Comics but it is incredible. It will most certainly be in the top five of end-of-the-year-lists-of-things-that-i-like. I was so impressed that I've backtracked and bought Supreme Clientele and the Pretty Toney Album (both great btw). So what's up? Do you want to maybe have a trial run at a friendship before we solidify it in front of the online community. What are you doing tonight? I'm probably just going to rent some videos. You could come over and watch them with me if you want. I'll make popcorn. Have you ever seen the Princess Bride? I heard they just put out a new special edition of it on Dvd and since I don't think I've seen it all the way through before, I figured maybe we could watch it together. What do you say, Ghostface? Is that something you would like to do? We don't have to watch that movie. I have the third season of NewsRadio as well (though I like to watch those while I do the elliptical machine but I guess I could make an exception for you). Maybe we don't even have to watch videos. Contrary to the things I say in my stand-up act, I have been playing some really good mini-golf lately. It's an activity that I don't really enjoy in theory but that I kind of like in practise. There's an old timey looking mini-golf course over Holbrook that me and my girlfriend have been thinking about trying. It's not one of those Rock Cave Waterfall mini-golf courses that have become so commonplace. It's a throwback. Just like some of your music. Anyway, we could just get coffee (I don't drink coffee but I do like Chai) or we could just do some coke or something. Whatever. No biggie. I look forward to hearing back from you soon, Ghostface Killah.

You friend,
Sean

from http://seansullivan.blogspot.com

Rap Lyrics Translated / Rapping For Dummies / How to Rap for Dummies

2006-08-30T06:47:00.000-07:00

Notorious B.I.G One more Chance rap lyrics translated. Have Fun.

Lyrics:

First things first, I poppa, freaks all the honeys

Dummies - playboy bunnies, those wantin’ money

Those the ones I like ‘cause they don’t get nathan’

But penetration, unless it smells like sanitation

Garbage, I turn like doorknobs

Heart throb, never, black and ugly as ever

However, I stay coochied down to the socks

Rings and watch filled with rocks

TRANSLATION:

As a general rule, I perform deviant sexual acts with women of all kinds, including but not limited to those with limited intellect, nude magazine models, and prostitutes. I particularly enjoy sexual encounters with the latter group as they are generally disappointed in the fact that they only receive penile intercourse and nothing more, unless of course, they douche on a consistent basis. Although I am extremely unattractive, I am able to engage in these types of sexual acts with some regularity. Perhaps my sexuality is somehow related to my fancy and expensive jewelry.

Lyrics:

And my jam knock in the Mitsubishi

Girls pee pee when they see me, Nava-hoes creep me in they tee pee

As I lay down laws like I lay carpet

Stop it - if you think your gonna make a profit

TRANSLATION:

I enjoy playing my music loudly on my car stereo. Apparently, women enjoy this also because they become sexually aroused when they see me driving. Oddly enough, when I visit the Native American reservations, some of the more sexually promiscuous Indian women attempt to seduce me in their homes. Their intent is to divest me of my earnings. Such actions are unacceptable.

Lyrics:

Don’t see my ones, don’t see my guns - get it

Now tell ya friends Poppa hit it then split it

In two as I flow with the Junior Mafia

I don’t know what the hell’s stoppin’ ya

I’m clockin’ ya - Versace shades watchin’ ya

Once ya grin, I’m in game, begin

TRANSLATION:

Understand this fact: you can have neither my money, nor my weapons. I suggest that you inform your peers that we engaged in violent sexual acts. Currently, I am rapping with my associates, the Junior Mafia. I’m having some difficulty understanding why you refuse to approach me. I am attempting to make eye contact with you through my expensive glasses, and as soon as you respond with a smile, I will approach you.

Lyrics:

First I talk about how I dress and this

And diamond necklaces - stretch Lexuses

The sex is just immaculate from the back I get

Deeper and deeper - help ya reach the

Climax that your man can’t make

Call and tell him you’ll be home real late

Let’s sing the break

TRANSLATION:

I prefer to open the conversation with light banter about my wardrobe and jewelry, then I like to discuss my collection of expensive cars. This is more than enough to convince you to have sexual intercourse with me. I am able to insert my penis further into you when I enter you from behind. Furthermore, you will be able to reach orgasm. I understand this to be a problem with your current sexual partner. He needn’t be concerned about your whereabouts. Please phone him and inform him that you won’t be home for a while. By the way, please sing the chorus of the song for me also.

Lyrics:

She’s sick of that song on how it’s so long

Thought he worked his until I handled my biz

There I is - major pain like Damon Wayans

Low down dirty even like his brother Keenan

Schemin’ - don’t bring your girl ‘round me

True player for real, ask Puff Daddy

TRANSLATION:

Your current love interest no longer wishes to hear your fabrications about the length of your member. After I had sexual intercourse with your woman, she became enlightened as to the proper way it is supposed to be performed; violently and immorally. It would be in your best interest to keep your woman away from me as my sexual prowess is very strong. If you are unconvinced, ask Puff Daddy.

Lyrics:

You - ringin’ bells with bags from Chanel

Baby Benz, traded in your Hyundai Excel

Fully equipped, CD changer with the cell

She beeped me, meet me at twelve

TRANSLATION:

Despite the fact that you attempted to win her at her doorstep with bags full of expensive clothes and a car (the lower end model Mercedes Benz which you financed by signing over your current vehicle) containing an expensive stereo and a cellular phone, your woman has contacted me through my pager indicating that we should rendezvous at midnight.

Lyrics:

Where you at? Flippin’ jobs, playin’ car notes?

While I’m swimmin’ in ya women like the breast stroke

Right stroke, left stroke what’s the best stroke

Death stroke - tongue all down her throat

Nuthin’ left to do but send her home to you

I’m through - can ya sing the song for me, boo?

TRANSLATION:

You, on the other hand, jump from job to job, barely able to maintain payments on the Mercedes Benz you purchased for your woman. Meanwhile, I continue to engage in sexual intercourse and commit lewd osculatory acts with your women. My only remaining option is to request that she leave my home and return to you because I have reached orgasm and no longer have a need for her presence.

Lyrics:

So, what’s it gonna be? Him or me?

We can cruise the world with pearls

Gator boots for girls

The envy of all women, crushed linen

Cartier wrist-wear with diamonds in ‘em

The finest women I love with a passion

Ya man’s a wimp, I give that ass a good thrashin’

TRANSLATION:

The ultimate decision rests with you. Whom do you choose as your sexual partner. I can take you on cruises around the world. I will dress you in the finest jewelry and footwear. You will be envied by women worldwide in your fine clothes and jewelry. There is a special place in my heart for beautiful women. I will defeat your man in an altercation because he is effeminate.

Lyrics:

High fashion - flyin’ into all states.

Sexin’ me while your man masturbates.

Isn’t this great? Your flight leaves at eight.

Her flight lands at nine, my game just rewinds.

Lyrically I’m supposed to represent.

I’m not only the client, I’m the player president

TRANSLATION:

You will be dressed in finest clothes on the runways of Paris. I will fly you to every state to shop for fine clothes and jewelry. You will enjoy sexual intercourse with me and your man will be forced to pleasure himself through manual stimulation. What a life! I’ll return you to LaGuardia in time to catch your 8 o’clock flight. The timing is perfect because I have scheduled a date with a second woman who arrives at the same gate at 9 o’clock. I’ll seduce her in the same way that I seduced you. I rap well and I am a positive reflection of my home town. Not only am I a sexually deviant, misogynistic, immoral, wealthy, male prostitute, but I also sit on the board of directors of the organization that governs others of my kind.

from funny.co.uk

Rap Lyrics Translated / Rapping For Dummies / How to Rap for Dummies

Athletic Mic League

2006-08-30T06:17:00.000-07:00

The 7 man crew known as the Athletic Mic League came together while still attending high school in Ann Arbor, MI. Buff, 14KT, Grand Champ, Sunny Star, Texture, and Vital joined forces with DJ Haircut and after two years of love and support from the local hip-hop community they made it official. Athletic Mic League was out to show the world what their brand of hip-hop was all about.

By 1998 AML had blessed high school talent shows, house parties, and hip-hop nights across Detroit. Following up with their underground classic demo The Thrill is Gone, the buzz grew to deafening levels. In 1999 they settled in Jersey City, quickly building their reputation and skills in the neighboring New York hip-hop scene.

They capitalized on their growing notoriety by dropping their debut album Sweats & Kicks which received rave reviews from the streets and hip-hop tastemakers alike. It also afforded them the opportunity of a lifetime. Their music was heard by Yasser Khan, an upstart manager out of Detroit's Barak Records. He was enthralled by their sound, and immediately set out to find what he knew was a once-in-a-career group. He introduced them to Barak's CEO, RJ Rice. Rice, a well-known record industry executive and the man behind seminal Detroit rap group Slum Village, recognized that AML had their finger on the pulse of what hip-hop needed: an infusion of energy and originality.

Athletic Mic League spent 2003 under Rice's guidance, soaking up knowledge on what makes or breaks records in the ever-changing climate of the music business. The results are astonishing. In January of 2004, AML released their new single 'Feel It' on a national scale and witnessed extraordinary crossover success. In March they were voted 'Best Rap/Hip-Hop Group' in Detroit by Real Detroit Magazine. The release of their new album Jungle Gym Jungle on Super Tuesday June 22nd, is an eagerly anticipated event for both Detroit and the entire music community.

from http://www.athleticmicleague.com/

Underground Hip Hop / Alternative Hip Hop definition - Great Article on Underground Hip Hop from wikipedia!

2006-08-29T09:54:00.000-07:00

Alternative hip hop or Underground hip hop is defined as a culture rather than just a musical genre. Underground hip hop includes the arts of turntablism, sampling, producing, breakdancing, visual art, graffiti, spoken word, beatboxing, freestyling, cyphering, and more. The music itself is distinguished by artists who are not promoted by major record labels, often because of their experimental musicianship and lyrical content. Many underground artists are also using hip hop to successfully communicate issues of social justice, global and political change, and collective consciousness. Underground hip hop beats are often characterized by the fusion of loops sampled from all genres of music, including classical, jazz, funk, rock, and punk. Although some listeners may associate live instrumentation with alternative hip hop, this distinction is invalid because mainstream rap acts such as J-Kwon use live instruments as well. Underground hip hop artists generally do not achieve the same level of financial success that commercial rappers achieve, although their work is often critically acclaimed.

Artists labeled as "alternative hip hop" musicians usually record and perform in styles that are more closely related to the original concepts and styles of hip hop music and hip hop culture, as opposed to their more popular commercial counterparts. DJ Kool Herc once said in an essay about hip hop, that "it's not about keeping it real. It's about keeping it right." In this sense, many would argue that alternative hip hop might not be so much an alternative as much as it is a continuation of the original concepts and ideals of hip hop.

The late 1980s

Alternative hip hop is usually said to have begun with De La Soul's landmark 3 Feet High and Rising (1989, see 1989 in music). The trio's distinctive style, mixing unique sampling sources (such as The Turtles, Steely Dan, and Johnny Cash) with spacey, hippie-ish lyrics and a sense of humor, made the album a commercial and critical success. With its inclusion of pre-recorded bits from outlandish sources, such as a French language instruction tape, the release foreshadowed the self-referential sampling kaleidoscope that would soon envelop hip hop (and pop music in general).

In addition to 3 Feet High and Rising, influential singles were released one year previously, in 1988 (see 1988 in music), by Gang Starr ("Words I Manifest") and Stetsasonic ("Talkin' All That Jazz"); these two singles fused hip hop with jazz in a way never done before, and helped lead to the development of jazz rap.

1989 also saw the release of:

Def Jef's landmark Just a Poet With a Soul, which included Etta James, an influential 1960s soul singer on one track
Gang Starr's debut, No More Mr. Nice Guy, which is often considered the first LP to mix hip hop and jazz
Jungle Brothers' critically acclaimed second album Done By the Forces of Nature, which included dance beats and achieved some mainstream success
Queen Latifah's feminist tract All Hail the Queen.

Early 1990s

During the early 1990s, mainstream hip hop was dominated by the West Coast G-Funk (like Dr. Dre and Snoop Doggy Dogg). Other artists found success difficult to achieve, though some East Coast acts, such as Puff Daddy's empire of East Coast hip hop artists (Bad Boy Records) gained chart success (Mary J. Blige's 1992 What's the 411?) as well as critical success (Nas's 1994 Illmatic), though rarely both at the same time.

The underground emerges

While gangsta rap dominated the charts, the East Coast alternative sound began to lose its luster. Strangely enough, underground hip hop, as we know it today, was born on the college campus. Furthermore, the DIY ethic of selling tapes and CDs "out of the trunk" to record stores and directly to fans would soon be adopted by the underground rappers around the world.

Spurred by the Freestyle Fellowship, other West Coast artists like The Pharcyde (Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde, 1992) and the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy (Hypocrisy Is the Greatest Luxury, 1992) also rose to prominence in the field. Despite the popularity of Bay Area Booty Rapper Too Short, Oakland gave birth to underground artists Del tha Funkee Homosapien (cousin to Gangsta Rapper Ice Cube) and Souls of Mischief with their seminal album ("93 'til Infinity"). Alongside these West Coast groups were generally more popular East Coast groups like A Tribe Called Quest (People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm, 1990) and Gang Starr (Step in the Arena, 1991). International groups, like Britain's The Brand New Heavies (Heavy Rhyme Experience, Vol. 1, 1992) and Massive Attack (Blue Lines, 1991) helped combine hip hop with R&B and electronica, respectively.

A Tribe Called Quest's 1991 album The Low-End Theory is regarded as one of the most influential recordings in alternative hip hop, especially with its timely indictment of the perceived commercializing and demoralizing effects of the music industry, then tearing hip hop apart into multiple competing genres, all rushing to sell out for mainstream success; the album also tackles subjects like date rape and rap feuds. The Low End Theory includes the legendary upright bassist Ron Carter and the Leaders of the New School (which included future superstar Busta Rhymes).

While A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul are considered jazz-rappers, the pioneer of an actual fusion between the two genres is unquestionably referential to the Last Poets, Gil Scott-Heron, and James Brown among others. Their collaborations with live jazz bands, including the likes of Horace Tapscott, date back to 1990. This inspired other artist s like Guru, whose 1993 Jazzmatazz, Vol. 1 was a critically acclaimed solo debut with live jazz backing. A jazz band including Lonnie Liston Smith, Roy Ayers, Branford Marsalis and Donald Byrd solos in the background while Guru (and guests like the Senegalese-French MC Solaar) raps.

Stubbornly insisting on sticking to their themes and ideas, alternative hip hop artists were able to incorporate elements of virtually every form of music around at the time.

Meanwhile, Christian hip hop group and pioneering Southern rap crew Arrested Development scored big with 1992's 3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life of..., which put Southern hip hop on the map. The album was particularly successful with non-hip hop fans, listeners who were turned off by the macho posturing of many other groups, and who wanted a safer alternative. Arrested Development's focus on peace and love and groovy beats made them relatively accessible, though their devout Christianity (reflected in the lyrics) also made them unattractive to some audiences.

Genres related to alternative hip hop

Alternative hip hop generally refers to a specific style of hip hop that is opposed to the mainstream sounds of pop rap. However, certain other hip hop fusion genres are closely related to this genre, including a mixture of 1970s-style soul music and hip hop called neo soul.

Neo soul

Hip hop also influenced R&B music in the 1990s. By the time hip hop began to enter the mainstream, R&B was rapidly losing its most legendary artists. While Michael Jackson, Prince, Tina Turner and Whitney Houston remained popular, the genre was seen as stunted and atrophied. Soon after, hip hop began to dominate what mainstream audiences thought of as African-American music with the release of Dr. Dre's blockbuster The Chronic. R&B became less popular among mainstream audiences, and several of the groups achieving commercial success mostly failing to find critical acclaim. The groups that did succeed incorporated hip hop beats and doo wop influences; these include Guy (The Future, 1990) and Boyz II Men (Cooleyhighharmony, 1991). Mary J. Blige's What's the 411? from 1992 was especially innovative, and lead to a style of R&B called hip hop soul that was popular during the early to mid 1990s.

During the mid- to late '90s, the hip hop soul sound was blended with a retro 1970s soul music feel, resulting in a new genre called neo soul. Widely regarded as a pioneer of the genre, D'Angelo's 1995 Brown Sugar was profoundly influential in its development, while a group of female artists like Erykah Badu (Baduizm) began its popularization soon after. Around and immediately after the turn of the decade, a second wave of female artists moved neo soul into the mainstream, especially Alicia Keys' Songs in A Minor (2001), as well as india.arie's Acoustic Soul (2001) and Jill Scott's Who Is Jill Scott?: Words and Sounds, Vol. 1 (2000). Critical reviews were mixed, with many listeners feeling that neo soul had lost its pioneering edge for middle-class shallow idealism.

The end of the 1990s

In spite of neo soul gaining mainstream acceptance, gangsta hip hop artists like Jay-Z (Reasonable Doubt, 1996) and DMX (...And Then There Was X, 1999) still dominated the charts as the end of the millennium neared. Critics and listeners regarded alternative hip hop as going through a lull.

Many observers feel that Dr. Octagon's seminal 1996 album Dr. Octagonecologyst revitalized hip hop's underground; Company Flow's Funcrusher Plus is another album cited as redefining the genre. Del tha Funkee Homosapien paired with Kool Keith's (aka Dr. Octagon) producer Dan the Automator to make Deltron 3030, who pushed the boundaries of hip hop to other universes and times.

Alternative hip hop soon began to lose its recent stylings for a return to Native Tongues-style old school with hardcore and jazz elements mixed in. The hip hop band, The Roots were among the leaders of the second alternative hip hop wave, dropping several critically acclaimed albums in the mid to late '90s, including Do You Want More?!!!??! (1995), Illadelph Halflife (1996), and the breakthrough, Things Fall Apart in 1999. On the West Coast, Ozomatli's self titled 1998 release fused latin and funky beats with hip hop in a groundbreaking way.

Mos Def and Talib Kweli's 1998 Black Star also contributed greatly to this evolution, with its return to Native Tongues-style old school hip hop. Mos Def's solo debut, Black on Both Sides (1999), quickly established him as a darling of alternative media for its incendiary politics, while Kweli's solo career took some time to get off the ground; as he didn't appear until 2000's Reflection Eternal, with partner Hi-Tek. Pharaohe Monch's Internal Affairs, his 1999 solo debut after leaving Organized Konfusion, also added more gangsta and hardcore hip hop elements to the mix.

Following in the footsteps of the Freestyle Fellowship were Jurassic 5 (Jurassic 5 EP) and Dilated Peoples (The Platform), who continued mixing funk and hip hop music to critical acclaim and popular rejection. The Bay area gave birth to highly experimental artists like Blackalicious with Nia, Zion I with "Mind Over Matter" as well as Lyrics Born, Lateef the Truth Speaker, and the Hieroglyphics Crew.

This period was also the high point for Hip Hop's DJ scene. The Invisibl Skratch Piklz and artists such as Cut Chemist, Dan the Automator, DJ Shadow, Mix Master Mike, DJ Qbert, and many others put a lasting stamp on turntablism and its emerging genre.

Post-2000 alternative hip hop

After the turn of the millennium, as the United States (still by far the world capital of hip hop) found itself confronted by the War on Terror, lyrics grew increasingly anti-mainstream, with some advocating radical actions on the behalf of various anarchist and socialist ideas. The cover for the album Party Music (2001) by the openly marxist band, The Coup, proved controversial after the September 11, 2001 attacks due to its depiction of the duo holding a stick of dynamite and a detonator, ready to blow up the World Trade Center (though the band itself had been well known in alternative hip hop circles since the early 1990s); other groups like dead prez (Let's Get Free, 2000), Mr. Lif with his EP, Emergency Rations, and Emcee Lynx (The Black Dog EP, 2003, and The UnAmerican LP, 2004) similarly raised controversy with militant and confrontational lyrics.

In 2001 and 2002, several popular albums were released. These included:

AWOL One & Daddy Kev - Souldoubt
Blackalicious - Blazing Arrow Rapidshare Download

Busdriver - Temporary Forever Megaupload Download
Common - Electric Circus Megaupload Download
The Coup - Steal This Double Album
Daddy Kev - Lost Angels EP
Hi-Tek - Hi-Teknology
Jurassic 5 - Power in Numbers Rapidshare Download
Living Legends - Almost Famous

The Roots - Phrenology
Talib Kweli - Quality Megaupload Download
Aesop Rock - Labor Days
Mr. Lif - I Phantom

Though most of these bands could be considered "political hip hop" for their lyrical focus, the early 2000s also saw futuristic or apocalyptic rappers like Cannibal Ox, El-P, Del Tha Funkee Homosapien, Prahfitz Ov Inzaniti, and Aesop Rock.

In the new millennium a new "sub-genre" arose from the West Coast, spearheaded by underground rap producer Daddy Kev (famed for his work with the Freestyle Fellowship). With artists like Busdriver, AWOL One, The Shape Shifters, cLOUDDEAD, and Themselves, the music became known as abstract hip hop (aka avant-hop, prog-hop or indie-hop). These MCs and DJs blend their rhymes and beats with an electronica, post-rock or indie crossover. Additionally, artists such as the Bay Area's Zion I have incorporated Trip Hop sounds while continuing to identify their music as underground hip hop. The band Posse of Two uses new wave synths in their music while continuing to identify their music as underground hip hop.

from wikipedia.org

Hey i hope you're checking wikipedia, there's a lot of useful info!

Kid Koala Bio

2006-08-28T09:07:00.000-07:00

In 1974, Kid Koala a.k.a Eric San was born in Vancouver, Canada. By the time he was twelve years old, and after many years of classical piano lessons, the young Eric discovered an increasingly popular sound that he would eventually make all his own. After making his first "scratch" on his sister's record player, he began saving his money from paper routes to buy his first turntable set-up.

By the early 1990's, Eric was living in Montreal where he had moved to study early childhood education at McGill University. While DJing in clubs, he began to attract the public's attention. In 1995, when Jon More (co-owner of UK record label Ninja Tune, and half of Coldcut) came to visit Montreal, Eric's innovative and humourous mix tape "Scratchcratchratchatch" ended up playing on the car stereo. Shortly thereafter, Eric, now Kid Koala, became Ninja Tune's first North American signing.

Following the signing, Kid Koala released a string of remixes and began touring North America with Ninja Tune artists such as Coldcut, DJ Food and DJ Vadim. But it was not long before his skill, innovation, and performance style led him to attract attention from those outside the club community. In 1998, he received an invitation to join Money Mark's band, and then went on the road to open for the Beastie Boys on their "Hello Nasty" world tour.

In February of 2000, Ninja Tune released Kid Koala's debut album "Carpal Tunnel Syndrome". The album received great praise and was featured in the international press for having defied expectation. The album was accompanied by both a video game and 32-page comic illustrated by Kid Koala himself. A tour featuring 6 turntables and live musicians soon followed and took the young artist throughout North America and Europe.

After the release of his first album on Ninja Tune, Kid Koala continued to tour extensively as a member of groups such as Deltron 3030, Lovage, Bullfrog and also as the opening act for international recording artists Radiohead.

But while he was on the road, new projects were brewing. Kid Koala continued to keep himself busy on his downtime with the help of pencil and paper. Many sketch books later, his first book Nufonia Must Fall was published in March of 2003 by ECW Press. This 350-page illustrated love story about an out-of-work robot and a workaholic girl was accompanied by a 'soundtrack' of short record of original, experimental piano-based compositions. The original music and his characters set the stage for a North American tour of intimate, sit-down venues, during which Kid Koala lay his fingers down not only on the turntables, but on the Wurlitzer- and on the remote control of an old slide projector.

Kid Koala's second full-length album on Ninja Tune "Some of My Best Friends are DJs" will be released in October 2003. It is an album (with a 50-page book) that clearly shows the evolution of a young artist, expanding on musical themes from Carpal Tunnel Syndrome as well as introducing entirely new musical concepts, and keeping in the aesthetic of Nufonia Must Fall. This album will be supported by tours in North America, Europe and Japan, and will incorporate music, animation and comedy into one complete cabaret performance.

from ukhh.com

JayLib / Jay Dee / Frank-n-Dank Hip Hop Instumentals Free MP3 Downloads

2006-08-28T07:00:00.000-07:00

I've just found 3 mp3 links to some j dilla hip hop instrumentals free mp3 downloads:

Jaylib The Red Instrumental Free MP3 Download 2:58 (Champion Sound, Stones Throw 2003) by J Dilla

Jay Dee Take Dem Clothes Off Instrumental Free MP3 Download 3:30 (Off Ya Chest 12”, ABB 2002) by J Dilla

Frank-N-Dank Ma Dukes Instrumental Free MP3 Download 4:26 (48 Hours, self-released 2003) by J Dilla

Btw, check the entire blog http://floodwatchmusic.com

Keywords: J Dilla Jaylib Jay Dee Frank-N-Dank Stones Throw Instrumentals Free MP3 Downloads

J Dilla - The Shining (2006) Free MP3 Download!

2006-08-27T08:55:00.000-07:00

Download J Dilla The Shining here.

Tacklist:

01. Geek Down Ft. Busta Rhymes
02. E=MC2 Ft. Common
03. Love Jones
04. Love Ft. Pharoahe Monch
05. Baby Ft. Madlib And Guilty Simpson
06. So Far To Go Ft. Common And D'angelo
07. Jungle Love Ft. MED And Guilty Simpson
08. Over The Breaks
09. Body Movin' Ft. J. Rocc And Karriem Riggins
10. Dime Piece (Remix) Ft Dwele
11. Love Movin' Ft. Black Thought
12. Won't Do

REVIEW:

If Donuts was Jay Dee's swan song, The Shining is a glimpse of what his work may have sounded like in the future.

The Shining is his second on BBE; the label released his debut, Welcome 2 Detroit, in 2001. That record, which broke ground on the Beat Generation series, set the creative bar high for those who would come after him, including fellow crate-diggers Pete Rock and DJ Spinna.

The Shining is packed solid with guest spots from friends and collaborators who worked with Jay over his decade-plus-long career. There's a soul-on-soul combination with Pharaohe Monch singing over one of Dilla's 45-infused beats, and an effortlessly dope set of verses from Black Thought and a casual hook he borrows from the intro to Jay's wax-only Ruff Draft EP (crucial material for any Dilla completists). A few heavy drums are all Detroit's Guilty Simpson and Stones Throw's Med need to get busy on "Jungle Love."

Despite Kanye boosting his sales numbers, it was Jay Dee who consistently brought out the best emcee in Common, his former roommate, and he proves it again here on "E=MC2." But it's a shame that the lead single will be one of the weaker "donuts," with Common's pink-frosting love talk and a few chocolate-sprinkled D'Angelo vocals on top. And I will never understand why a fiery Busta is wasted on a go-nowhere intro. The album's too short at twelve tracks, but we all know the reason for that. It does end on a high note, with Jay's version of modern soul: bubbling, multi-layered textures, rugged drums, vocal snip blips, and fantasy rhymes about girls, girls and more girls.

But for me the highlight has to be "Body Movin'," a white-hot instrumental track Dilla made with the help of Karriem Riggins. It couldn't be more different than the raw soul convections of Donuts. Cymbal-crashing percussion, sinister keys, an ever-building momentum and vocal samples cut in by the Beat Junkies' J.Rocc, "Body Movin'" quite simply sounds five steps ahead of all the other so-called beat-makers out there.

Jay Dee's real legacy is hard to define, specifically because he mastered so many styles, worked with so many different artists and remained unsatisfied with status quo until his dying day. Even when there was no doubt that what you were listening to was hip-hop, there was always another level to Jay's music -- one you could find with a pair of headphones just as quickly as you could with some push behind the speakers, a hidden element that went beyond samples and drum placement, not only allowing repeat listens but inviting them. The Shining is only further evidence that a master was at work. And that may be the saddest part of listening to this record: We will never know what he would have come up with next.

from prefixmag.com

Keywords: J Dilla The Shining Free MP3 Download

Oh No feat. Dudley Perkins & Georgia Anne Muldrow – T. Biggums MP3 Download + Video!

2006-08-27T02:15:00.000-07:00

Oh No feat. Dudley Perkins & Georgia Anne Muldrow – T. Biggums MP3 Download

Oh No feat. Dudley Perkins & Georgia Anne Muldrow – T. Biggums VIDEO:

Masta Ace (Duval Clear) Bio / Profile

2006-08-27T01:59:00.000-07:00

Masta Ace (born Duval Clear) is an African-American rapper from Brooklyn, New York. Appearing on classic 1988 posse cut, "The Symphony", he garnered notoriety as an unsung asset to the Juice Crew posse, and is therefore, widely considered one on the roster, where he released a number of well-respected albums that were nonetheless little-heard outside purist circles. The single that has earned him the most attention has been "Jeep Ass Niguh" (alternatively known as "Born To Roll", essentially a remix which uses a tweaked Moog synthesizer bassline sampled from Kraftwerk.)

His most recent (and reportedly final) album, A Long Hot Summer, gained considerable acclaim in 2004. He is one of a number of rappers to have mulled over the possibility of operating a record label, and his decision whether or not to quit rapping per se is pending.

In the early stages of his career, Masta Ace was very energetic (cf. "Jeep Ass N***a", where, tongue-in-cheek, he taunts police officers for their knee-jerk predisposition to harass black youth on city streets.) He also recorded material with a six-member supporting entourage, Masta Ace Incorporated. In light of his newly claimed status as a veteran, he has gravitated toward an earnest, matter-of-fact plainspokenness in the new millennium. Many of the songs that have lent newfound heft to his reputation are simple, no-nonsense rumination on feelings and facts of urban American life, including "Soda and Soap", "Brooklyn Masala" (which highlights a budding romance between Ace and a lovely but reserved Pakistani Hindu immigrant), and "Beautiful".

Recording history

1988-1994
Ace made his recording debut as Master Ace on the classic hip hop posse-cut "The Symphony", along with fellow Juice Crew members Craig G, Kool G Rap and Big Daddy Kane, released on Marley Marl's In Control album. In Control also featured two lesser known Ace tracks "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize" and "Simon Says". His first solo single, "Together" b/w "Letter to the Better", was released in 1989. He released his debut album, Take A Look Around, through Marl's Cold Chillin' label in 1990, featuring production from Marl and DJ Mister Cee. The album featured two minor hit singles in "Music Man" and "Me & The Biz", a track in which he impersonates fellow Juice Crew member Biz Markie. During the few years between his debut and his sophomore album, Ace began having bitter feelings toward the commercial state of hip hop music, feelings which ruled the content on his second release, 1993's SlaughtaHouse, with the loose concept of the album seeing Ace taking the fake "gangsta emcees" to his "SlaughtaHouse". The album featured Ace's new crew, Masta Ace Incorporated, which included Eyceurokk, Lord Digga, Paula Perry and R&B vocalist Leschea. The album sold moderately well, fueled by the singles "SlaughtaHouse", "Saturday Nite Live", "Style Wars" and "Jeep Ass Niguh". "Jeep" featured an unlisted remix titled "Born to Roll", which became a smash crossover single in 1994, peaking at #23 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Also in '94, Ace became a member of a temporary crew called the Crooklyn Dodgers, along with rap vet Special Ed and Black Moon's Buckshot, and recorded the title track for the soundtrack to Spike Lee's film Crooklyn. The song became Ace's second Hot 100 hit in 1994, peaking at #60 on the chart.

1995-2000
Ace furthered his mainstream appeal in 1995, with his radio-friendly Sittin' On Chrome album. This effort was also released with the Masta Ace Incorporated crew, now also known as The I.N.C. The album was Ace's most commercially successful release, breaking into the Top 20 on Billboard's Top R&B/Hip Hop Albums chart. Sittin' On Chrome included "Born to Roll", as well as two other Hot 100 hit singles, "The I.N.C. Ride" and "Sittin' on Chrome". In 1996, Ace split up with the I.N.C. crew and was largely missing from the hip hop scene over the next five years, save for a number of random vinyl singles. During his vinyl days, he bounced from a number of labels, releasing his "Cars" single on Tape Kingz Records, his "Yeah Yeah Yeah" and "NFL" singles on the Union Label, his "NY Confidential" single on Replay Records, his "Express Delivery" single on Three Sixty Records, his "Spread It Out/Hellbound" single on Yosumi Records, his "Conflict" single on Mona Records, his "Ghetto Like" single on Fat Beats, his "So Now U A MC" single on Bad Magic Records, and his "Brooklyn Blocks" single on Buckshot's Duck Down Records.

2001-present
Ace's "Ghetto Like" single led to a misunderstanding with an underground emcee named Boogieman, who released a somewhat similar single titled "Ghetto Life" not long before. He thought that Ace was "biting" his track and released a dis song toward Ace titled "Just You Wait". The dis led to a rap battle between the two at a Lyricist Lounge event, a battle that was won by Boogieman. Ace later claimed that he delivered his rhymes off the top of his head, while Boog was rapping previously written lyrics, a topic which he discusses on his scathing retaliation track "Acknowledge", aimed at Boogieman and the underground rap group the High & Mighty. "Acknowledge" was included on his fourth full length album, Disposable Arts, released in late 2001 through JCOR Records, six long years after his successful Sittin' On Chrome album. Disposable Arts became one of the most acclaimed underground hip hop releases of 2001, beloved for its pure hip hop style and clever album concept, which served as a fictional story, chronicling Ace's time spent at a satirical rap school named the Institute of Disposable Arts. JCOR Records folded soon after the release, leaving it out-of-print, until being re-released in 2005 on Ace's self-established M3 label. The album closer, "No Regrets", led many fans to believe that it would be Ace's final album, because of the line "I don't know if it's the end, but yo, it might be". Ace killed the rumors by returning in 2004 with his fifth album A Long Hot Summer, another highly acclaimed effort. The story concept, similar to that on his last release, served as a prelude to the story told on Disposable Arts, chronicling the "Long Hot Summer" that led to his character's incarceration at the beginning of the Disposable Arts album. Rumors once again spread about a retirement, which were again killed, when Ace announced the formation of his new rap crew named EMC, including himself, Punchline, Wordsworth and his protege Strick. The crew plans to release a group album sometime in late 2006.

Openness to collaborations
In large part, the creative company Masta Ace keeps is comprised of underground performers with whom he has developed a personal rapport. He commonly acknowledges his fan base outside of the United States, which is considerably larger than within, as in the final seconds of his song "Good Ol' Love". He has shown an openness to working with foreign-based producers, including Koolade of Croatia and DJ Serious of Canada. He also performed a guest rap for the British Acid jazz group Young Disciples for their debut album.

In Scandinavna, he recorded "What Is It" with Norwegian veteran producer Tommy Tee in 2003, for the soundtrack to the car racing game "Midnight Club 2", which also was featured on several European mixtapes.

Within the United States, he has worked with Jean Grae, 9th Wonder of Little Brother, DJ Spinna, DJ Premier, RJD2, Pete Rock, Domingo, Ali Shaheed Muhammad of A Tribe Called Quest, and Kno of Cunninlynguists. Q-Tip enlisted him as a contributor to the original "Crooklyn Dodgers" track in 1992. The track spawned a follow-up in 1995, with a third projected for 2006, but neither Ace nor the other original contributors, Special Ed and the bellicose Buckshot (of Black Moon and Boot Camp Clik), were involved with them. Instead, the second Crooklyn Dodgers track was produced by DJ Premier and involved O.C., Chubb Rock and Jeru the Damaja, where the planned third installment is said to involve Mos Def, Jean Grae, and Memphis Bleek, with production courtesy 9th Wonder.

By extending largesse to younger MCs even as he has been careful to solidify connections with the rap game's old guard, he has amassed a list of collaborators numbering over 60. The most notable of his collaborators have been Eminem (who has expressed ongoing admiration for his skills), Common (on the track "Claimin' Respect" as part of a trio called Boulevard Connection), Guru of Gang Starr, Edo G (the third member of Boulevard Connection, from Boston), Jean Grae, Saukrates, Young Zee, Big Noyd, Cella Dwellas, King Tee, Tonedeff, Rah Digga, Strick, Das Efx, Greg Nice and the Beatnuts. He devotes several lines of the track "No Regrets" to express goodwill and thanksgiving to the artists he has worked with, calling these opportunities some of the most valued blessings of his career.

from wikipedia.org

The Roots Game Theory Rapidshare / Sendspace MP3 Downloads!

2006-08-27T01:08:00.000-07:00

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GEORGIA ANNE MULDROW Olesi: Fragments Of An Earth review + Free MP3 Downloads!

2006-08-26T04:44:00.000-07:00

Georgia Anne Muldrow's new album Olesi: Fragments of an Earth will be released on Tuesday. At 22, Georgia is quite a phenomenon. She not only composed all of Olesi's tracks, but also produced the joint and constructed all of the album's organic, Dilla-esque beats.

The first woman signed to Stones Throw Records, Muldrow brings a limber, commanding voice steeped in '70s soul and jazz to her own brand of hip hop and funk. Her intriguing voice deftly handles her often abstract, jazz-like lyrical lines that sometimes meander along a winding trail, other times stick to a more familiar melodic path. Oh, and she raps. With an assertive flow. Other Music put it this way: "Muldrow's mix of the new soul is an infectious brew of jazz, R&B and, of course, hip-hop . . . [that] sounds like Chaka Khan being produced by the late J-Dilla."

It's worth noting that the jazz influence and phrasing Georgia brings to her work comes naturally. Muldrow's mother sang with Pharoah Sanders and her father invented instruments for Eddie Harris.

Muldrow's Ep Worthnothings received a fair amount of attention when it was released earlier this year. And not just from the underground hip hop community. Back in March, NPR's "Song of the Day" featured "Larva" from Worthnothings. Before her own Ep dropped earlier this year, Muldrow sang on three tracks from the Platinum Pied Pipers' Triple P album and collaborated with Sa Ra. Plus, she has a track on the forthcoming Stones Throw/Adult Swim Chrome Children project.

from djdurutti.blogspot.com

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Jedi Mind Tricks on thier New Album Servants in Heaven, Kings in Hell // MP3 Downloads @ Rapidshare

2006-08-26T04:25:00.000-07:00

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Tracklist:

1. Intro
2. Put Em In The Grave
3. Suicide
4. Uncommon Valor: A Vietnam Story
(Feat R.A. The Rugged Man)
5. A Blood Red Path
6. When All Light Dies
7. Serenity In Murder
8. Pariah Demise (Interlude)
9. Heavy Metal Kings (Feat Ill Bill)
10. Shadow Business
11. Triumph & Agony (Interlude)
12. Razorblade Salvation
13. Outlive The War
(Feat Sean Price & Block Mc Cloud)
14. Gutta Music
(Feat Reef The Lost Cauze & Chief Kamachi)
15. Temples Of Ice (Interlude)
16. Black Winter Day

Hey Y'all,

Here is the latest official announcement for our upcoming fifth album, Servants In Heaven, Kings In Hell, which will be in stores everywhere on September 19th, 2006 - a month from this Saturday. Needless to say, we're excited. Make sure you stop by our MySpace page today and check out two new tracks from the upcoming album: "Heavy Metal Kings" feat. ILL Bill and "Razorblade Salvation" feat. Shara Worden a/k/a Diamond Girl of My Brightest Diamond, as well as the video for "Heavy Metal Kings."

We're also excited to announce our Servants In Heaven, Kings In Hell Tour featuring R.A. the Rugged Man & Outerspace, which starts at SOB's in NYC on Sept. 19th and will take us through about 30 cities and 12,000 miles of road in North America. Tickets for most of the shows are now available online and from what we've heard, selling extremely quickly, so look to the left of this post, find the nearest show to you, and buy advance tix before they sell out completely. This week, we added shows in Toronto, ON and San Antonio, TX and should be adding a few more before the itinerary is final. To our European fans: We should be announcing tour dates for the November leg of our European tour real soon, so hold tight.

Last but not least, there are still tickets available for this Saturday's Around the Way Jam in Philly, PA. We're amped to perform, but also watch a bunch of legends in action. We're sharing a stage with Wu-Tang Clan, Redman, Rakim, and the Boot Camp Clik.

JEDI MIND TRICKS TO RELEASE FIFTH ALBUM, SERVANTS IN HEAVEN, KINGS IN HELL, SEPTEMBER 19TH ON BABYGRANDE RECORDS

Album marks return of indie hip-hop favorites with guest appearances by ILL Bill, Sean Price, R.A. The Rugged Man & more, as well as pioneering indie rock collaborative efforts including Sufjan Stevens vocalist Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond.

New York, NY--- Babygrande Records is proud to announce the September 19th release of Jedi Mind Tricks' fifth album, Servants In Heaven, Kings In Hell. The album reflects another benchmark in the evolution of a group that has continuously pushed the boundaries of indie hip-hop. For the past ten years, Jedi Mind Tricks has been making uncompromising music without regard to an industry that often resembles an exclusively hit-hungry country club. Jedi's renowned status as one of the most revered and reviled groups in independent music is a testament to their unwavering commitment to a unique aesthetic.

Jedi Mind Tricks is comprised of Philadelphia's own Vinnie Paz (aka Ikon the Verbal Hologram) and the mysterious maestro Stoupe the Enemy of Mankind. The group has continuously cooked up a witch's brew of sonic decadence comprised of Vinnie's politically-charged firebrand lyricism, a dose of battle rap braggadocio, and Stoupe's punishing production. While most rap producers are content to employ one, perhaps two, repetitious loops, Stoupe continues to redefine the role of rap producer by incorporating upwards of fifty tracks inclusive of samples, live instrumentation, and other such sound effects, effectively pushing the limits of his own signature style while further solidifying his deserved reputation as one of rap's most celebrated composers since Wu-Tang Clan's The RZA.

Servants In Heaven, Kings In Hell also serves as a stepping stone in the lyrical maturation of frontman Vinnie Paz, as he strikes a balance between the ferocious battle raps that have become synonymous with Jedi Mind Tricks and much more introspective offerings in the form of tracks like "Razorblade Salvation," during which Vinnie speaks directly to his mother about struggling with suicidal thoughts. The track features Stoupe's stunning reinterpretation of Sufjan Stevens' "Dumb I Sound" and is hallmarked by a hauntingly beautiful vocal performance by indie rock's Diamond Girl a/k/a Shara Worden, renowned back-up vocalist for Sufjan Stevens, as well as frontwoman of My Brightest Diamond. Early critics are drawing rave comparisons to Eminem's "Stan."

The lead single, "Heavy Metal Kings" (which has also been made into a dynamic video live and viewable at: www.jedi-mind-tricks.com), features Vinnie Paz's brother-in-arms, ILL Bill of the now defunct Non-Phixion, and is currently available on iTunes. A blue 12" limited edition vinyl personally signed by Vinnie is also available for purchase while supplies last at www.jedi-mind-tricks.com.To further reward their rabidly loyal fan base, Jedi will be issuing a Transworld chain (Coconuts, FYE) exclusive version of Servants In Heaven, Kings In Hell, replete with an additional "Heavy Metal Kings" bonus track remixed and performed by buzzing West Coast hardcore metal group TERROR. Rounding out the exclusive package is a bonus DVD including the "Heavy Metal Kings" video feat. ILL Bill as well as a "making of the video" available nowhere else.

Servants In Heaven, Kings In Hell is Jedi Mind Tricks' most mature and diverse offering of their ten year career. Their trademark mosh-pit anthems and battle raps coexist with some of the most intricate and poignant songwriting found in independent music, let alone indie hip-hop, today.

from jmthiphop.com

Mr Lif Mo Mega MP3 Download at Rapidshare.de

2006-08-23T10:44:00.000-07:00

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Mr. Lif - 'Mo' Mega' (2006)

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5. Take, Hold, Fire feat. Aesop, EL-P -
6. Murs Iz My Manager feat. Murs -
7. Washitup! -
8. Long Distance -
9. The Come Up feat. Akrobatik, Blueprint -
10. Lookin' in -
11. For You

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Ghostface Killah Fishscale MP3 Download Full Album @ rapidshare.de

2006-08-23T10:37:00.000-07:00

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Ill Bill on La Coka Nostra Interview + La Coka Nostra Fuck Tony Montana Free Mp3 Download!

2006-08-22T11:19:00.000-07:00

What's up, Bill?
I'm chilling, man. I just got back from LA. I'm getting back into the Brooklyn grind. Shit is all good. It's definitely popping right now.

How was Cali?
Cali was crazy. Mad partying, getting fucked up, getting drunk, and recording mad shit.

What's up with La Coka Nostra?

We've been recording at Lethal's pad. He has the ill studio up in the crib. We got Psycho Realm and B-Real doing some shit with us. Q just did some shit. It's a lot of shit. La Coka Nostra is me, Danny Boy, Everlast, Slaine, Lethal, Big Left, and Kaves. That's the core of the group right there. There's seven of us. At the same time, we do have a big extended fam like Non-Phixion, Cypress Hill, Q-Unique, Psycho Realm…Shit, even Paul Wall wants to jump on a track. It's an interesting album. It's more than an album. I don't want this to sound like a side project. It's definitely a group, but there are definitely going to be a bunch of guests on there as well.

How did the group come about?
La Coka Nostra is Danny Boy's idea. He thought it would be some ill shit and to get a bunch of homies together to work on some music. Nothing serious, almost on some mixtape shit really. We didn't realize it would be what it's become. Once we started doing shit, the chemistry was crazy. We just clicked. It's been a long time since I've had this much fun in the studio. It's been a long fucking time.

What are the sessions like?
It's a lot of listening to beats, writing rhymes, a lot of kush…Everlast has the best weed on the planet. He's famous for that shit. Even Willie Nelson will tell you that nobody hooked him up with better weed than Everlast. You know we're burning on some crazy shit, wasted in the studio.
And to be honest, I'm not on that type of work ethic most of the time. Usually in the past when I would get drunk or high, I wouldn't get much shit done. It's really the opposite with this shit. We're doing three songs a night having fun. Slaine may go in the booth and set it off, any one of us might write the hook, and it goes down like that. We all do a lot of things. It's a group effort and that's why we were able to bang out what we did so far. We're sitting on mad shit right now and we're about to do more.
Lethal's done just about everything so far. We haven't really gone outside too much yet. Muggs is going to be doing shit. Fred Wreck is going to be doing some shit. I just talked to Large Professor and he said he wants to do some shit. It's all about having fun and enjoying ourselves. It's crazy.
We haven't played any music for anybody yet. There's some shit that got leaked on MySpace, but that was early music. There are other cats that are down with us, but it's not the core of the group. For the most part, everything that you've heard so far that's been leaked won't be on the
album.
It's crazy because we already have major labels hollering at us, foaming at the mouth. We haven't even played anybody any music. If you name a label, they're waiting in line trying to get in the La Coka Nostra business.

What do you want from a label?
Straight up and down, there better be at least a million dollars on the table. It's definitely that type of situation. It's definitely some major shit. It's definitely a million or better.

You guys are like the 2006 white NWA.
Yeah, man. That's definitely what it's shaping into. This is some shit for the white boys. Let it be. That's what's up. When people hear this shit, they're definitely going to feel like that.

How are DJ Lethal's beats sounding?
I think people are going to be shocked. People know Lethal as originally being House of Pain's DJ back in the day. He hasn't done any production at all in a long time. He's basically been saving shit and stacking it up. His beats sound crazy. People are going to trip. I didn't know what to expect when I first went in to listen to them. They're insane. To me, they're the best of both worlds, the most grimiest shit and the most polished shit combined. He's coming with a combination of Necro and Dre, if you could cross-over them two dudes. Lethal is crossing over both styles. It's bananas. When motherfuckers hear it, they're going to lose their minds. Everything that we're bringing you is more than just a sound or an album. This shit is a movement. I know everyone says that, but watch.

There's been a little bit of promotion on MySpace that's already taken on a life of it's own. There are 5,000 kids that already have "La Coka Nostra" and "LCN" written after their names. If you think that's something, wait for this record to drop. It's going to be everywhere. It's going to be some shit that motherfuckers, even if they know about it, they're not going to expect it to be as big as it's going to be. All you non-believers reading this shit thinking I'm sooping this shit up, you're going to get smacked in the face with the hand of God when this shit drops.

Would you say there's a leader of La Coka Nostra?
I think everybody brings different things to the table. I think the beautiful thing about it is that we're all generals. Everlast has been in the game since '86 fucking with Ice-T. With House of Pain and as a solo artist, he's already sold ten-million records and better. We're not making one type of music. I've been running my own independent label for years and I'm one of the kings of the underground. The underground is too small for me right now. I'm breaking out of that shit. I'm in the streets and I'm breaking out of the trenches right now. I'm bringing all of that grinding experience to the table right now. Lethal's seen it all and done it all with Limp Bizkit. Danny Boy and Kaves are fucking graphic and marketing geniuses. People don't even know they be doing shit for Nike and mad other people behind the scenes. When motherfuckers hear Lefty or Slaine, they are going to trip. Slaine's about to shock the world. Motherfuckers are going to bug out. They don't know what they're in for. We're going to do the visual shit like Kiss. Danny Boy and Kaves have the vision to make La Coka Nostra what it is needs to be.

How did your deal with Warner come about?
It's more of a Marvel team-up between Uncle Howie Records and Perfect Game Recordings, which is my boy Howie Abrams' label. Warner's paying the bills and they made me an offer I couldn't refuse. This deal allows me to do what I've been doing with Uncle Howie except with a huge staff at our disposal and more money for marketing and promotions. Howie Abrams is a good friend of mine. We go back for mad years and working together now just makes sense. I'm finally at the level, business-wise, to put together a win-win situation for myself with a major. In the past, I didn't have that leverage. I've been eating good on an independent level regardless but this deal right here is the icing on the cake. One hand washes the other and we're better off doing this shit together. Musically, everything is going to be the same as before. But there will be a much bigger push marketing and promotions-wise.

I wanted to be in a position to reach more people, point blank. You can only sell the same records to the same crowd and rock in front of the same audience for so many years. The only way to reach the bigger audience is to get bigger money. I've been fucking with Caroline for Uncle Howie's distro, who is owned by EMI. They do the right thing on the indie level to a point and I have done good business with them for years and will continue to. Caroline doesn't have the money to push their labels the way I want my new album to be pushed at this point in the game. Caroline is great for a new label starting out but if you peep their track record, nobody goes gold or platinum through their system. It's not set up for that. I'm not trying to undersell myself. I have to reach the people that are out there. I feel like there are over a million potential Ill Bill fans out there who just don't know they're Ill Bill fans yet. It takes money to make money, and these motherfuckers got money.

How overdue is your look from a major as a solo artist?
It's all relative. As much as I can point fingers at the Non-Phixion situation on Geffen a while back, I can also point fingers at myself because I wasn't ready. Maybe now I could have turned that piece of shit deal into gold. The situation I'm in now is much better than the Non-Phixion deal. I can handle myself much better now.

It's also a matter of having the right people around you. I have a real management team now. They actually add on to what I'm doing instead of me having to watch over them and clean up after their messes. This is some recent shit. The company's called Strong Management. There is only so much you can do on your own. Then you start micro-managing shit and you don't get anything done.

Have you started working on your next solo album?
Hell yeah. Me and Q-Unique have a bunch of tracks done. He's spitting on there too. I've been working with Sicknature. Me and him are producing a bunch of shit together. Doug Infinite did this song I did with Vinnie Paz. I just did a bunch of tracks with HR from Bad Brains singing on them. Motherfuckers are going to trip when they hear that shit. I did some shit with Moss. Moss is on the grind right now. He did some shit for me that's crazy. I did some shit with my boy Ad-Money from the Lords. Large Professor is going to do something. Necro, T-Ray, Muggs, Lethal, it's going to be crazy. Pharoahe Monch just told Eclipse he'd get on a track. I'm looking forward to that. I'm doing some shit with Tech N9ne and Immortal Technique. Sick Jacken just spit a verse for me. I'm about to do some shit with the kings of New York hardcore Madball. I'm going to get Rae on the album. I just spoke to OC about doing something. My man Skam2 is getting on there. I don't want to rush this album. I want to take my time with it. I know a lot of people are expecting some crazy shit and I'm definitely going to deliver.

What's up with Non-Phixion right now?
Right now, I'm concentrating on my solo shit and La Coka Nostra. But if Sabac and Goretex call me up and say they want to get in the studio, I'm there. I'm going to be putting out Sabac's new CD on Uncle Howie soon. Non-Phixion is still together but we're just taking a little break right now. I can't be Non-Phixion on my own and right now everybody's going in different directions. But when I do my solo tour, it's as good as seeing Non-Phixion because everyone will be there. Recording wise though, shit's on hold. I can't record a Non-Phixion album on my own. The rest of us all have to be writing that shit too. If I write it myself, that would a solo album, not Non-Phixion.

You and Q-Unique seem to have crazy chemistry.
Hell yeah. Me and him definitely click. That's my homeboy, aside from all this music shit. That's basically family to me. Me and Q are real tight. We're going to be doing a lot of shit. Matter of fact, we just formed this company called Ill and Unique Productions. Shit is going to be popping. You're going to hear what we've done beat-wise. You're going to get your first taste on my record. Me and Q are working on some shit together. We're also working on an Uncle Howie/Psycho Realm album. We'll be doing beats on that. Q's spitting all over that. There's a lot of shit going on, bro. I'm about to do a collaboration with Royce da 5'9" for Slaine's solo album. MF Grimm just asked me to do some shit. I just did something for Thirstin Howl's new mixtape. U-God just asked me to spit something on his new album. I just did something with Paz for the next Jedi Mind album. I can't even remember everything right now. It's a busy time. I don't think I've ever been busier than right now.

It seems like everybody wants to work with you.
Yeah. It definitely feels good. People are finally starting to check for me. I don't think people understood that Ill Bill was in Non-Phixion and they probably didn't understand what Non-Phixion was. I definitely feel that as far as my solo career goes, people are definitely taking notice of what I do.

How much time have you been spending on production lately?
Not as much as I'd like to. I've just been so busy lately recording vocals that me and Q haven't been really able to do that much aside from what we've done for my album, but once it's done, we're going to get grinding with it real serious. Sicknature has some crazy ideas and were ironing them out now. I'm starting to pick up the bass guitar again, so I'm putting some live basslines on songs. I'm enjoying that. Being a producer is a full-time job and so is being an MC. That's why when I see what Necro has achieved, it's very inspiring. Since they're both full-time jobs, that's why I've shied away from the production until now. I've gotten the bug again and it's going to be easy for me to do it now since I'm building everything I need in the crib.

How's the "Coke Versus Weed" mixtape with Raekwon coming?
Right now, we're both really busy, so we got sidetracked on it. Also, a few offers came in and they want to turn it into an album instead of a mixtape with Necro, RZA, and Premier on the beats. He's finishing up "Cuban Linx 2" and then we can see what's up with the project. It would be much better for it to come out as an album. Once the offers started coming in, we started talking about getting that advance money and giving the fans something better. We're still figuring it out.

Just to get to work with Rae is a blessing in itself. We'll see how it evolves. I can't wait. We're both grinding it out. When it happens, it happens. I'm definitely going to reach out to him because I want to get him on my album.

As I understand it, Rae reached out to you for the mixtape.
Yeah. I met Rae through his DJ, DJ Riddler. Big up to Vinnie Ponte. Rae asked me to jump on a track. Then that turned into two tracks, then three. Then we started talking about doing a mixtape. For Rae to ask me to do a track is the ultimate compliment. I've been listening to Rae for eons.

How is it working with Rae?
It's dope. Dude is definitely a professional. Shit is grizzly. How do you expect it to be with Raekwon? It's as real as it gets.

Have you earned the title "king of the underground"?
I look at it like the underground is definitely something I've conquered. I'm definitely the king of this shit. There are a few people that could claim the title "king." Put it like this, I'm a big fish in a small pond in this underground shit. It's time for me to conquer the mainstream, but I'm not changing a thing. I'm going to be the same scumbag with a bigger budget.

How do you feel about the underground?
Ever since motherfuckers figured they could press up a 12", they ruined the market for 12"'s. Shit is so fucking watered-down that it's fucked the whole game up. I think the same thing happened with mixtapes. Everybody has a mixtape. Motherfuckers are passing the demo stage. Now everybody has a home studio and they're trying to record their album in their crib. That's not an album, that's a demo. I don't know who's going to define it and I guess at the end of the day, you've got to let the motherfuckers live. I'm not trying to fight the game, I'm trying to win the game. To each his own. I'm on some other shit. I'm about to get a show on Sirius. I'm not even worried about what other motherfuckers are doing. I'm focused on what I'm doing. I'm not even worried about mainstream radio and those politics. Between mainstream rock radio and satellite, I'm going to be owning the airwaves over the next couple of years. If a station like Hot97 decides to catch up to me, cool. If not, cool. My business plan doesn't rely on Hot97. The love I get from everywhere else makes it all gravy. Let's not even forget about the internet. I don't think anybody's shown me more love than HipHopGame. It's all gravy, man. I don't even get myself involved in the politics of that shit. I'm doing my own thing. My shit is self-contained.
If you notice and you really pay attention to what's going on with me, I'm not going to nobody and I'm not asking nobody to help me or to co-sign me. Motherfuckers are coming to me, not necessarily for a co-sign, but they're coming to me. I feel like Metallica in 1984 when they were coming up. It's a different kind of music and a different time, but really, it's exactly the same.

What's the Ill Bill radio show going to be like?
It's a throwback show. It's me and my boy Seth Abrams. We're going to do a show that's on some '80's and early '90's shit. We're going to play a whole lot of Hip Hop, metal and hardcore punk. We're going to have mad guests up to the show bugging out. We're going to get dudes like Joe Pesci and Mr. T up there. It's called "The Crack Era Throwback Show" with Ill Bill and Seth
Abrams. We're getting that shit popping right now.

You're one of the first MC's to take advantage of MySpace. How has MySpace helped you?
I think MySpace has basically turned into a music site. Even though it wasn't really that when it started, it turned into something where artists are promoting their MySpace page on their albums. It's easier to promote MySpace because that's where the kids are. It's easier to get them to come to your MySpace page. At the same time they're checking for music, the chicks are looking for dudes to chill with and dudes are looking for chicks to hook up with. It's a twisted-ass social club. For better or for worse, the internet is the most important communication tool we have today. It's vital. Everybody uses it. MySpace took over a large part of the youth culture. A large part of the youth today are on MySpace. When I first signed on a couple years ago, there were five million subscribers. Now there's over sixty million. You can go on my MySpace and I have eighty songs posted up for kids to listen to. Shit is definitely a great way to get the word out on projects. This La Coka Nostra shit has basically taken over MySpace without us even trying.

You have mad friends on MySpace.
Shit is crazy. I have like 30,000 friends on MySpace. It's a great way to get the word out. Kids would rather go to your MySpace page than your website, point blank. You can buy an Ill Bill t-shirt off my MySpace. Rupert Murdoch spent $700 million on MySpace. There's a reason he did that.

What's your focus on a day-to-day basis?
There's a lot of things. Besides recording for my solo record and La Coka shit and doing shows, I'm doing a new company with my boy Howie McDuffie from Draft Records. It's so new we haven't even decided the name yet. We're going to be doing some internet records straight to iTunes. We're also shopping for some major distribution right now. I'm doing some other shit besides being an artist. Out of everyone in the music industry, artists make the least amount of money. It's not smart to just be an artist. You have to have your hand in other things. I'm shopping some acts and keeping Uncle Howie Records going too. We're going through some things figuring out what we want to do. We're going to be putting out some shit soon. I don't want to say too much because the deals aren't done yet, but you're definitely going to bug out when you hear who's coming out on Uncle Howie.

What do you want to say to your fans?
Thank you. I have the best supporters. Thank you for supporting all my projects over the years. Y'all definitely show me mad love. I give you that love right back. I can't wait to see you on tour and let you hear this new shit. Stay tuned. We're not stopping for nobody.

from hiphopgame.com

DOWNLOAD MP3 La Coka Nostra Fuck Tony Montana MP3 DOWNLOAD

Check also:

Hip Hop Disciples XVIII Mix Tape Hosted by Ill Bill - Free MP3 Download

Kool Keith (of Ultramagnetic MCs) Bio

2006-08-21T06:41:00.000-07:00

After single-handedly redefining "warped" as the mind and mouth behind the Bronx-based Ultramagnetic MCs, "Kool" Keith Thornton -- aka Rhythm X, aka Dr. Octagon, aka Dr. Dooom, aka Mr. Gerbik -- headed for the outer reaches of the stratosphere with a variety of solo projects. A one-time psychiatric patient at Bellevue, Keith's lyrical thematics remained as free-flowing here as they ever were with the NY trio, connecting up complex meters with fierce, layers-deep metaphors and veiled criticisms of those who "water down the sound that comes from the ghetto." His own debut single, "Earth People" by Dr. Octagon, was quietly released in late 1995 on the San Francisco-based Bulk Recordings, and the track spread like wildfire through the hip-hop underground, as did the subsequent self-titled full-length released the following year. Featuring internationally renowned DJ Q-Bert (also of the Invisible Skratch Picklz) on turntables, as well as the Automator and DJ Shadow behind the boards, Dr. Octagon's left-field fusion of sound collage, fierce turntable work, and bizarre, impressionistic rapping found audiences in the most unlikely of places, from hardcore hip-hop heads to jaded rock critics. Although a somewhat sophomoric preoccupation with body parts and scatology tended to dominate the album, Keith's complex weave of associations and shifting references is quite often amazing in its intricacy. The record found its way to the UK-based abstract hip-hop imprint Mo'Wax (for whom Shadow also records) in mid-1996, and was licensed by the label for European release (Mo'Wax also released a DJ-friendly instrumental version of the album titled, appropriately, The Instrumentalyst [Octagon Beats]).

The widespread popularity of the album eventually landed Keith at Geffen splinter DreamWorks in 1997; the label gave Dr. Octagon (retitled Dr. Octagonecolygist) its third release mid-year, adding a number of bonus cuts. In early 1999, however, Keith's alter-ego Dr. Dooom unfortunately "killed off" Dr. Octagon on the opening track of First Come, First Served (released on Thornton's own Funky Ass label). Kool Keith signed to Ruffhouse/MCA for his second album under that alias, 1999's Black Elvis/Lost in Space. Records released as Kool Keith followed in 2000 (Matthew) and 2001 (Spankmaster), while the 2002 collaboration Gene appeared as KHM (Kool Keith plus H-Bomb and Marc Live). His next project was a four-rapper group named Thee Undatakerz with Keith taking on a new persona, Reverand Tom. Kool Keith Presents Thee Undatakerz hit the streets in May of 2004. Keeping busy, Keith released Diesel Truckers in August of the same year with old friend/producer Kutmasta Kurt. As if 2004 wasn't filled with enough Kool Keith releases, some truly oddball ones started to appear that year. The Official Space Tape borrowed from previous releases to create the ultimate Keith mixtape, the R&B leaning Personal Album was released in a limited edition of 500 and with a high price tag, plus the Real Talk label issued Dr. Octagon Part 2, an unauthorized release that had little to do with the original and was quickly pulled from the shelves by court order. The next year was much calmer with the Global Enlightenment, Part 1 DVD being released at the beginning of the year, followed by Lost Masters, Vol. 2 in the summer.

by Sean Cooper, All Music Guide...

Gnarls Barkley MP3 Including New Songs & Gnarls Biggie! Free Mp3 Downloads!

2006-08-19T05:54:00.000-07:00

The Avalanches Frontier Psychiatrist Video!

2006-08-18T23:46:00.000-07:00

Well, this is not about hip-hop actually, but the video is incredible, one of the craziest music videos i've ever seen!

DJ Shadow (Article + Walkie Talkie Video)

2006-08-18T12:37:00.000-07:00

“RELAX YOUR BACK, YOU’VE ONLY HEARD ONE SONG.” – Shadow’s Digest, May 2006

It’s not everyday an artist has to issue a call for calm, but two months ago DJ Shadow was a man under seige. A war of words was being waged as incensed fans raged across the blogosphere and pillaged messageboards, including Shadow’s own. The catalyst for the insurrection? Shadow’s first single in three years – ‘3 Freaks’. Anything but the cinematic hip hop opus his followers expected, the first taste from his forthcoming album, ‘The Outsider’, was a twisted party rap featuring Bay Area ‘hyphy’ MCs Keak da Sneak and Turf Talk. It’s his homage to the ‘hyphy’ movement – a style he describes as “slightly quirky, fast, club-playable rap with hardcore elements to it” – blowing up in his hometown of the San Francisco Bay Area.

If the shift in direction had some frothing at the mouth, they shat their pants when they saw the Cadillac Escalades and pneumatic booty girls – yes, booty girls! – in the music video. Surely, hyper-ventilating fans asked, this couldn’t be DJ Shadow, aka Josh Davis, the crate-digging maestro who’d made abstract hip hop a high art with releases like ‘Endtroducing’, ‘The Private Press’ and numerous mix tapes? But it was. This guy had the impeccable goatee, the trademark cap – it was undeniably Shadow. Davis maintains he threw ‘3 Freaks’ out there on a “strictly local level” to test the waters within his local club scene. Of course, when you’re streaming it on your MySpace page and selling it on iTunes, local doesn’t stay local for long, and Shadow’s context and history (he was into Bayside rap long before ‘Endtroducing’) got lost in the download. “I just thought this track was a winner and I wanted to see what the local DJs here would think,” Davis explains. “I was really pleasantly surprised with the result, because it’s the first time in my life I’ve ever got any type of radio play.”

As ‘3 Freaks’ portends, ‘The Outsider’ is the sound of Shadow switching off the safety. Tired of being in “a box with a nice neat bow”, he’s traded his sampler for Pro Tools and enlisted a quality crew of collaborators to join him on his new path that leads him all over the musical map. While advance copies of the record (rumoured to be a late August release) have yet to land in Australia, it’s well-known internet knowledge that Davis tag-teams with Q-Tip and Lateef the Truth Speaker, Chris James from Leeds group Stateless, UK rockers Kasabian, hyphy maestro E-40, and rappers Nump and the Federation. He also mixes it up with Mississippi rap artist David Banner, who hollers the previously-unimaginable lyric “DJ Shadow up in this motherfucker!” Clearly, we’re not in Kansas anymore. “It’s funny, because I think this record is much closer to the spirit of ‘Endtroducing’ than anything I’ve done since,” he says of the album’s no-holds-barred approach. “I just wanted to make a record that would challenge people’s perceptions about what hip hop can be.”

Despite the merciless crucifixion of ‘3 Freaks’ in cyber-space, his belief in ‘The Outsider’ remains unwavering. “I think this record is strong. Within the first three seconds, you’ll be able to tell it’s a DJ Shadow record,” he explains. “The left is farther to the left and the right is farther to the right. Removing myself from the equation, I think it’s one of the most diverse records ever made.” By Davis’ own admission, it’s also his riskiest, but it’s a gamble he’s willing to take. Given the seismic life-changing experiences he’s been through in the last few years, a few narky bloggers who like his old stuff better than his new stuff are the least of his concerns. In late 2004, Davis and his wife Lisa’s twin girls were diagnosed as monoamniotic (in most basic terms, two foetuses sharing one sac) in the womb, a complicated condition that could jeopardise both babies. “I was at the hospital four months straight,” says Davis, now the proud father of two healthy girls.

The following year, while driving through London after a playing show, his mini-cab driver fell asleep at the wheel and careened through a red light, broadsiding a speeding police cruiser. Davis escaped with just whiplash, but his views on life, family and music would never be the same. “I was working in the studio on the album and I think it really changed the direction of the album in a lot of ways. You just get to a point in your life where you go ‘what was I waiting for?’ If I have something to say that I want to get out there artistically, tomorrow isn’t promised to anybody. If this is something I want to do and say, you just have to shrug off all the other voices and just do it.”

With a bold new album (almost) ready to rumble, 2006 sees Davis taking inventory and taking charge. The first step has been reclaiming his relationship with his record label, Universal. While he’s been with Island in the UK since 1998, in the US he’s been forced to play musical chairs between Universal subsidiaries, starting with FFRR (US) to MCA to Geffen. Tired of the corporate machine, he cut out the middle-man and signed directly to Universal last May. “It was really good for me to do that because now for the first time in America I’m on a label that had to fight to get me rather than ‘oh, who’s this guy who’s been plonked on our doorstep.”

With a revolutionary new album and his freshly-inked record contract, now the only thing Davis needs to do is finetune his live show, which lands here for the Splendour in the Grass festival and a string of side shows. Back in 2002, he astounded with an audio-visual magical mystery tour through his back catalogue, and this time he’s eager to top it. Even if it means not sleeping until he jumps the plane. “Putting a show together is almost more stressful in certain ways than making an album. It takes me one and a half, maybe two years to make an album and then you come to the end of that process and you’ve got four weeks to get a show together.”

And what will he think if certain train-spotters don’t like what he pulls out on-stage? Again, the Shadow man is unrepentant: “After the events of the last couple of years, I feel like there’s nothing really that anybody could say. I feel fortunate just to be here making music – period.”

from inthemix.com.au

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Walkie Talkie Video

Supernatural (the Longest Freestyle Rap Record Breaker) Interview

2006-08-18T12:11:00.000-07:00

Widely regarded as the world’s greatest freestyle rapper, MC Supernatural has wowed crowds all over the globe with his seemingly effortless ability to rhyme about any subject off the top of his head. After a series of legendary emcee battles came two albums, a documentary, video game, MTV Cribs episode and countless shows displaying his remarkable talent.

Having torn the roof off at the Chivas New York Fusion Party, we caught up with Supernat on the phone one night before Bangkok got a second chance to see him perform.

BangkokRecorder: How was Samet?
Supernat: Very interesting actually to see a different way of life and to visit the island the day before Buddha's birthday. You know, it was very interesting, it was like going to the country for me, like being in the countryside. It's very beautiful and I got to see both sides: the beautiful and dirty side. We took a scooter right up into the hills. But inspiring as well to be an artist of my calibre to be able come to a place and to actually not only see the touristy side, but also the real part of the island, it was interesting.

BR: Is this your first visit to Thailand? What have been your impressions?
SN:Yes, ma'am. Thailand is a very exotic and interesting place. It's a lot to absorb in a small amount of time, but what I've seen so far is, for me coming from so far away, it's like, every moment is something new for me, just looking at things and signs and talking to people in general. To me, it's something very enlightening. But I like Thailand and I would love to come back and bring my family and show them around the place as well.

BR: How did you enjoy the Chivas New York Fusion Party?
SN:I enjoyed the party very well. I mean, entertainment is entertainment, I had a ball to be able to entertain and do what I like to do in front of a foreign crowd to see how my music affected them for the first time and I was extremely happy actually. I had a ball. I thought the show went off very well and... It was nice to see that people came out to support the party as well.

BR: Were you born with the ability to freestyle or do you work hard at it because it appears very natural, you make it look so easy?
SN:Well, that's why they call me Supernatural because it is natural. I was born with it, but I mean, yeah I definitely practice to keep it sharp to be able to do the things, or anything of that nature takes a certain amount of practice and dedication so you know, I never take it for granted that I have a gift like this. I'm born with it, but it's a blessing from a higher power and I always try to acknowledge that and I also practice, like I said, to keep myself going.

BR: You're hosting the 'Rock The Bells Festival' next month, but is there any truth to the rumour that you're going for the world record for the longest freestyle while you're there?
SN:It's the truth. It will definitely be going down August fourth. It's been sanctioned by the Guinness Book of World Records and it's definitely happening. It is not a rumour. It is the truth

BR: How long is the current record?
SN:It's currently set at eight hours and 45 minutes.

BR: You and Ge-ology worked incredibly well together. How long have you known each other?
SN: I've known Ge-ology since 1993. Ge-ology actually drew one of my first logos for my record when I was signed to East West Records. And at the time, Jerome worked at A & R and I met Ge-ology through Jerome 'cos Jerome hired Ge-ology to draw on my logo and we've been friends ever since.

BR: How will your show at QBar on Wednesday be different to last Friday's show? Can we expect more tracks from your albums?
SN: Um... I don't really know about the tracks from my albums. As far as show, for the Chivas show, it's a little bit different type of crowd. I'm expecting a different type of crowd at Q Bar, so I have a few tricks up my sleeve for the audience. There's a lot of things I didn't do that night, especially because of the language barrier. But I've got a few things that I'll pull out of my sleeve. but every time you come to a Supernatural show, you're always guaranteed to see something different. It's never the same. It's never the same thing twice 'cos it prompts you and it's improvisational. So you never know really what's going to happen until it happens.

BR: Do crowds tend to react differently around the world, and where's your favourite place to perform?
SN: Crowds always react differently depending on where you are and like I said, the language barrier, but if you give a good performance, nine times out of ten, you know, people always understand a good show. They understand a good performance from a bad one, whether they can understand English or not.

And as far as like my favourite place to perform...I would have to say my top three: Africa, Japan and Australia.

BR: What do you like about those places?
SN: Well, Africa just because it's the Motherland, number one. It was an experience just for me to get in touch with the soil of Africa, being a black man and, you know, with people from that part of the world. And Japan because it's funky and they always receive hip hop in a good way. And as for as Australia, they're just wild. The audience always receives the show very well, you know ‘cos they do speak English, so you know...England too. People always love me in England. They always show me a lot of love. I definitely can't complain.

BR: When was the last time you battled an emcee?
SN: It's been quite a while now. You know battling, the one thing I always tell everybody is that I don't like to be pigeon-holed as a battle emcee. I'm an emcee first that battles when necessary. It's been quite a while 'cos that's not my goal in life is to beat everybody up because I know I have a gift. I'd rather lay back and make records, but when the opportunity presents itself or when somebody feels like they want to step up, then I'm always ready to defend myself in that arena.

BR: Who would you most like to work with next?
SN: Production-wise, I'm pretty much self-contained as far as the group of guys I work with out of Seattle, but if I had the opportunity I would love to do a track with Premier or the Neptunes. But for the most part, my team that I work with now, Vitamin D, Jake One, Bean One, you know, I've worked with Muggs from Cyprus... So my whole team is pretty solid in terms of production as well. I plan on producing quite a bit on my next album.

BR: Which emcees do you most respect?
SN: As for as artists are concerned, you know, I would really like to do a song with Pharoah Monche. He's a friend of mine. We're both very busy people so haven't had an opportunity.

BR: In an interview you gave in 1997, you said that hip hop needed a saviour and that Hip-Hop was lost. Do you think it's come any closer to finding its way?
SN: That's a tough question. To a certain degree, I feel hip hop is slowly finding its way back to original music and the gimmicks are slowly fading away. But at the same time, as long as the greedy corporate people are still running the music business, there's always going to be trouble... We just ran a red light! (laughs)... there's always going to be trouble as long as that type of music is around. But, I mean, slowly but surely, I just feel people are tired of hearing the same old thing and it's the people that change things. And if we don't take it upon ourselves to, y’know, not buy those records or support the competition, than hip hop will stay in this state that it's in right now. I believe in my heart that it is changing for the better as long as you have people like Ge-ology and myself, Common, Dead Prez, you know these types of groups.

BR: What was it like working on the NBA Ballers video game?
SN: It was actually fun, it was an enjoyable experience to be working on a video game to all of the characters we had to do just to get a nice game, but definitely was enjoyable... It may have introduced me to a whole new group, to a whole new audience. A lot of the young kids know me from that game now. It was definitely a blessing. It was a good pay cheque too at the end of the day.

BR: What was the last LP you bought?
SN: The last LP that I bought was Ghostface Killah’s Fishscale.

BR: What did you think?
SN: It's dope, that's why I bought it. [Laughs] It's a dope record. I think that Ghostface’s album takes you back to the essence... I dig the stories, the music is incredible. All of the rhymes that he chews...He explored a lot of things on that record. It was a creative record. My hat goes off to him, y’know, I really enjoyed it.

BR: How long until your next album?
SN: We're actually working on it right now. I can't actually say when it will be done for sure. We're hoping sometime by the summer. We've just really started to be honest with you. We're just collectin' beats, but we're hoping to release it next year sometime.

from bangkokrecorder.com

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Supernatural @ MySpace

Aesop Rock Interview

2006-08-18T11:33:00.000-07:00

Do you think you're old? Do you feel old? Are you scared of growing old?

Jeez way to jump right in there. Ha. I guess I do feel old. I'm 30. I have a handful of friends my age and older, but most people doing the music I do, or attending the shows I do are younger. The concert-going fans will always be a younger bunch, as I was really all about seeing shows during my late teens and early 20's. The only part that scares me about growing old is that I am constantly haunted by wondering what I'm gonna do next, in all of this, in music, in art, all of it. Sometimes the worry of that outweighs the enjoyment of what I do. Will I find something to keep me interested musically or otherwise? Will whatever I find pay the bills and support whatever family I may have at that time? I'm finally at the point where I can actually look back a little and say "oh shit, this is what I did with my youth". That can make you feel locked in, which is a scary thing. I also am starting to have the desires to involve myself in things that help out younger generations, which to me is an "old" way to think. I am starting to feel like it is my duty to show kids that they don't have to be a banker or sit in a cubicle, or if they DO have to or want to do that, there are other things in life that can bring you satisfaction and a sense of personal accomplishment that don't necessarily come with a 9-5. I know living off music or art has been a blessing, and if it stops ever I am still happy I got a chance to do it. I'd love to introduce kids to that world.

On the MTV site they said something about you "building on the rapping style eccentrics of Kool Keith and Del". How do you feel about that, and did you see Kool Keith last week at mezzanine and what did you think of the show?

I take that as a huge compliment. Those are 2 dudes that I am honored to share a place in a sentence with, as I definitely felt like both of them were role models to me in many ways. They really continue to show people that it is ok to let your personality show thru in your music, which really is the most important thing. It seems really odd, and sad that something like 'letting your personality show thru' is something that people need to be reminded of, but I guess it's maybe a sign of the times. I dunno. I did not see the Kool Keith show in sf.

List some places here in SF where you can be found? (places you enjoy going- eating at- parks to sit- record stores- spending time at- bars to drink at- movie theaters- anything if anything.

It depends on who's looking for me. To be honest I don't go to that many bars or parties. I don't drink, so that kinda stuff isn't really all that appealing. I'm really just trying to get used to the city still. I lived in NY forever, aside from college, so it's a bit of a change of pace. I haven't been here all that long. Most days my wife goes to work and I work at the crib. I make my rounds to all the record spots every couple weeks. I like walking anywhere cuz most of it is still relatively unfamiliar to me. I am a major movie nerd but I hate theatres. I'm trying to re-train myself to enjoy theatres. That being said, I saw nacho libre the other day and was really really let down. I like jack black, but they forgot to write jokes into the movie. I can also be found prying Jeremy fish out of his house to go eat at any of SF's fine diners. Grub Steak is up there.

I know Fat Nick from skating in Ohio. Do you know him and have you been to his Scribble Jam? If so, you ever compete in it?

I've actually never been to scribble jam. I may know nick if I saw him but the name doesn't ring a bell.

Did you say that smoking cigarettes will make your voice sound dope? That stuff causes cancer. Worry about that stuff? You smoke four packs a day?! My dad used to smoke three. I thought that was tough.

Jesus talk about something being blown out of proportion. I said the voice/cigarettes thing as a joke in an interview many many years ago and it has haunted me ever since. I did at one time in my life for several months smoke 3-4 packs a day. It was a bad time. A 'low point' if you will. The rest of my smoking 'career' averaged around a pack a day. Smoking doesn't do anything to your voice but fuck it up. I have long said in my life that I would quit smoking when I either had a baby or turned 30, whichever came first. that being said, I do not have a baby, but I did turn 30. I have not had a cigarette for 23 days. I have officially quit. Cold turkey. No going back.

Tell me how this collaboration with Jeremy Fish came about. How did you two meet and what in the hell do you think about that big geezer?

Man that guy is my hero. We have a friend in common who hit me up a while back saying that this guy Jeremy fish had an opportunity to pitch a cartoon to Disney and wanted me to be involved in the music side. I flipped out cuz I was also a fan of his, and owned some of his work. I was also dying for any kind of side project that I could get involved in, as occasionally making solo records gets really boring and repetitive, no matter how you approach it. As soon as I moved out to SF we got up, and that was that. We were getting the runaround on the cartoon, but decided we would collaborate regardless, as we had a ton in common and really just hit it off well. I grew up skateboarding, though it had been maybe 7 years since I have done it regularly, but Jeremy is pretty involved, and I got to nerd out on old skateboarding stuff. We just got along well, and his work ethic is inspiring to say the least. When I first moved to sf and re-set up my studio I was working a lot but having a real hard time getting into a zone. New surroundings, foreign city, all that. Jeremy really took the time to show me around a bit and helped me to get back in the zone. That guy is a gentleman and a scholar.

Would you consider yourself a nerd?

music nerd, movie nerd, video game nerd, part-time skateboard nerd, part time art nerd, and I like to read science journals.

Describe yourself when you were twelve.

Skateboarding. Dead Kennedy's and Public Enemy t-shirts. Pretty much listening to any music my older brother gave me. Trying to make art. Learning to play bass. Rapping over my brother's Casio concoctions. Building a launch ramp. Making out with a fat chick who wore Skid Row t-shirts. That was all around that time give or take.

You perform live a lot. Tell us about your worst live show.

There have been a few doozies. We had one this past year. I went to Santos Brazil for 2 shows with my friends Rob Sonic and dj Big Wiz. We played in this concrete soccer stadium thing by the beach. It was kind of open on the sides and covered up on top. It was over 100 degrees outside, and hotter in the spot. When we got up, somebody had piled all these towels onto wiz's computer, causing the whole thing to over heat. it was so hot that his equipment simply would not turn on. we were all so hot and that was causing us to be aggravated and irritable with each other. We finally go things running and in our flustered state started doing the wrong set (form an older set list), as in playing songs that weren't rehearsed. About 4 songs in the whole system again shut down. if that happens in the u.s. you can cover it up with something accapella, or freestyle, or make the crowd clap or something. but when you are somewhere with a language barrier, a lot of the impromptu shit is out the window. we tried our best and fudged our way thru it with the equipment going in and out the whole set. I've never seen wiz so mad. in hind site it was funny, but Christ we were not happy. luckily we played the following day too, and the weather had cooled. we did a lot better. I've had everything from blackouts during the performance to stabbings at the show.

When you first started taking off was it hard to stay away from the hot groupies?

yes.

How has living in SF changed your music if at all... and how did you end up here?

My music tends to change over time regardless, so it's hard to tell what effect sf has had on it directly without taking into account the changes the sound has already gone thru. I'm being really critical on what I do these days, it seems more so than ever before. I'm also trying to just write about shit I have never written about. I have a few more stories than I ever had. I've been really into songs that tell a story lately, or songs that just describe a setting and set up an event but don't actually detail the event, if that makes sense. saying this was the time, the city looked like this, it was night, it was summer, the air smelled like this, etc. I love that stuff.

I came to SF cuz I recently got married, and it was easier for me to relocate than my wife. she had a job and a band (parchman farm) in sf, where as I always worked by myself from home.

So you used to skate in the '90s. What was the largest pair of pants you rocked? I got to 56, and that was conservative.

Hum I don't honestly remember the actual size. I definitely had some bad ones though. But for every large pair of jeans I had, there was always a raver somewhere that made me feel like mine were a small/acceptable size.

With the world getting crazier and crazier... are you the type to zone out and escape or are you stressing about the fucked-up-ness of it all?

I guess a bit of both. Being married is pretty dope cuz at the end of the day I have someone to escape with. That makes it pretty easy to zone out. It makes it easier to tune out the bad. It has made the importance of the idea of family really really clear to me, and once you get that sense of comfort, it feels like at the end of a movie when they zoom out, and it just keeps zooming out more and more, and the houses get smaller, the city, the state, the country, the globe... You start looking at your family and your loved ones in a different light. everything you ever took for granted becomes clear in many ways, and the idea of what success and happiness are really changes... I still keep up on current events as it is important to stay aware of where you live and what is going on, but I also am primarily concerned with the health of my wife, my brothers, parents, etc.

Following the World Cup?

negative

Ever think you'd be interviewed by a website called Fecal Face?

never

All proceeds from your show on the 6th go to 826 Valencia which is great and all, but I read somewhere that reading bores you. How did you get involved with 826 Valencia?

Well, I don't really read novels. I just always found it boring, (though I have been thinking of giving it a go again recently), but writing, that is pretty much my everyday. Maybe in some ways that doesn't even out, but I don't give a fuck. I love writing, and I love music, and lyrics. I also love reading, just not novels. I actually became aware of 826 Valencia because I am a massive fan of Chris Ware. I knew he had a mural on that building, and I knew he had done artwork for Mcseeney's, so when I moved out here I went to see the mural he did (which by the way is fucking crazy). I then read up on 826 and found the organization to be involved in some extremely admirable things... Offering creative writing workshops to children, and publishing short stories written by children, among other things. They basically promote the idea of getting kids siked on art, and right now that is exactly what I want my mission to be. Then, randomly, 826 contacted me about being part of some sort of benefit show or something in NY. I told them that I was not living in NY anymore, but I would love to help out in anyway. Then when this me and Jeremy thing came up, we discussed it and thought this would be the perfect opportunity to help out. I think Jeremy feels similar in a lot of ways about being part of something that helps to get younger people into the idea of drawing pictures or creative writing, or anything of that nature. So I called in a favor to some friends, and before I knew it I had a benefit show on my hands.

As of this second, what are you looking forward to and what are you looking forward least to?

Well, isn't that vague. here's a few answers:
1) I'm looking forward to eating the pastrami in the fridge. I am not looking forward to cleaning the dish.
2) I'm looking forward to finishing up another record. I am not looking forward to dealing with critics young enough to be my son telling me what I'm doing wrong.
3) I'm looking forward to next week's episode of deadwood. I'm not looking forward to it inevitably being cancelled cuz they always cancel my favorite shows.

from fecalface.com

Dudley Perkins (aka Declaime) "Expressions (2012 a.u.)" review

2006-08-18T10:52:00.000-07:00

One of the underground's biggest challenges is balancing mainstream notions of hip-hop against the originality it needs to continue growing. Far too often underground emcees and producers lean so heavily on originality that the whole system falls out of whack, leading to something so abstract and disparate that nodding to the rhythm becomes harder than passing a kidney stone. Dudley Perkins's 2003 debut, A Lil' Light, fell victim to originality overdose. But for his follow-up, Expressions (2012 A.U.), Perkins and A Lil' Light producer Madlib have found a more fluid symmetry.

In everything from his collaborations with MF Doom and the late Jay Dee to his jazzy explorations with Yesterday's New Quintet, Madlib is easily one of hip-hop's golden revolutionaries. At times his production can be so sparse that there's very little to keep the track moving, but that's not the case with Expressions. This time around, Madlib's production is hitting all the funky corners with layered grooves that evoke the attitudes and emotions of A Tribe Called Quest's The Low End Theory.

Perkins's objective to keep the grooves flowing on Expressions is laid down with first lines of opener "Funky Dudley": "A little bit of funk and a dash of soul/ A little bit of George borrowed from my Ol' gran' pappy's stack of old school/ One nation under a groove." From there on the funk samples dance famously with Dudley's vocal style, which cross-pollinates the worlds of D'Angelo and Ol' Dirty Bastard. From "Get on Up" to the James Brown vocal sample in "Dolla Bill," Expressions uses Perkins's voice as if it were a sample itself, incorporating it in the production and the rhythms.

There are very few down moments throughout Expressions' thirteen songs, the exception being the unnecessary and aimless "Domestic Interlude" skit. Madlib's production works flawlessly, his semi-psychedelic influence on R&B, soul and hip-hop keeping Perkins's style fresh and original. All the parts seem to be in place on Expressions: producer and emcee work side by side to create a cohesive sound that not only represents the creativity of the underground but could also awaken the tired ears of the mainstream.

from prefixmag.com

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