Metal Lungies

I haven’t posted some DC related shit in a while, so here goes- I’m gonna get everyone on the team a copy of this. This probably needs a pause.

Braille, alongside Ohmega Watts and Othello, rolls with Lightheaded, and this week dropped a new track with S1 (a personal favorite from The Strange Fruit Project).  This region of the country has been rolling out distinct and provocative hip-hop all year long, and this effort is no exception.  “Frankenstein” is an especially apt name–the grumbling bass line is infused with crackling synths and beastly lyrics to create a living, breathing monster.  The song also delves into refreshing themes: being your own person, not succumbing to societal pressures.  Mary Shelley’s message was clearly not lost on Braille.  The LP should be madness.  

Braille- Frankenstein (Prod. by S1) 

See Also: Braille-The IV, Produced by Marco Polo

Via Nah Right

Three of my favorite rappers bullshitting at Budden’s house. Royce really never takes his shades off, huh?

There’s more at Budden’s YouTube channel.

This is easily the best thing I got out of CMJ Week. I met Magestik Legend at Fat Beats. I was talking to the crew there (what up to DJ SAV*ONE and The Audible Doctor, who produced the Brown Bag AllStars joint from awhile back) and they passed me a copy of his mixtape. He later came out himself and made sure I had a copy as well as his number. Adamant but cool, like anybody on their hustle should be. Now, I had been getting copies of stuff all week and about 95% of the music I get from unknown artists just plain sucks (I still listen to all of it though!). To my surprise, Magestik Legend’s Free doesn’t suck at all and actually kicks ass.

Magestik is original and clever without the gimmicks (not pointing any fingers, you gimmick-ass rappers know who you are). The first song, "The Legend," isn’t just a laundry list of brag raps. Rather, he references the Bible, ancient Greece, ancient Egypt and other "legendary" whatnot. His skills also show on "In N Out". On the first verse, he talks about everything in him, ending every line with "in me" and on the second verse, he uses "out" in every line. OK, that’s a little gimmicky, but it’s still dope how he pulls it off.

Unlike most underground rappers, Magestik Legend can actually write a hook, a rare skill. His greatest asset by far is his flow, which is constantly changing and always bonkers. He’s easily on par with most dudes in today’s underground scene.

The production, soul samples and the like,  is done by mostly unknown producers. The only name I recognized was Nick Speed. The beats are far from amateur though. There aren’t any that you’re going to tell all your friends about tomorrow, but it doesn’t have that cheap mixtape sound either. Magestik has the perfect backdrops to go nuts.

Definitely don’t sleep. You can stream it here too.

Download: Magestik Legend – Free

Peace to Magestik Legend!

Wow. It was a fucking honour to interview Black, who I can safely call one of my top 5 producers out there right now. Black Milk discusses his upcoming projects, different methods of making beats, and his favorite soul records.

ML: Hey man, how you doing?

Black Milk: What’s going on, man?

ML: The first single, “Give The Drummer Sum” came out fairly recently. Is that the first time you used live instruments in your beats?

BM: I’ve brought live musicians in for certain tracks but it wasn’t for my actual album. We did some live stuff for a few Slum Village tracks I did. This is the first time I used live instrumentation for my solo project.

ML: Is it something you could see yourself doing more of in the future? It’s an interesting fusion because you did some programmed stuff – I watched the video of you making it and you’ve got all the programmed elements and then you cue in the pre-recorded live stuff and add some live instrumentation on top.

BM: Right, right. It still samples and evolves on that. That particular track, “Give The Drummer Sum”, there’s no samples in there. That’s all me – I chopped up a breakbeat, programmed it on an MPC and brought in a live bass player to play it over, a couple organ stabs and live horn. That was all basically original music. Still sampled, but you know, I flipped it in my own way. But yeah, other tracks on the album that had live instrumentation on it, that’s played over actual samples.

Like the first track, “Long Story Short”, I got Dwele playing the horns on it, I’m playing a Moog, and a live bass player…I got Kid Rock’s bass player playing on it. And piano by my man Ab. You know, all those elements on top of an actual sample that I chopped it up.

That’s how I start off, with a skeleton of a beat, you know, a sample.

ML: What’s your studio set-up right now?

BM: It’s basically the same. I’ve been working with basically the same set-up for the last year, I guess you could say. A lot of vinyl, a lot of old records, an MPC 2000 XL, Pro Tools. You know, the basics. A few synth keyboards, stuff like that. That’s how I start off most of my production, with the MPC, still. I haven’t tried any new programs or nothing like that.

The only new thing I did was work with other producers and musicians.

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I didn’t make it to a lot of shows during CMJ, so this was one of the only actual performances I saw. Thes One and Double K came through and rocked Fat Beats retarded. They did like four or five songs; three off the new album and then two requests, finishing with "Acid Raindrops." Thes also did an off-the-top freestyle using the names of records a dude was handing him. He’s a really energetic performer and the two work well together. Their new album Fun DMC is one of my favorites this year. daddyL knows what I’m talking about.

I hope the horrible weather didn’t deter anyone from their show that night.

Q-Tip is going on tour with a full band as well as DJ Scratch, The Cool Kids, The Knux and on some dates Pacific Division. Before Tribe’s set at Rock The Bells, Q-Tip rocked it solo for a minute and it was amazing. Dates/info:

Date	City/State	Venue	Info/Opener
11/05/08	Chicago, IL	House Of Blues	also feat. The Knux
11/07/08	Aspen, CO	Belly Up	also feat. The Knux
11/08/08	Denver, CO	Cervantes Ballroom	also feat. The Knux
11/11/08	Seattle, WA	Showbox Sodo	also feat. The Knux
11/13/08	San Francisco, CA	Mezzanine	also feat. The Knux & Pacific Division
11/15/08	Los Angeles, CA	House Of Blues	also feat. The Knux & Pacific Division
11/16/08	Las Vegas, NV	House Of Blues	also feat. The Knux
11/17/08	Phoenix, AZ	Marquee	also feat. The Knux
11/19/08	Dallas, TX	House Of Blues	also feat. The Knux
11/20/08	Austin, TX	Stubbs	also feat. The Knux
11/21/08	Houston, TX	Warehouse Live	also feat. The Knux
11/22/08	New Orleans, LA	House Of Blues	also feat. The Knux
11/24/08	Atlanta, GA	Centerstage	also feat. The Knux & Janelle Monae
11/26/08	Ft. Lauderdale, FL	Revolution	also feat. The Knux
11/28/08	Orlando, FL	House Of Blues	also feat. The Knux
11/29/08	Charlotte, NC	Amos’ Southend	also feat. The Knux
11/30/08	Washington, DC	Nightclub 9:30	also feat. The Knux & Pacific Division
12/02/08	New York, NY	Nokia Times Square	also feat. The Knux & Pacific Division
12/03/08	Philadelphia, PA	Trocadero	also feat. The Knux & Pacific Division

You know how most hip hop magazines will have that issue where they go back and gave perfect ratings (5 Mics, XXLs and what have you) to certain albums that they had given lesser ratings to before? You know, basically rewriting history to cover up their prior mistakes? Well, we here at ML have no respect for such tactics…

Just kidding! In fact, we’re kind of doing the same thing now.

Back in June 2007, when DJ01 and I came up with the Beat Drop idea, our guest lists were practically non-existent — in fact, our very first Beat Drop post, covering Alchemist, was just he and I. And I laugh at myself for suggesting in that first post that we’d try to put these out on a weekly basis. I was so ambitious in my early blogging days!

In our past few Beat Drops, though, we’ve established connections with some great hip hop bloggers (and even a couple of artists) — so, we reached out to as many as we could and asked them what ALC productions we missed the first time around (including his work since June 2007, of which we can’t fault ourselves for not picking). In the process, though, we encountered a couple of big-name first-time contributors who weren’t able to read our first Alchemist Beat Drop in advance, so some picks may overlap. Oh well, charge it to the game.

Are we re-writing history? Well, if we are, that would mean that we had made history before, which is something we wouldn’t want to say about ourselves. But, thank you for suggesting it.

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This is the inside of Jean Grae’s “Love Thirst” single and despite intense analysis on my part, it makes no sense. If you can figure it out, I’ll tell you want KNOBBZ actually stands for.

And just so this isn’t a complete waste of a post, here’s “Love Thirst” and the remix with Busta Rhymes (via 2dopeboyz). Off Jeanius.

Download: Jean Grae – Love Thirst (prod. 9th Wonder)

Download: Jean Grae – Love Thirst (rmx) f. Busta Rhymes (prod. 9th Wonder)

I got an email a few days ago from Chicago emcee Nico B promoting this EP he put together. I don’t normally post stuff by people who don’t reach out to me directly, but this album is ill. Sabada Gigante is Nico’s tribute to salsa legend Hector Lavoe, produced entirely by DJ Noble. The beats are dope, all based around Lavoe samples, and Nico is pretty nice on the mic, although he does quote classic lyrics a bit excessively at times (lemonade was a popular drink in the 90s and apparently still is!) Can’t forget that fantastic album cover either.

I got into salsa pretty recently through the great Willie Colon compilation, A Man & His Music: The Player, and I’ve been wanting to flip salsa samples for a while. This EP is a breath of fresh air and very welcome on a shitty winter day, highly recommended. You can stream tracks off the tape at Nico’s MySpace too, if you’re not sold.

Download: Nico B – Sabado Gigante EP

Let me leave you with Hector singing “Periodico de Ayer” in 1978: