Metal Lungies

I have your Saturday night agenda.

Pharoahe Monch teams up with Apple to celebrate Black Music Month with a live in-store performance. Head over the to Apple Store in Soho, NYC on Sunday June 17th at 3pm to catch Pharoahe Monch perform new songs from his new album Desire (in stores June 26th). Space is limited so get their early.
Store Address
103 Prince Street
New York, NY 10012
(212) 226-3126

Who knows you might hear his verse from that remix.

Yawning through this season’s NBA Finals made me miss the presence of the Golden State Warriors that much more. Tim Duncan is the best player of the post-Jordan era, and fundamentals are great and all, but, seriously — can a team break 100 points in a game more than once is a championship series? Is that really too much to ask for?

Well, in case you need another reason to like the Warriors, I got one for you, first picked up on by Free Darko — Baron Davis, who also happens to be godfather to The Game’s son, can SPIT! [And the dude before him, Mr. Drastick, is pretty tight as well.] [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeDeoCSNEMA[/youtube]

Granted, it’s no “Supercalifragelistic Shaq is alidocious”, or “Come to me with faggot tendencies, you’ll be sleepin’ where the maggots be”, but it certainly isn’t bad, especially for a freestyle. We need to see some more NBA stars shows off their mic skills, and hope that it might lead to can get a “Part 2” to this masterpiece.

[* – Actually 3 words, I know. But that’s Freeway’s math, not mine.]

A new single from The Bearded One dropped today, “Big Spender” featuring Jay-Z, brought to you by Spine Magazine and Nah Right (via OnSmash)… so, in other words, if you’ve made your rounds through the hip hop blogosphere today, you’ve probably heard this. And, honestly, there’s not much to say about it — the beat sounds like something you’ve probably heard a million times before, and the sample sounds awkward and barely matches up with the beat. To say that it’s “all over the place” would be an understatement.

With Freeway’s upcoming album, Free At Last (no release date at the moment), being executive produced by both Jay-Z and 50 Cent as the first ever Roc-A-Fella/G-Unit joint release, and Free having a solid debut album already under his belt, expectations should no doubt be high. The tracks released last year in anticipation of the album’s initial January 2007 release date (a couple of which are linked below) were not necessarily groundbreaking, but (unlike “Big Spender”) they were at least somewhat promising.

Also worth noting is that Raekwon flipped the same sample (with much better results) a couple years ago on a promo single of the same name, which I highly doubt will end up on Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II (though, I admittedly have no idea what to expect of Cuban Linx II).

Download: Freeway – “Hit Ya Up” featuring 50 Cent

Download: Freeway – “World War III”

Download (if you really want to): Freeway – “Big Spender” featuring Jay-Z

Download: Raekwon – “Big Spender” [Only got a clean version. Sorry.] Sphere: Related Content

There are many ways for a talented MC to establish himself (or herself… but, not really) in rap music. Some may work better as part of a duo or group; some may find that perfect chemistry with one producer and stick to a formula; some may prefer to work with multiple producers and try to go for different sounds. Yet, not many have attempted to try their hand at all three of these — in fact, the only name that comes to my mind is Talib Kweli. Kweli first made a name for himself on Rawkus Records’ landmark release, 1998’s Black Star, rhyming alongside Mos Def. In 2000, he and producer Hi-Tek, known collectively as Reflection Eternal, put out their only LP to date, the superb Train Of Thought. Since then, he has released 2 solo albums, 2002’s Quality and 2004’s Beautiful Struggle, working with the likes of Kanye West, Just Blaze, the late J Dilla and the Neptunes, creating music on par with his past collaborative successes (though most would agree that Beautiful Struggle was a bit of a step down from Quality).

Though Kweli’s reputation is more than established — tack on a name-dropping from Jay-Z in The Black Album‘s most noted lyric for good measure — putting out his 3rd solo album, Eardrum (in stores July 24th), has been a struggle… and not a beautiful one. Kweli’s tendency to try to fit more words than necessary into each bar has made him a bit of an acquired taste, and Eardrum‘s first single, “Listen” (which was released almost a year ago, and is placed as the final track on the album), has gotten a rather luke-warm reception. But, with a record label of his own (Blacksmith Records, which boasts a roster including Jean Grae and Cali veterans Strong Arm Steady), and a newer single, the Hi-Tek-produced “More Or Less”, which is vintage Kweli, the time is now or never. There’s only so much that promotion can do, anyways — those that know know, and those that don’t know will hopefully find out what they’ve been missing sooner or later.

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This short is called ‘Pound’. Yeah.. some of the moves are a little much, but its the most urban Patty Caking you will ever see. Can you imagine if Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince did this handshake instead of theirs, 60% of the running time would be handshakes.

Found at Boing Boing.

The footage of the making the track is dope, you see Lil Jon’s bugged out eyes, Rhymefest & Lil Jon recording in a closet (that’s still bigger than your house), and weed carriers reading books amongst other random stuff. Peep.The track is one of the most unique callabos of the year, and hey it works.

Grab the Mp3.

video spotted on spinemagazine.

It’s been a while since we’ve written anything about Dave Chappelle, an ML all-time favorite. Seems he is contempt on just staying on the (relative) low-low.

Something that feeds into ML being cool with him staying out of the spotlight (don’t get it twisted, we would still pay a pretty penny for some fresh Chappelle material) is exemplified in the comments of the tmz entry where the same people that were saying YEAAAHHHH!! and in their Lil Jon voice a few years back have turned on Dave for… what exactly? 

Apparently, before you get to stand under Rihanna‘s umbrella (ella, ella, ay, ay), you need Poppa Hova’s approval. According to People magazine, Jay-Z “screens” all of Rihanna’s potential dates:

“I just found out from a mutual friend that guys will talk to Jay first before they try to approach me… He’s very protective. Jay has my best interests in mind. If it’s a good guy I know Jay won’t shut him down. But if he’s not, Jay will be like, ‘No, no, no.'”

So young, so naive. Myself previously having been a potential suitor of Rihanna (… oh, just play along …) who has been through this so-called screening process, I’m calling “bullshit” here. I spoke to Jay about trying to set up a date, and I found out the real reason why he’s keeping tabs on the young star. And also, don’t think for a minute that Jay’s really spending time trying to “screen” dudes for Rihanna — I never even got to see Jay in person, only speaking to him through an intercom (on some Charlie’s Angels shit) and honestly, I don’t even think Jay was on the other end, it was just someone playing lyrics of his. Peep the transcript and see for yourself…

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Genius. I hope most of you don’t need a hint, but if you do, hopefully because you are cracked out right now.. what is each shirt missing? I’m def coping one of each.

Buy it at TTL.