Metal Lungies

Hip Hop doesn’t stop for no Super Bowl!

Mp3: EMC-Once More

Off The Show.

Mp3: Jean Grae-Love Thirst

Single off Jean’s album project with 9th wonder Jeanius.  Which has been rumored for ages!

So I feel like an old lady *nh* watching Tom Petty (is that really the best you could do, NFL?) at half time and watching the whole event for the commercials. This is mostly due to the fact I would be most happy with an outcome of an asteroid wiping out the game and both teams, resulting in no winner. It’s good to see Busta smiling, despite those legal issues in his life. On the office place watercooler tip: If you watched, what were you’re favorite commercials?

Breaking Atoms is on my list of top 5 hip hop albums. And a very unappreciated classic. Hell, it’s even technically a Canadian album! Go read up at Oh Word if you don’t know. And I recently discovered that the group filmed videos for all 4 of the singles from the album, all thanks to John Q at Lyrics to Go.

Here are the videos for all four singles off Breaking Atoms, in order of release:

“Looking At The Front Door”:

“Watch Roger Do His Thing”:

“Just Hangin’ Out” (look for the Nas cameo, back when he was the lil’ homey)

“Peace Is Not The Word To Play” (my favourite song off the album)

I’m out for the rest of the weekend, so let me ramble a little.

I’ve been writing for Metal Lungies for about 3 months or so now, and I just want to take a moment to thank a few people. My fellow ML contributor DJo1 for reaching out to me about writing for the site. Ivan at Hip Hop Is Read , Jesse from TSOYA  & Gretch at Bounce/oz for giving me an opportunity to write. Anyone who reads the site and especially anyone who cares enough to leave a comment, I do read them and always appreciate them. People who wrote to me after I posted about something they’re involved in (what up Jeff Jank?). Anyone who linked to the site. Artists who’ve reached out to me specifically as opposed to mass email promos. All the sites I read on the regular (too many to name, but check the increasingly long blog roll) and everyone who is contributing to the next Beat Drop post, it’s going to be amazing. Have a good rest of the weekend!

I’m always happy to feature great unsigned or independent artists on ML, especially when they not only reach out to me, but I dig their shit! Soulbrotha is an MC based out of Houston, TX. SB rocks a speedy, almost Bone-Thugs sounding flow over really smooth, soulful beats, mostly produced by his collaborator, DJ Roeg Du Casq. Here’s a snippet of his bio as an introduction:

Born and raised in Nigeria, and being exposed to diverse forms of music from folk, 80’s pop, reggae, rock and hip hop music inspired a young Soulbrotha to choose hip hop above all other genres as a means to impact his community and the world at large most importantly. This emcee is always bent on “moving the crowd” and makes no excuses for his faith in Jesus Christ, whilst refusing to be pigeonholed into a particular kind of sound. His music can be best described as spiritual, conscious, emotional, and soulful. His first interest in hip hop sparked back in 1987, “when I was first taught the lyrics to the song by Eric B & Rakim’s “Paid in Full,”” he recounts, as he emphasizes that this was his first true encounter with music of this genre. Fans can thank his cousin for introducing him to hip hop, as SB recalls that his cousin was the one who always rhymed the words to the song “Paid in Full.” At that moment when hip hop graced its presence into his life, he knew that he would never be the same. The rise of Yo! MTV Raps spawned an even greater interest in hip hop for SB, where he then discovered artists such as Slick Rick, Doug E Fresh, LL Cool J, Run DMC, Audio Two, MC Lyte, Salt N’ Pepa, Big Daddy Kane, Father MC, Queen Latifah, Lords of the Underground, Naughty By Nature, Snoop, Dr. Dre, and many more that influenced him as an artist.

His first record, The Ezekiel Hanani LP, dropped last year and he’s currently prepping a new mixtape, called The Exodus. Cats like Soulbrotha, Lifesavas & Ohmega Watts threaten to give a good name to Christian hip hop.

Here’s a couple tracks to give you a taste:

From The Ezekiel Hanani LP– “Dedication”

So very fresh sounding. Love the CL Smooth sample.

From the Music for Agony mixtape – “Realize (ft.Mint Condition)”

You can cop the whole mixtape for free here. ML-approved dopeness.

From the upcoming The Exodus mixtape – “Illuminate” (prod. by Ivan of Hip Hop Is Read!)

Some links:

Soulbrotha’s MySpace, where you can stream tracks off all these albums and purchase The Ezekiel Hanani LP (iTunes link/CD Baby)

Soulbrotha’s Website

When I got this I was confused. I didn’t think people did this anymore. Initially I gave it a quick pass, and blew it off as a set of good, obscure dance tracks. That is not the purpose of a break tape though. So, last night, I took some of the tracks and threw them onto my Virtual DJ program. As I moved through the collection I began to notice that instead of looping up single parts of tracks I was looping damn near every section of each song. I made soulful beats. I made fast beats. I made scary beats. But more than that, I Made Beats!!!! The entire night I was thinking that this must be the feeling that great producers have when they find the perfect part of the perfect song. And those suckers have to dig for their breaks. I guess that kind of explains the subtitle on the CD, “Breaks For Modern Living.” After all, some of us aren’t paid to look through stacks of wax all day, and who has the free time? So for all you “modern” people, this is the answer to your production fantasies. Mr. Thing has done the work. So you don’t have to. Now, I’m off to look for an MC. It’s time for a block party.

Favorite Tracks: Lloyd Charmer – I’m Gonna Love You Just A Little Bit More, Blackbuster – ShackUp

To preview the compilation go here. My copy didn’t have this, but the retail version will also have a Mixed CD made by Mr. Thing. It comes out February 11th. Very Limited Vinyl, but who cares? Everyone has Serato or something digital anyway.

I’ll always have a soft spot for N.E.R.D. & Pharrell’s “solo” musical efforts (I’ll even forget about In My Mind if we ever see ?uestlove’s re-work). All 3 or so versions of the 1st N.E.R.D.  album were pure gold.

In case you somehow missed the mp3 floating around here it is:

MP3: N.E.R.D.-Everybody Nose.

So the idea behind these posts is to highlight unsigned artists or artists on independent labels who deserve more exposure.

Today I’m profiling Poizunus, a vocal DJ and beatboxer from my hometown of Toronto. Here’s a little bit of the bio from his site:

As a child, Poizunus struggled with a speech impediment but after speech therapy, he learned to control his voice while speaking. Overcoming this obstacle has been a great achievement for this talented MC who is now mastering beats and creating all types of sound effects with his voice.

Amalgamating the new and old world of beatboxing, Poizunus has been spitting beats ever since he was a curious young boy who stumbled upon his cousin’s hip-hop tape collection. Music has always inspired this Toronto native who is influenced by his parents collections of soulful music.

Last year Poizunus won first place in Scribble Jam Beatbox Battle. I saw him perform at the Frosh concert at my university with Bedouin Soundclash and the Stills, among others. He did some very dope routines, including vocal beat juggling, completely stole the show.

He also recorded an “beatbox instrumental album”, called A.ctive D.reaming D.isorder, that’s he selling online. The tracks I’ve heard on his MySpace are dope. He’s basically recording his beatboxing and sequencing it on an MPC. Some of the tracks are instrumental while others have some decent MCs whom I wasn’t too familiar with. You can listen to some tracks at Poizunus’ MySpace or stream it from CD Baby (where you can also buy a physical/digital copy of the album).

You can see some video of his routines on YouTube here. Here’s one of my favourite routines, Poizunus doing the sound effects for the NES version of Donkey Kong:

Hey, he’s on “the Tweeter” as well (what up Travis?) as PoizunusLive.

“First”? Interview coming REAL soon.

Just like last Tuesdays’ post on the Alkaholiks, I had some trouble finding a decent-sized cover of the single for this post. Plus this cover for the Lovesick 12′ is the closest I could find to a cover for this release of this particular remix of Gang Starr’s “Lovesick”.

This remix is done by someone named John Waddell, whose Discogs profile is pretty sparse; I think his Gang Starr remix might be his earliest release but in the field of hip hop, he did some work for Monie Love & Queen Latifah, among others. Educate me, ML readers, if you have any more info.

With that out of the way, let’s break down the two versions I’m comparing today: The first is the original “Lovesick”, produced by DJ Premier. The remix is “Lovesick (Upbeat Mix)”, produced by the aforementioned Waddell.

The Premier original floats by on a jaunty horn stab, a slow piano line and an understated bass line. Guru ends every verse with some variation of “I’m lovesick” which leads into Premo’s now trademarked scratch chorus: “Love…” “Sick, sick, sick…” I think the “sick” scratch is of Shock G of Digital Underground but I’m not totally sure. Anyone know?

The instrumental is pretty, understated and a lot slower in this version, as compared to Waddell’s remix indicated by the “Upbeat” tag applied to his version. The Upbeat Mix has a kind of 1920s-40s jazz feel to it, oddly enough seeming to foreshadow Premier’s work with Christina Aguilera in 2006 (for comparison’s sake, listen to Aguilera’s “Ain’t No Other Man“). It features a catchy piano line that runs throughout the song, the bass line is a lot bouncier, and a trumpet enters the mix every few lines. Enhancing the jazz feel of the song is the fact that each of the aforementioned instruments solos at the end of each of Guru’s verses. The chorus has changed as well; Guru says “And now I’m lovesick”, the trumpets from the verses blare loudly and there is a little call-and-response that occurs twice per chorus:

Guru: ‘And now I’m lovesick.’

Backing vocals: ‘Hey hey hey!’

Sampled female vocal: ‘Lovesick!’

Backing vocals: ‘Ho ho ho!’

The whole package works really well, and actually manages to be about 50 seconds longer than the original, mostly from the new chorus. A nice addition to your Gang Starr collection (speaking of which, don’t sleep on Know The Ledge’s massive collection of Gang Starr rarities and treats. Here’s a link to pick up part 1 of their 5 part collection.)

I couldn’t find a video with the original version but they made a video for the Upbeat Mix, which I’ve embedded below. I won’t get into too much description for it, but it features Premo on the turntables, Guru walking around with some girls, a jazz band and um, dancers in baggy pants. It’s kinda cool to see Premier & Guru so young though. Listen to both versions below:

Gang Starr- Lovesick

Gang Starr- Lovesick (Upbeat Mix)

Gang Starr – Lovesick (John Waddell Upbeat Mix)

Bonus Beats: While I was searching for the video for “Lovesick”, I found this bizarre video of a bald German man lipsyncing to “Lovesick” wearing an unbuttoned shirt. He actually imitates Guru pretty well. I’m not going to embed it for your own sake but this amused the hell out of me. You can watch it here.

I just got an email from Tree Beats, of the very dope Too Fat, You Must Cut Lean blog, about this new project he’s started with a bunch of my favourite blogs & bloggers (several of whom are ML affiliates!). Here’s the skinny:

We’re starting a new beat battle site at http://ihookabeatup.blogspot.com starting Sunday, February 3rd. Basically, a song is provided (from the likes of Mr Mass from Mass Corporation, Dr OK from And It Don’t Stop, DJ Nes from Dirty Waters, or Scholar from Souled On) then several producers will take the song and sample it and flip it the way they want over the next week. The beats are then posted and a panel (including Travis from WYDU, Eric from WTR, Max from Hip Hop Isn’t Dead, Mike Dikk from Dumpin.Net, Andrew from Strictly Beats and King E from the Justus League boards) will discuss what they liked and/or didn’t like and then it goes to a public vote. If you remember the Lawn Jawns, it’s very similar.

Sounds freakin’ sweet. I Hook A Beat Up is definitely something you want to check out when it “premieres” tomorrow.

Here a few dope flyers they cooked up to promote the site as a bonus:

Got Beats?

Dig Beats

And my favourite, Your Country Needs You.