The 2nd single of Welcome 2 G-Dom. Their official debut album, Pros & Cons, produced entirely by DJ Premier, is coming soon. Peep Buhizzle’s review of Welcome 2 G-Dom here.
And if you haven’t heard the remix of “Ya Dayz R #rd”, stop sleeping!
Download: NYGz – Ya Dayz R #D (Remix ft.Lady of Rage, Freddie Foxx & Royce Da 5’9)
Bonus video: Bow Down (ft.Blaq Poet & Rave Roulet)
(props to Wes from SDSU for originally posting this)
Sphere: Related ContentI SWEAR We’ll have something huge on Dame Grease real soon (and mad overdue, I see you Cynamin!).
Watch Frank accept his Webby, don’t mess with dude!
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(image via Cinematical)
The Wackness is about a kid who has just finished high school and faces a compendium of problems: he has no friends, his family has financial problems, his parents are at each other’s throats and he’s a virgin. The unfortunate young man is played by Josh Peck who you might remember as the poster boy for everything Nickelodeon not so long ago (Metal Lungies and Nick are tight, we run ads on Nick Jr.). In a slight departure from his previous roles, Peck plays a weed dealer living in New York in the Summer of ’94.
The Wackness is a coming of age story steeped in the sociopolitical issues surrounding New York at the time and the legendary hip hop acts that were coming out. So, Giuliani was putting cats behind bars and tracks off Ready to Die were circulating on mixtapes. That’s right, it’s a hip hop movie. Admittedly, I have little interest in a coming of age story, but a hip hop movie that isn’t Step Up 2 the Streets piqued my interest.
The movie’s greatest strength is its characters, who are mostly very charming. The name that immediately jumped out at me was Method Man, who plays Luke’s Jamaican weed connect. Meth only plays a minor role, but his overblown accent is really funny. Mary-Kate Olsen plays a shrooms-taking bohemian. But Luke’s therapist, portrayed extra dopely by Ben Kingsley, really steals the show. A mix of wisdom and desperate vulnerability, his character is the anti-Giuliani and the source of the movie’s funniest moments, like hearing him quote Biggie, “Bitches I like ’em brianless…”. And yes, Meth and Ben share a scene, which I hope has at least an hour of bloopers and alternate takes.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t as fond of the main characters. Peck overdoes the awkward teen thing and at times is more annoying than endearing. Luke’s love interest, played by Olivia Thirlby, jumps between coldhearted bitch and sympathetic friend too quickly and as a result, I feel like her character isn’t very solid.
My biggest problem with The Wackness is that it lacks subtlety. Rather than being a coming of age story with ’94 NY as a backdrop, it’s as if the movie stops every so often to show you Luke’s cassette player and remind you that it’s a hip hop movie. The soundtrack (Nas, The Notorious B.I.G., Wu-Tang Clan) is featured a little too prominently. The constant mention of mixtapes seems like an overemphasis to me, but that might just be because I came up on mp3s.
Despite my complaints, The Wackness is still an enjoyable movie that paints a vivid picture of an important time in New York. The story has a good mix of drama and humor, with characters that I found myself really wanting to hang out with. But, my favorite hip hop movie is still Juice; Bishop’s monologue is some hood Shakespeare shit. “You right, I am crazy. But you know what else?…”
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We posted Kardinal performing his single Dangerous with Akon a few days back, now for your re-up fix download Kardi’s mixtape, Limited Time Only.
Download (Zip): Kardinal Offishall & Clinton Sparks – Limited Time Only via IamNotForSale
Bonus: Backstage at the Dangerous shoot after the jump
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88 Keys just dropped his mixtape Adam’s Case File to build the anticipation for his Kanye West executive produced debut The Death of Adam which will be released in October. For those of you that aren’t up on 88, he has been around for more then a decade putting in production work on classic albums such as Mos Def’s Black on Both Sides, Mos Def & Talib Kweli are Blackstar, and Beanie Sigel’s The Reason. After doing all of that 88 is ready to show you he can rap too.
Tracklisting:
A Happy Ending?
Fibs ft. Grafh
Wasting My Minutes ft. Kid Cudi
21 & Over ft. Big Sean
Deal Breakers ft. Mr. Bentley
Typical Maury ft. Izza Kizza
Quit Playing ft. Serius Jones
True Feelings
Cuddle Bums ft. Tanya Morgan
Just LIKE A Man ft. Guilty Simpson
Young, Dumb & Full of…
Outro
Download (Zip): 88 Keys – Adam’s Case File
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I’ve been contemplating on this one for a while now. Weiss likes it. Pitchfork likes it. And many others feel the same way.
To begin with, its a good record. The fact that weez has been spittin more nonsense than bill o’ reilly over the last few months has been unsettling for sure. But I’m not gonna dismiss the entire effort because of a few stabs at the pop charts. “Milli” “Get Money” “Phone Home” and “Lollipop” are cheezy, overblown, and out of place. Lots of people are gonna love those tracks, and talk shit on me for dissin em. But think about how good those tracks would be without five shots of Jagermeister.
I wouldn’t expect complete greatness from C3 if it weren’t for the songs that knocked my socks off. “Milli” and “Lollipop” were only as disappointing as they were because “Mr. Carter” and “Dr. Carter” were fat as rick ross (and deserving of more inventive song titles).
In hopes of legitimizing my comments I’m gonna break down my thoughts on C3 song by song.
1. 3 Peat (Produced by Maestro):
He opens up the record showcasing his lyrical ability. His flow is interesting (nothing new), and some of the rhymes made me pause with pleasure.
“Got a million duffled up/ for the, fuck, of, it”
Admittedly a fucked up line, but it was delivered with excellence. And his gruesome metaphors can yield some provocative scenarios.
“Swallow my words, taste my thoughts. And if its too nasty spit it back at me.”
The song was a good start. He spit about his abundance of money and his inherent greatness too much, but at least he established that theme early.
2. Mr. Carter feat. Jay-Z (Prod. by Drew and Infamous):
One of the most noticeable disparities in this album is that some of the producers dug deep for just the right sample. Drew and Infamous are in this camp. The sound is lush and complete, and it surprisingly cradles weezy’s sound just as effectively as Jay-Z’s. W drops numerous quality lines, and I think he put out a better performance than Jay.
“Blind eyes could look at me and see the truth/ wonder if Stevie do?”
Something amazing about Lil’ Wayne is that he can make not-that-great-of-lines sound ballin like MJ.
“I call em April babys cause they fools.”
3. A Milli (Produced By Bangladesh):
When I first heard this song I thought, okay, maybe it will be less annoying with a fat sub. So I listened to it with a decent system and, wow, was I wrong. The bass ends up smothering the instrumentals (which is kind of a good thing) and there isn’t much left except wayne trying to turn a decent club beat into a legitimate rap song.
If you enjoy this song, I’ll agree with you if you wish to say it shakes your balls like a motha fucka and its cool when your drunk; other than that this is not good music.
Take a look at what the producer himself had to say:
Bangladesh: This girl I produced for, Shanell, got it to him. But I never went to the lab with him. If I had my way, I would like it more. But I wasn’t around, so what he felt, he put on there. I just thought he would make more of a song out of it, honestly. He’s just rapping. If it was going on the mixtape, it’s cool, but not on no album or single. It’s saying, “A milli.” He needs to pop about being a millionaire. He switched it up and tried to make it “ill.” If that was somebody else, it wouldn’t be on the radio. They just f*ck with Wayne regardless. That right there makes me like that sh*t, because it’s against the grain and it’s working. That sh*t’s no format. A n*gg* went in, freestyled, and that sh*t’s all over the radio. And it’s the hottest beat in hip-hop right now. Every time I turn on Rap City, they in the booth rapping to the beat…
Perennial underground favorites Jedi Mind Tricks are staying busy this year, they plan to put out 5 projects before the year is a wrap. The 6th album is key in our opinion, it’s almost as good as another Army of the Pharaohs album. Check the schedule:
Sphere: Related ContentJedi Mind Tricks and Babygrande Records are pleased to announce an
unprecedented rapid fire 2008 release schedule guaranteed to satisfy
even the most hardcore JMT/AOTP fans:*The summer release of the first ever Jedi Mind Tricks DVD: “Divine
Fire: The Story of Jedi Mind Tricks”*The July 22nd release of Jedi Mind Tricks Presents: Doap Nixon “Sour
Diesel”*The August 5th release of Jedi Mind Tricks Presents: King Syze “The
Labor Union”*The September 30th release of Jedi Mind Tricks Presents: Outerspace
“God’s Fury”*The October 14th release of Jedi Mind Tricks’ sixth album “A History of
Violence”
I’m in BK, NY after visiting Toronto for my mom’s birthday and my own. Remix Tuesdays is going to be posted late this week. I was on the road the past couple of days.
In the meantime, I thought this music video was appropriate. Colin Quinn reinterprets LL Cool J in a video directed by Ben Stiller.
The College Dropout. Late Registration. Graduation. You don’t have to be too edumacated to notice the trend in Kanye West’s album titles.
It’s only fitting, though, as one could call Kanye a “student of the game”, so to speak. He encompasses so many aspects of so many great producers. He’s openly discussed the influence that RZA and the Wu-Tang Clan has had on his production style, going as far as to admit to making his Blueprint-era beats with Ghostface in mind. He worked closely with J Dilla, honoring the late legend by chopping samples the way Dilla would have on his beat contributions to Common’s Finding Forever (and doing a fine job, I might add). And his sound has always held a sense of purity rivaling that of DJ Premier, so much so that on the few occasions where Primo has added scratches to Kanye-produced records (on “Everything I Am” off Graduation and “The Game” on Finding Forever), they could have easily passed as Primo-produced records themselves.
But, Kanye isn’t your typical “student of the game”-type rap star — Kanye isn’t your typical anything, matter of fact. ‘Ye is the student of the game who’ll stand on his desk to show off when he’d get an A+, and who’ll throw a fit and squeeze out a few tears when he’d get anything less than that. He’d be nominated for “Most Likely to Succeed” and “Class Clown”. Sure, he was a mama’s boy (R.I.P.), and he idolized his big brother, but he was honest enough about it that he never set himself up to get teased. Although he had his close circle of friends who may not have been the most popular kids in school, all the cool kids knew who he was. And his personality was so likable that only the biggest bully on campus would try to pick a fight with him… AND, the bully wouldn’t even win.
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This is by far my favorite Chicago song, I’ve always dreamt of someone sampling it or even remixing it. Bird Peterson answered my prayers brining the horn section into the new millennium.
Download (Mp3): Chicago-25 or 6 to 4 (Bird Peterson Remix)
Bonus Download (Mp3): Wale-Freaks (Bird Peterson Remix)
If you want more Bird Peterson check out the great Krudmart mix he did back in May.
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