RSS
Archive for the Hip-Hop Notes From Underground Category
I guess I don’t know enough about The Cool Kids other than I know that The Bake Sale is stupid tight, my boys in Lord T & Eloise stupid love them, the rhymes I hear them drop are stupid fresh and this mixtape entitled “That’s Stupid (The Mixtape)” is right banging.
Go grab this shit while you can. Somewhere in these six songs, you might just get silly, stupid dumb — just make sure that girl ain’t no bum.
01 Oscar the Grouch
02 That’ll Work
03 Dinner Time
04 Full & Paid
05 Box of Rocks
06 Don’t Trip (Bake Sale UK)
Get it here or here. (HT nialler9)
Get The Bake Sale from Amazon [cd or mp3] by clicking here.
This is groundbreaking, earth-shattering, and like whoa.
New exclusive Nas. “Queens Get the Money,” the opening track to his much-discussed and untitled album, finds Nas in a Kid A mindspace. Rapping over a drumless beat from Jay Electronica he talks about bringing back Arsenio for hip-hop’s sake, dubs himself Nasty Nasdaq and shouts out kids in group homes. Will this be the album where Nas creates a new national anthem?
Back before samples had to be wait eons to be cleared, back in a day when uptown hip hop crews and downtown punks were checking out each other’s shows trying to learn a thing or two, there lived Steven Stein and Doug DiFranco — two pioneers whose adventures would transform them into the hip-hop superheroes known as Steinski and Double Dee.
Rabid music fans and hip-hop enthusiasts with day jobs on the edges of the biz, they got their “big break” in 1983 by winning a Tommy Boy Records remix contest for Play That Beat, Mr. D.J. by G.L.O.B.E. and Whiz Kid. The remix has come to be known in the annals of hip-hop as “Lesson 1 - The Payoff Mix” — an incomprehensible sampladelic jam of breaks from funk and disco records that reads (just as the name suggests) like a time capsulized history lesson. It was from works like these that, much like the graffiti kids tagging stray subway trains with spray paint cans, a cult of “illegal art” in music was born. More music and full review after the jump.
I was cleaning out an old hard drive, and I came across this random collection of hip-hop songs that I pieced together into a little mix with the plan of giving it to you guys at some point in time. Short term memory and life crises all coming together, I guess I forgot about it for a while. Well, better late than never, I guess. Here’s a (possibly the most) random collection that I guess I (at some point) cobbled together for your listening pleasure. I know you gonna dig this.
TRACKLISTING:
1 - Clipse, “Dirty Money”
2 - Ghostface Killah, “Kilo”
3 - Robin Thicke ft. Lil’ Wayne, “Shooter” (clean)
4 - Nas, “Hip Hop Is Dead”
5 - Chubb Rock ft. Biz Markie, “No Head, No Backstage Pass”
6 - Public Enemy, “New Whirl Odor”
7 - ????? with Three 6 Mafia, “Stay Fly” (Remix)
8 - Gil-Scott Heron, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”
This is the pure definition of psychedelic interstellar afro-beat jazz funk, horns, crazy Hammond B-3 keyboards, straight-up junkie rhythms from 1971 banging up the block from outer space to the human race and back again. With guest vocal effects from Karolina, Chaka Moon and Elran Dekel, we get an enhancement to what is already a nearly perfect recording. Furthermore, what I would like to call “the Stanley Turrentine/Ahmad Jamal/Yusef Lateef factor” is all over this joint, a form of high praise that I think is well merited once you get to listen (if you know anything about those cats).
The best part is that while the individual sections of this record are wonderful, it’s much better as a complete work. There’s no filler here, no rush jobs or cutting and pasting — this is some handcrafted, vintage funk/soul shit that will stay with you long after the first listen. So if you are down with the notions and the concepts, then the practice and the performance is here for you to lay your dreams in. Kutiman is set to take on the world, and it’s time you climbed aboard and slid into the groove.
Kutiman - Music Is Ruling My World (featuring Karolina)
Kutiman - No Reason For You (featuring Elran Dekel)
You can purchase Kutiman’s S/T album from Amazon (CD or MP3) by clicking here.
Strange Famous records knows how to turn out the hip hop that makes heads bounce, and this jam that just ended up in ye olde inbox has us excited for the newest record from Prolyphic & Reanimator, due out this spring from Strange Famous. While the album is not titled yet, we were thinking this song is dope enough to call it something like Dolemishi vs. The Dank Robots, but you know…respect to P & R. We lets them do the thinking around here, we just tells y’all when the track is on fire. Check out the song “Survived Another Winter”, featuring appearances by Sage Francis, Alias and B. Dolan. Respeck.
Prolyphic and Reanimator featuring Sage Francis, Alias, and B. Dolan - “Survived Another Winter”
I get all settled down and figure I’ve gotten all the world of music sorted and figured out. I look around and I see that not only do I not have this shit sorted and figured, the expansive reach of influence has touched people I know nothing about and moved them to create, recreate and infiltrate in ways I never knew they could. Take the light of DJ Day for an example. Here’s a cat from Palm Springs, California who has been digging, crating, upgrading and restating funk and soul grooves for a hot while now and I guess I slept on him. Well, I remember seeing his name on a flyer for some bomb-assed after party at Coachella this year that I couldn’t get to (I believe that involved one Mark Ronson and one Lilly Allen as well, but you know I have been wrong). OOPS, you’d better pick that up, I think I dropped a few names there.
Well, ok, that hardly matters when you’re dealing with music this smoothed out. DJ Day’s tracks are mash-ups for sure, but they’re not just average mashes. These are (wait for it)….mashterpieces. On the best day of my life with all the knowledge I have, I could not recreate a fraction of this genius with my equipment. In his own words, DJ Day says on his MySpace page that “Music to me is the most immediate form of expression and one that transcends culture, class, race, language and all that. Whether Im making my own music, or playing records in front of a crowd, I’m out to make people feel something.” Well, you got me, brotha. If you’re emoting, I’m feeling you to the maximum allowed by law.
So anyways, DJ Day got himself a little bit of music floating out there. I don’t wanna give away the man’s catalog, but I will treat you to something you probably ain’t gonna find on your own here in the states. Here’s “What Planet What Station” ripped from a vinyl 12″ re-released earlier this year on Milk Crate. Forget finding this shit on vinyl, it’s long gone. But you can bang it out for a minute. Take one part Jungle Brothers and one part soul classic, mix gently, add some spice and serve warm. Damn, that tastes good. And hey, he’s giving away this track called “Four Hills” on hi MySpace page from his newest full-length The Day Before so, yo. Check it, too.
DJ Day - What Planet What Station (Vocal)
DJ Day - Four Hills
Don’t sit there nodding your head, go hit up DJ Day on Myspace by clicking this link. Wanna support the music? Go to iTunes and buy his record entitled The Day Before by clicking here.
