Metal Lungies

‘

Killed it. So very dope. The amazing drummer is Daru, who’s also a producer.

On his rainy album release day, Blaq Poet dwarfed the ragtag Fat Beats crowd, which consisted of sun-starved rap nerds, basement producers and rambling old-heads — all in tow to get their CDs signed or just catch a glimpse of a Queens-bred rapper who braved the bridge wars when he was 16. Low-key, businesslike, and perhaps even a little bored, Blaq Poet spoke to Metal Lungies about his career, his musical tastes, and his newest album Tha Blaqprint, which is produced almost entirely by DJ Premier.

ML: Who are your all-time favorite Queens rappers?

BP: Queens rappers? Run DMC, LL, Mikey D – he’s a old school dude, people don’t really know about him too much – The Rhymin’ Wizard Sudan – it’s a lot, but I don’t remember ‘em right now.

ML: Is there anybody in Queens we should be checking for? Newcomers?

BP: Coming out of Queensbridge, you know, The Mighty SSR, Little Young Boys, Crime Fam, they coming up – there’s whole lot of little dudes coming up, you just gotta check for them real hard.

ML: You were in the Bridge Wars, the most legendary battle ever. Do you think beef today is dead? I haven’t heard a good diss track in a long time.

BP: Nah man, beef today is not dead. But, you know, it’s more serious, it can get realer faster. You know you got the Internet, so you can have beef with anybody. Instant beef. Before you had to earn beef, but now it’s instant beef.

ML: But do you think diss records are dead?

BP: Well, no no no. Everybody’s got something to say. If you have beef, you have something to say, you gonna say it and that’s gonna always be interesting to hear.

ML: You’ve worked with Pete Rock and Marley Marl. What’s unique about working with Premier?

BP: Everybody’s different, they got their own different shit. I learned different techniques from all of them. Everybody’s real different. Premier, he’s more of a magician with records. His instruments are the records.

ML: What are your favorite Premier beats of all time? Read the rest of this entry »

A fantastic cover of Cru’s classic “Just Another Case” recorded in one take by Philly rapper/producer Lushlife.

For good measure, here’s the original.

More Lushlife here.

I like this a lot. A low-key NY anthem by Long Island emcee Prafit, produced by the homey Disco Vietnam. “Swing”’ has been getting some love on Real Late with Pete Rosenberg, which is cool. Strong Island y’all.

DOWNLOAD: Prafit – New York Swing

BONUS: New York Swing (Instrumental)

More Prafit, all produced by Disco. I’m especially fond of “Nice Weather”.

DOWNLOAD: Prafit – Nice Weather

DOWNLOAD: Prafit – My Life

Nore is a pro at copping albums digitally now. Mac and cigarette in hand, he buys Maino’s If Tomorrow Comes… on iTunes without even breaking a sweat. Cosigns don’t get much better than this. Then he shouts out some websites (I’m sure ML was at the tip of his tongue) before giving this memorable sendoff:

I need a haircut. One Love.

Knock back some tiger bone and peep ML’s  interview with Capone-N-Nore.

57thave via RapRadar

So it looks like a stint on Bad Boy drove Loon to find Allah as shown by his recent interview on the Al-Jazeera network. The video is so amazingly odd/awkward/random (also known as right up ML’s alley.)  Shout out to Al-Jazeera homies for trying to force Loon to drop a 16 on-air (on two occasions) and playing his Bad Boy era clips on 3/4th of the screen as Loon spoke on pretty much denouncing all of that.

Via Rap Radar

Welcome back, Bishop. Good to hear new stuff from dude, he kinda dropped off the radar for a while. Those drums are enormous sounding – nice work, ghost co–producers! Why doesn’t X kick a verse on this though?

Also: Bishop, can we have the fucking album already, please?

DOWNLOAD: Bishop Lamont – Hallelujah (ft.Xzibit) (prod. Dr. Dre)

Via Nah Right & OnSmash

Bright, upbeat and two-steppable. It seems Kanye has finally put Auto-Tune behind him for good. Off Cons TV.

Update: video here.

Blaq Poet’s anthem for all the ladies with inner beauty. Also check “Hate” which features Nore. Tha Blaqprint is almost entirely produced by DJ Premier and an obvious must-have. Check  back in a day or two for our interview with Blaq Poet.

Download: Blaq Poet – Stretch Marks and Cigarette Burns (ft. Imani Montana, Panchi) (produced by DJ Premier)

via Nah Right

Bonus: Seven – Go Slow (ft. Talib Kweli) (DJ Premier Remix)

via DJ Premier Blog

There are definite standouts on Chemical Warfare and Alch has a distinct sound, but the album inevitably suffers from producer-compilation-syndrome toward the end. Maybe a few more listens will change my mind. “ALC Theme,” which samples A Clockwork Orange (I think) is my favorite and the title track with Eminem tops anything on Relapse. Yeah, just I said that.

Download: Alchemist – ALC Theme (ft. Kool G Rap)

Download: Alchemist – Chemical Warfare (ft. Eminem)

via OnSMASH