Metal Lungies

Another one from Chico, who looks like he’ll have full support from Huntsville on his upcoming mixtape. On “6 Year Grudge,” he had the lesser known PT Prime Time and for “Re-Up,” he has the venerated Block Beattaz.

Download: Chico 2Triple – Re-Up (produced by Block Beattaz)

Reks is part of a class of rappers fervently trying to channel ’94 New York. Across the board, they do a satisfactory job of emulating their heroes. Reks displays a shade of the era’s technical chops, but he bleats tired street rap tropes without adding much of his own. “Why Cry” is a tour of a desolate neighborhood, complete with derelict buildings, ‘fallen soldiers,’ and crying mothers. It’s East Coast rap and that’s good enough for some, including me.

The great thing about these guys is they’re the only ones who get Alchemist, DJ Premier, and Fizzy Womack to produce their albums — all of whom gladly supply beats to the torchbearers of their sub-genre.

Even though French rapper Venom sounds he’s doing an overeager Count Chocula impression and Blaq Poet’s verse sounds like it was recited from the back of a Hennessy label, the Premo beat makes all well.

Download: Venom – Vigilantes (ft. Blaq Poet) (DJ Premier Remix)

via DJ Premier Blog

“All of the Lights” is apex of Yeezy indulgence, so it needed a suitably coked up video. Hype Williams (who else?) took “All of the Lights” to mean constantly flashing neon lights and a daring display of Rihanna side boob. I think he interpreted correctly.

Update: The video is no longer available, probably because a British epilepsy organization said it could give people seizures.

Update: It’s back, but with a seizure warning.

Oh shit, new supergroup. I imagine Pulled Over By the Cops came together kind of like the last scene in Pineapple Express.

Freddie Gibbs, Chip Tha Ripper, and Chuck Inglish from the Cool Kids plop down in a diner after a rigorous video shoot for “Oil Money.” They have a good laugh about Freddie’s Bill Simmons cosign and Chip regales them with Cudi coke binge stories. Then Chuck blurts out, “Can we be best friends? Just us?” A pause. Then Freddie says, “I think we should ALL be best friends!”

That afternoon, they record “Authority,” which turns out bananas.

[audio:http://www.fakeshoredrive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Authority-Prod.-Blended-Babies.mp3]

Download: Pulled Over By The Cops – Authority (ft. Nate Santos) (produced by Blended Babies)

via Fake Shore Drive

New York hip-hop lives. More food network rap.

So, this is kind of a random/last minute thing, but ML is teaming up with Phil Dzikiy (who our hardcore readers may recall from his chilling thoughts on our ‘Trapped in the Closet’ reviews) to live blog The Amazing Race 18 ALL SEASON LONG (unless we get our TVs stolen repossessed). You might find yourself asking, “what the hell is this about?”. Well, let me explain, as I descend into old man age demographics, I have become fond of CBS’ programming including the globe trotting The Amazing Race. This past fall, The Amazing Race 17 was my first season, and I was hooked… like Biggie’s first album hooked.

If you join us tonight, at 8pm EST (All Star? Heritage Classic? That’s why you have DVR). You can also use the twitter hashtag #mlamazingrace to get your comments added to our coverage. Note: this is the first season in HD.. word on the street is it’s pretty hard to film people running around all over the country with HD cameras (I’m not talking your flip cams), so you don’t have to suffer with Standard Def footage, like I did last year. Lastly, don’t be intimidated if you haven’t seen any prior seasons, The Amazing Race is a show you can pick up with any season, without knowing anything at all.

So join the conversation..or just read the gems that we drop on y’all, below.

This beat would make Lex Luger crawl under his bed and cry. Off O’Third’s upcoming Family Ties mixtape. Also in the pipeline are Zilla and Monster’s Coming Out The Red album, Zilla’s Zilla Shit mixtape, and his album Life As I Know It. I’m gonna need some new speakers.

The Love Song Machine is a web app that lets you compose a song using eight notes. Then it plays your song. IN THE REAL WORLD. After you make your song, you can watch a live stream of it playing on a set of bells in their Rhode Island office.  Technical explanation:

The bells are played by a series of solenoids, which are controlled by an Arduino micro-controller. The notes that you submit are processed on our web servers and then sent to the Arduino, while we load up live video and audio so that you can watch your song play. If there are users ahead of you in line, the queuing system will let you know how long you’ve got before you can watch your song.

I got them to wave at me by naming my song “ACKNOWLEDGE ME.” I put together a quick rendition of the James Bond theme and now I’m trying to do “Mass Appeal.” Now I know how my high school English teacher felt when he found out he could use the projector to show us his PowerPoint presentations. Read an interview with the creators at the interactive design firm Tellart here.

Go play with it before everyone hears about it and you have to wait an hour to listen to your song. Or they turn it off.

Rawse? Ehh. But it’s prod by Alchemist. Fuck it, let’s go.

The purist’s momentary dilemma

Download: Rick Ross – Perfectionists (ft. Meek Mill) (produced by Alchemist)

via Rick Ross