What happens when you cruise South Memphis looking for enough weed to make three blunts then lock yourself in an attic until you’re done spitting verses? The answer is this new jawn called “Fame x Money” from Preauxx, Cities Aviv & Royal’T.

NOTE: This track has received the Good Hoodkeeping “Seal of Approval”.

Memphis today has its fair share of people grinding away at what we would call ‘traditional hip-hop’ — and if you’re familiar with the city’s Oscar-winning exploits, you’d see this as an opposing force to what the city is best known for creating. Memphis is, after all, the city that brought you Three 6 Mafia, Yo Gotti and Al Kapone, just to name a few. The current cultural emphasis on chillwave, lo-fi, echoes of latter-day indie rock and game-spitting masters of hip-hop like Guru (R.I.P), Mos Def and Pete Rock, have subliminally entered the regional zeitgeist, trickling down and giving platform to the rhymes of cats like Cities Aviv.

While mainstream rap music has consistently morphed back into itself, a new generation of MC’s have started to emerge from Memphis’ locally vibrant arts movement, of which Cities Aviv has become a mainstay. When these MC’s grab the microphone, you can immediately tell: they take their cues from a completely different station and location. Still only 21 years old, Aviv comes with a unique delivery and vocal style that searches for the place from which he can calm his nerves and aim his thoughts. He puts out his chest and spits very personal, unapologetic rhymes over left-of-center beats, evidenced on the verses he spits here over Blackbird Blackbird’s cover of “Float On” by Modest Mouse.

While there’s only a handful of digital singles out there right now (most of which you can purchase from his Bandcamp page), his 7″ of “Coastin’” will be released by Fat Sandwich Records shortly, followed closely by his full-length album Digital Lows. Dig this video and accompanying single. And while I’m at it, dig on “A Beautiful Hell” which features the lovely and talented New Orleans-native-now-Memphian Fille Catatonique on vocals.

Cities Aviv – Float On

[ Cities Aviv on Bandcamp | Cities Aviv on Tumblr | Cities Aviv on Facebook ]

Tonight at the Hi-Tone in Memphis, IMC (that’s Iron Mic Coalition, y’all) hosts a CD release party for one of Memphis true school hip-hop family, Jason da Hater. All the details are on the flyer, but if you want more info peep these d’s –

IMC presents…Jason Da Hater (CD Release) performance along with special guests…Artistik Approach, Infinito 2017, Mordecai, and comedian Richard Jones (other special guests TBA)

DJ Shamrock & DJ Capital A on the 1s &2s!

Doors open at 9:30p. Shows starts not too long after that…

$5 admission

Hi Tone Cafe
1913 Poplar Ave
Memphis, TN 38104

[Facebook Official Page for more details | Neosoulsville]

Cassandra Ft. Tableek (Remix) by Scribble Records

Thanks go out to Hype Machine (who, if you haven’t noticed, just put their site back in high gear) for adding me back to their queue. Thanks to The Confused Eclectic for posting this track by Yolazy today from Irish hip-hop label Scribble Records. This jawn is on point. We see you now. You next, aiight?

Along comes a video for yet another totally ill track off Skewby‘s epic “Proving You Wrong Since 1988″ mixtape which, if you don’t have already, you can get by clicking here and downloading it, aiight?

Skewby – “Talk 2 em’”

Is the world ready for Total Savage? Fresh off an opening bid with the Mashter of Ceremonies Girl Talk, Memphis rapper Total Savage is about as next as it gets. I think this video, directed by Brad Phelan, speaks for itself — so let there be no question. Tonight, he’ll be blowing up the stage at Hi-Tone with the grand masters of Aristocrunk, Lord T and Eloise. Get ready to get it bumping out the frame, Memphis.

As part of the 2009 International Folk Alliance Conference in Memphis, the Red Bull Music Academy put together a creativity workshop session featuring ?uestlove (the drummer for The Roots) and jam-jazz-folk legend Bela Fleck. During the weekend presentation at Ardent Studios, Quest addressed a series of questions from moderator Lucia Kaminsky about both his personal background in music and the state of the music industry over the 22 years in which The Roots have been together. Now, if y’all haven’t ever heard Quest talking about anything before, you really ought to listen: he offered up to the tightly-packed audience a lot of good insights and information. His insights are always on point and on time.

One of the pieces of his dialogue that stood out was his ability to recognize and connect the similarities between folk music and hip-hop music. There remains, for whatever reason, a sense of separatism between these two types of traditional music, mainly because of the impact that mainstream/commercial success has left on them. As Quest pointed out, he saw the Dylan documentary Don’t Look Back, and recognized a key event in Dylan’s history that rang true to him. “When Dylan went electric in ’64, people wanted to kill him. They were angry.”

Prefacing with an explanation about first-timer Nas’s Illmatic‘s traditional street credibility vs. Puff Daddy & Biggie’s almost purely commercially-intended first album Ready To Die, Questlove fast-forwards from Dylan to what he referred to as “the funeral for hip-hop”, the infamous 1995 Source Awards (in which Notorious B.I.G. won “Best Lyricist” over Nas). Though this may seem like a stretch to the untrained, make no mistake that each of these events carried the same weight for their respective music communities. Quest clearly illuminated, by example, the passion with which proponents of traditional folk music seek to protect themselves from the demons of commercialization and its undeniable similarity to the passion with which proponents of traditional hip-hop music are loathe to embrace the commercial aspects of rap.

The fascinating two-hour session wound down with a question and answer session followed by a jam between Bela Fleck and ?uestlove (see the video) which was nothing short of spectacular. The Red Bull Music Academy-sponsored event drew a crowd of nearly 90 people and was followed at Senses Nighclub in Memphis with a three-hour DJ set by Questlove.

This is a very fresh new video for N.A.S.A.’s track “Hip-Hop”. Featuring guest appearances from Slim Kid Tre, Fatlip and KRS-One, it’s a bumping video bound to turn a party out. N.A.S.A.’s The Spirit Of The Apollo (including the song “Hip-Hop”) will be released on February 17th.

I suddenly felt small.

So deadlines for the “best of 2007″ rolled around, and I was in a tailspin, dogged by the massive amount of music I had encountered. I kept reflecting on these words of Billy Corgan that I’d read years ago. Billy had once quipped to, I think, Rolling Stone, that, “Not every year can be a great, or even good, year in music.” This thought just stirred in my head and fed into some neurosis. The thought actually fucked with me; maybe 2007 wasn’t that great? Or was it? So I slacked until it was way too late to really do it with any fervor.

Newsflash: Shit aint happening like that this year. I’m past all that, and this year’s going to be different.

I don’t know if my opinion is necessarily better or worse than anyone else’s when it comes to music. I’m a long-time deep music fan who combs the trenches for something new and different, someone who’s been doing that for years. I have an opinion about music which is informed by all that, but I don’t pretend to know what is or isn’t “good” or “the best”. If you love hip-hop, you’re going to think a different album is the #1 album of the year than I am (even though I love hip-hop). If you love indie rock, same thing.

If I sat down and tried to pinpoint the one unifying factor in the music that I listen to and enjoy, it would have to be “music with a soul”. It doesn’t have to preach an ideology or start a movement, it doesn’t have to be anthemic or angelic. It simply has to get me to stop what I’m doing and go, “What in the hell is this?” When I become awestruck, the music will stay with me.

This list represents the songs released in 2008 (to the best of my knowledge) which caught me in my tracks, got me to stand up and take notice, gave me a reason to write and feel good at the end of the day that I was telling everyone a new secret or spreading the good news. I hope you’ll enjoy these as much as I have enjoyed hearing them.

1 – Voxpop – “The Boomerang Generation” (unsigned)

When this London four-piece popped this song into my inbox, I had no idea what I was getting. They sent a sweet and humble letter along with it asking me to please share with my readers. The song is dynamic in a string of ways: it’s a pop song, it’s a protest song, and it’s filled with the kind of energy I love to hear. Far and away, this is my favorite song of 2008. Let’s hope that 2009 will bring us a Voxpop album to hear & enjoy.

2 – Lil’ Wayne (produced by Bangladesh) – “A Milli”

The song is inescapable. You couldn’t get away from it most of this entire year & it took some folks a minute to get with the program. But love or hate Lil’ Wayne, this song was a cornerstone of 2008 stereos, parties, clubs, remixes, and just about everything else. Respect.

3 – MGMT – “Time to Pretend”

I am extremely proud of MGMT and happy for them — what started as an experiment in their dorm room at Wesleyan has blossomed into an anthemic world-wide phenomenon. This song was on the tips of every tongue that knew its words and could relate. This song is great because, plainly, it paints a portrait of a certain truth (to which you’re either hip or you’re not). The song’s intent, along the group themselves, seem to lack the pretension that the press wants to heap on them. I, for one, can’t wait to hear what their work with The Chemical Brothers is going to sound like.

4 – Santogold – “L.E.S. Artistes”

Santi White is an operator of the highest order: she’s the real deal, wearing every helmet she comes across with dignity and sheer style. Performer, songwriter, executive — she can do it all and do it all well. In the song “L.E.S. Artistes”, Santogold has both capitalized on and captured a portrait of a time in music and arts that has seemed fairly desperate. If ever an anthemic line was needed by those on their way to whatever success, “I can say I hope it will be worth what I give up” should be the mantra to which they adhere.

5 – Estelle (feat. kanYe West) – “American Boy”

It took me a long time to get into this record, but once it stuck with me I was sold. The maturity of Estelle’s progress as a performer and singer is impressive, her vocal prowess unmistakable. The marriage of her style with kanYe’s flows make the song as world-class as it purports to be.

6 – Lord T & Eloise (feat. 8 Ball) – “Back From the Business Trip”

If you’re from down in my neck of the woods, you know that Lord T & Eloise were everywhere this year, selling out (and overselling) venues everywhere. Word of mouth has been kind to them with good reason. Not just because I told you so (and I did tell you so), but because they gave 300% to every packed out venue they set foot in and ripped every microphone they touched. “The Industry” still haven’t figured out how to classify LT&E, but they need to stop thinking about it and just blast their jams. Aristocrunk is on the move.

7 – Aimee Mann – “Looking for Nothing”

As Aimee Mann carries on her journey as a songwriter and performer, she continues to craft elegant pop song structures around stories that evoke the wistfulness of a by-gone era with distinction. Fully modern in their presentation and execution, her 2008 release was a peerless collection of satisfying, soul-wrenching odes, perfecting a sound she has long been masterful in shaping and humbled by creating. “Looking for Nothing” represents her finest material, and one of the most perfectly-penned songs of the year.

8 – Meg Hutchinson – “Home”

From time to time, it seems to me that the least liked (or known) songs are often the most loved. Folk singer-songwriter Meg Hutchinson has, perhaps, suffered from a curse of virtual anonymity this year, but by no fault of her music. Some songs cannot be reviewed effectively; they can only take on meaning to the listener through time and circumstance. It is my great hope that others will come to find the deep-ceded affection that I have found for this song, an ode to appreciation for the things we all take for granted far too often.

9 – Erykah Badu – “Honey”

Erykah Badu….man man man. A soul diva and performer of the highest order, she just continues to release albums (and songs) that turn my knobs, nahh mean? Seems like on every record she releases, it’s the “bonus track” that really contains an actual bonus to it. New Amerykah Part One (4th World War) will likely be in my year’s best, and this song represents to the fullest what Ms. Badu is laying down.

10 – Portishead – “We Carry On”

I didn’t know what I was going to do when I heard a new Portishead album was on the way. With so much time gone between records, I couldn’t have imagined them being in bed with their old sound. I remember my shock as darker and moodier sounds came from my stereo; it was everything that I could have hoped for. This song was my #1 favorite from Third, an album I continue to love and be fascinated by.

The Rest Of The Best (Click Individual Songs in the Playlist to Play, or play for continuous stream in order)

11 Bon Iver – Skinny Love
12 TV on the Radio – Halfway Home
13 Raphael Saadiq – Love That Girl
14 Blitzen Trapper – Sleepytime In The Western World
15 Grace Jones – Williams Blood
16 Teenagers – Starlett Johannson
17 Al Green – You’ve Got The Love I Need (feat. Anthony Hamilton)
18 Adele – Chasing Pavements
19 Q-Tip – Manwomanboogie (feat. Amanda Diva)
20 Oasis – The Turning
21 Treasure Fingers – Cross The Dancefloor
22 Kutiman – Music Is Ruling My World
23 Smoking Popes – If You Don’t Care
24 Chad VanGaalen – Bare Feet on Wet Griptape
25 Benji Hughes – So Well
26 Friendly Fires – Paris
27 Brazilian Girls – Good Time
28 John Elliott – The Ballad of Wallace Green and his Dog
29 Bob Dylan – Dreamin’ of You
30 Department of Eagles – No One Does It Like You
31 Ssion – Street Jizz
32 The Roots – 75 Bars (Black’s Reconstruction)
33 Charles Hamilton – Brooklyn Girls
34 Sigur Ros – Gobbledygook
35 Jamie Lidell – Another Day
36 Gossip – Listen Up (Punks Jump Up Remix)
37 Of Montreal – Gallery Piece
38 Fujiya & Miyagi – Knickerbocker
39 Anthem In – Down
40 Blood Red Shoes – You Bring Me Down
41 Graham Weber – Italian Lullaby
42 Oh Snap!! – Bill Cosby Sweater (Hostage Remix)
43 Beck – Chemtrails
44 Thunderheist – Jerk It
45 T.I. – Swagga Like Us (feat. kanYe West, Jay-Z & Lil’ Wayne)
46 Coldplay – Death and all His Friends
47 Ivan Colon – Gabriel
48 Cut Copy – Far Away
49 Monsters are Waiting – Don’t Lie
50 Beach House – Gila

It’s been a very busy and awe-inspiring year for A-Trak. Looking at the whole picture, he’s worn the hat of DJ, mixer, arranger, producer, record label magnate and you know…what can I say? The man has really stepped up his game to another level. Even with so much on his plate, he appears to be taking it all in stride. If you read this blog with any frequency, you already know we tend to dote on A-Trak pretty heavily around here because, well….I mean, skillz. He’s got mad skillz. Respect.

So we had to let y’all know: his website is up and crackin’, he’s got the blog going, and he will likely hip you to content you’re not going to find anywhere else on the web. Suggest you take a trip over to http://djatrak.com and see what he’s putting out there for y’all. He’s also doing guest postings at The FADER blog from time to time, so be sure and keep an eye on the haps over there, too. Hey! He’s even giving away a fresh pair of Fool’s Gold limited-edition Nike Air Max’s too!

Now I gotta go figure out how I’m getting to Mississippi tomorrow. Y’all be good.

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?

Nas – Queens Get The Money

The FADER – World Premiere: Nas, “Queens Get The Money”

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.

Steinski – Lesson 1 – The Payoff Mix

The story of their influence on hip-hop culture and popular music since the 1980′s is not something that a writer can simply explain in words. It can be heard in the craft of their songs, cobbling pieces from everywhere to generate complete and utter reconstructions of great records — a style duplicated by countless artists since. Steinski and Double Dee, though neither consider themselves to be great turntablists, are considered godfathers of modern DJ culture and serve as the main inspiration to people like DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist and Girl Talk (not to mention one of my favorites, the Memphis Feel-Harmonic DJ Symphony Orchestra). One listen to What Does It All Mean? 1983-2006 Retrospective and you sense the bare essences of what their contribution to hip-hop and DJ culture really means.

This 2-disc set (Disc 1 is all the original tracks while Disc 2 is a monstrous and involving megamix from Steinski’s radio show known as ‘A Rough Mix’) is an absolute essential addition to the collection of anyone who considers themselves a fan of hip-hop, of turntablism, of DJ-oriented music of any kind. Every track is a journey, every moment a new adventure, every slice that Steinski incorporates represents a piece of the cultural landscape in the television generation. From thousands and thousands of recordings, Steinski gave birth to masterpieces as intricate as any of the individual pieces.

These works also represent a by-gone era, an era during which these works could be created with little or no fanfare from the artists whose works were sampled to create the new songs. The amount of money it would cost to pay the sampling fees for these tracks, were they created today, would be so astronomical as to prevent them from ever seeing the light of day — because the revenue they would inevitably generate would never meet the amount of money invested in them.

And it is from the minds of Steinski and Double Dee that these works and ideas sprang forth. We can begin to understand what Keith Haring, the NYC artist whose works came to represent hip-hop culture in the 1980′s, meant about hip-hop culture when he said that “Nothing is ever an end because it can always be used as the beginning of something else.” This retrospective, long overdue, is fitting tribute to the roots of sampling and hip hop culture from one of its greatest curators and inventors.

Steinski – Lesson 2 (James Brown Mix)
Steinski – Lesson 3 (History of Hip Hop)

You can purchase Steinski’s What Does It All Mean? 1983-2006 Retrospective from Amazon [cd or mp3] by clicking here.

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”

Loudersoft’s Random Hip-Hop Mix

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.