Metal Lungies

Just got the 2nd video from The Renaissance in the e-mail box from the video’s director- Rik Cordero.

ML mega-favorite DJ Premier shows how effortlessly he makes dope beats, then talks about where Ludacris stands in his top MC ranking.

Hold up for a second. Forget all that bullshit assclownery going on in music right now. Forget Souljah Boy. Forget auto-tune. Sit down. Pour yourself a classy drink (ginger ale and rye is always a good choice) and sit down in a comfy chair. Lee Morgan has something he’d like to play for you.

“I Remember Clifford” performed in 1958.

Video for Johnson & Jonson’s “Up All Night.” Blu going crazy with the flow and a dope video. You’d best have that album already.

via okayplayer

One two/who got more style than son do

It’s been a minute, people. My apologies – midterms and essays got your boy busy.

“Thief’s Theme” is a 2004 single released by Nas in support of his double album, Street’s Disciple. Salaam Remi flips the guitar riff and a soaring organ line from the Incredible Bongo Band’s cover of “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”(later used in almost identical fashion by Wil.i.am for “Hip Hop Is Dead”). Remi throws a short bongo break on the chorus, where scratches Nas’s lyrics from “The World Is Yours” for the chorus:

The thief’s theme, play me at night they won’t act right/Understandable smooth shit that murderers move with.

Keeping with the theme of the song, the video features people robbing stores in ski masks.

I owe my discovery of today’s featured remix entirely to Dan Love at FDB, who tipped me off to this track at the end of last year. “Thief’s Theme” was remixed by Canadian producer Midas Touch for his online mixtape The Remix Tape Volume 1, which you can download here. Obviously, this remix is internet only, but it’s a shame; Midas does a better job behind the boards here than Nas’ current stable of mostly crap producers.

Midas switches up the percussion to heavy snares and hi-hats. He adds pretty, echoing piano keys and brings in stirring strings and some really dope horns every few bars. Midas also chops us some classic Otis Redding groans and layers them on top. Midas’s take on “Thief’s Theme” is cinematic and sounds like a lost Premier beat circa Moment of Truth – never a bad thing.

Which version is better? I’m leaning toward Midas on this one. Remi’s beat is hurt by the fact that Nas used the same sample for “Hip Hop Is Dead” but two years later. Still a good beat, just feels a bit redundant, I suppose. What do you guys think?

Download: Nas – Thief’s Theme

Download: Nas – Thief’s Theme (Midas Touch Remix)

You know you are major when not only do you get a cameo, but you get to perform on a kids show. The Roots did just that appearing on the Nickelodeon show Yo Gabba Gabba.

Check the performance of Lovely, Love My Family below:

If I had kids you better believe they’d be rocking with this over the Sean Kingston X Kidz Bop.

In other pertinent Roots news, according to a few sites (and mysteriously disappearing videos), The Roots maybe going on a touring hiatus come March in order to become the house band for Jimmy Fallon’s takeover of Conan’s Late Night show. If this turns out true (all signs are pointing to it, it was even hinted to in that OKP ?uestlove Famous People thread), I need to catch The Roots one more time live before this (as do you!), because they are one of the best live acts, ever.

I didn’t post the last few K. Sparks joints because they weren’t that good, but he stepped his game up this week. Here’s what he had to say about this track:

Visual Sound is a song that tells two stories…the first story is about a friend of mine that was sexually abused when she was younger…the second story is about an individual that contracted HIV from unprotected sex…it’s a concept record that serves a purpose…check it out

T-Mos laces the track with a fittingly dark beat, and Sparks goes in with some food for thought about sexual abuse and HIV. His lyrics are tight, but his flow is getting a little old. Also, the infomercial snippets at the end are unnecessary. Dope track nonetheless.

Download: K. Sparks – Visual Sound (produced by T-Mos)

I chopped it up with DJ Babu of Dilated Peoples recently about his new album Duck Season 3. Dude was forthcoming and humble. Much respect to Babu!

ML: You were in town for CMJ, right?

Babu: Yeah, I was there all last week.

ML: I meant to see you at the Santo’s for the Meet n Greet thing. I missed you at Fat Beats also.

Babu: It’s all good. Do you want me to be honest with you? CMJ was great, but there was like four things going on every afternoon or evening. But I am a bit of an old cat these days. Like I said, ‘I’m going to these four things tonight’ and I was lucky if I made it to one and a half of them. The Santo’s thing was really dope though, that was one of my favorite things of the whole week.

ML: Album’s great, did you produce the whole album?

Babu: I did produce the whole album. I’m glad you liked it, thanks a lot.

ML: How many beats did you make for the whole album?

Babu: Including the eighteen that are on there, songwise I think I have about twenty five or twenty six. There were a bunch that didn’t make the album which is gonna be part of this Duck Season 3.5 I’m gonna be releasing top of the new year. As far as beats, I make beats all the time. I always like to have a big arsenal of beats to always show people. I’m always ready to bang on the spot if someone wants to get together and startfrom scratch, but where I am in the production game, it’s like more the merrier as far as the ammo I have and the range of people that I want to mess with. A lot of my free time is spent on just stacking new beats whenever I can whenever I’m not DJing or on the road or even while I’m on the road, I’m always just chopping up samples and just putting beats away.

ML: Why did you format it like a mixtape?

Babu: I knew for this third one, I wanted to make a full evolution. I felt as if my beats were at a different point, my production, my engineering. Everything was just at a way higher level and I knew I wanted to take the challenge upon myself to do the whole thing production-wise. The new one really is my production album disguised as a mixtape and I still do that to continue the vibe of the series. And I can never turn my back on my DJing foundations. For that reason alone, I still love presenting my album like that. I’m definitely gonna make the album available on vinyl. It’ll be separated for a lot of the DJs that do the mp3 thing and the leaks and the record pools. I’ll have instrumentals and unmixed versions definitely out there, because I’d love the for DJs to play them also. But yeah, that’s kind of the reason I stuck to that format.

ML: Probably my favorite song on the album was the A.G. song. How’d you hook up with him?

Babu: I’ve known A.G. for years. Put it on the record, I’m a huge D.I.T.C. fan. Show & A.G.’s Runaway Slave is like one of my top five albums of all time. A few years ago with Dilated, we were able to play at a Fat Beats anniversary in Amsterdam. We were lucky enough to be sharing the bill with A.G. and rest in peace, Big L and ever since then we’ve kind of kept in touch. I luckily caught him in LA, he was out doing a show. We went to the Dilated studio. He’s such a raw MC and he really comes from that school of like – he’s gonna do his job. A lot of times, MCs these days, they’re very much like – especially if they’re paying you to work – they’re expecting a hook and a chorus and a song idea, everything’s built in. He’s one of those MC’s that just takes pride in doing everything themselves. He made it real easy for me. We talked about the idea, I played him three or four beats and it all just happened like in a half an hour. Before I knew it, he was in the booth spittin’ fire again. But, that was a dream come true, man. Like I said, Andre the Giant is just so raw to me. I’m glad you liked that song, that’s a sleeper on the album, I love that one.

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Tomorrow night MTV’s Total Request Live pulls the plug on its 10+ year existence with a reunion of sorts. Both artists that were a big part of TRL and former hosts are scheduled to appear. Honestly, I’ll be tuning in- I’ve always had a soft spot for the show, it was the thing to watch when I got home from Middle School in the late 90s. I had the 1-800 number programmed into the speed dial of our home phone…and damn it I was psyched when I got to request an Eve video (before you say anything the other option was 98 Degrees, ok?) with Carson, street cred be damned. I was also lame enough to record the moment of glory that was my call-in on VHS. Other than that some of my best personal memories were the EMtv special where Eminem took over the show, Noel Gallagher being high out of his mind during his appearance, and the Spankin New Music week which had 2 Rage Against the Machine performances around the release of The Battle of Los Angeles. Hopefully I’ll recall some more from the finale.

The finale airs on this Sunday on MTV at 8pm.

Read the full details of who is scheduled to appear, reminisce with a 60 second recap of TRL’s history (including Tyra calling Kanye “Kane”) and a clip of Outkast Andre 3000 performing Hey Ya live on TRL, all after the jump.

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Now that’s a show. I usually don’t like when there are so many people on the bill, but there are some dope acts on this lineup: Grafh, Red Cafe, Joell Ortiz, Charles Hamilton, Torae, The League, Mr. Mecca, Rain, Esso, St. Laz, Jon Hope, Blitz The Ambassador, Mr. Crisis.

Buy tickets here.

And is it me or is the name Breeding Ground a little pause-worthy in this instance?