Donwill has blessed us with a few free projects already – Aight, New Drink and the Vainglorious Remake LP – but Don Cusack in High Fidelity will be his first official album.
Donwill will assume the character of John Cusack from the movie High Fidelity for a concept album full of introspection. Only the unmastered for now because the album hasn’t been mastered yet.
Sample heads will be excited and disappointed to learn that dkelloway of The-Breaks.com forums has discovered the sample for “Ice Cream” by Raekwon.
Excited, because the “Ice Cream” sample has long been a mystery. I think I read that someone asked RZA what it was and he couldn’t even remember.
Disappointed, because it’s just an Earl Klugh record. Not the score to a Brazilian telenovela or some psychedelic Christian spoken word record. Just good old Earl Klugh.
The sample is Klugh’s “A Time for Love” which appears on his 1980 album Late Night Guitar. The melody we know as “Ice Cream” is a sped up acoustic guitar loop.
Listen to a demonstration by The-Breaks user patriquino:
Just goes to show you that a producer’s skilled hand is just as valuable as an ultra-rare loop.
The-Breaks user PETERMAFFYA has already put together a quick remake.
Here is the new project from Atlanta production outfit SMKA. The 808 Experiment mixtapes are an annual series of compilations that feature rising artists from Atlanta and elsewhere. The largely unknown cast of rappers keeps apace while bigger names like Tanya Morgan and Yelawolf steal the show.
The tape is especially impressive considering it doesn’t get boring even after 21 tracks. SMKA’s clean, futuristic sound has a lot of potential.
Denmark Vessey, half of Crown Nation, flips the Isleys “Work To Do” into a soulful banger. A true 9-5er’s anthem – play this on Monday morning and it might make your commute a little bit easier.
Denmark’s been busy lately, doing beats for Elzhi’s recent mixtape and working on an album, I Hate My Job, dropping later this year. Here’s another joint from I Hate My Job:
Bonus Beats: Quelle, the other half of Crown Nation, released a free album, Blue Mondays, back in November but we’re only sharing it now. Cop a late pass with me and get up on this.
I’ll admit I like Jim Jones’ slurred rhymes and douchebag braggadocio, but more often than not, he stubbornly refuses to make worthwhile music. Yet somewhere amid “Na Na Nana Na Na” and “Pop Champagne,” he decides to make something like this.
Aside from Game and some other West Coast rappers, most have abandoned the “gangsta rap” label, preferring to call their music “reality rap” or something equally corny. “Certified Gangstas Pt. 2” is a throwback to low-riders, jheri curls, and shameless gang references. The perfect mixture of danger and funk.
The video for the original is a classic. Jimmy’s Eazy-E impersonation, “West Coast Kam,” the Menace II Society intro, Jimmy mean mugging eating cereal, the Sizzurp promo…sniff…those were the good old days.
D.C. singer Raheem DeVaughn just dropped a fantastic mixtape, including dope remakes/covers of the Clipse’s “I’m Good”, “Pretty Girls”, “Bonita Applebum” and “Redemption Song”. Appearances by Wale, X.O. and Tabi Bonney, among others. Raheem’s new album In Love & MasterPeace drops in March.
When “I’m Beaming” first leaked on December 23, Lupe Fiasco responded with a tirade against the leakers and an emotional appeal to fans not to “share, stream, or download any unauthorized or stolen Lupe Fiasco music.”
“Plain and simple its STOLEN property. And this goes for ANY record or track that leaks or is made available for illegal download from this day forward,” Lupe wrote on his blog.
Fine. Mainstream hip-hop blogs took down the song as did YourAudioFix.com, which premiered the song. Everybody acted like the song didn’t exist even though you could probably still find it on the first page of Google results.
Today, the song resurfaced with the blessing of Atlantic Records. According to OnSMASH, Lupe’s label sent out the song to bloggers.
Wait, what? It sounded like Lupe put his foot down when he said “ANY record or track that leaks or is made available for illegal download” was stolen — unless downloading “I’m Beaming” isn’t illegal anymore now that Atlantic is encouraging it.
Lupe over Neptunes beats is always a good look and this has a nice breezy, sipping a brew on your spaceship kinda vibe. We haven’t posted about himin a minute, but dude might be a strong candidate for GOAT in a few years, with the ways he’s going.
