Metal Lungies

Via The Rap Up:

A concept video of “Us Placers,” directed by Va$htie. It features child versions of Kanye, Pharrell, Lupe, and Thom Yorke.

This should seriously be the official video for the song. The kids are great, especially the Pharrell. Much props to Va$shtie for making this.

LOL at Kid Kanye wearing a mask hoodie, ala his outfit in the vid for Game’s "Wouldn’t Get Far".

Also: is it me or does Kid Kanye look like Jay Electronica with the scarf?

Loved the reference to Dylan’s video for "Subterranean Homesick Blues" in the form of the title cards. For those who don’t already know.

I’d like to see an actual album or at least an EP from this group.

Making up for skipping it last week: it’s another Tuesday so naturally ML hits you, the reader, off with some heat on the remix tip.

Edan is a dope emcee, DJ & producer from Boston, Mass who mixes late 80s-early 90s hip hop with a variety of different musical styles. On his most recent album, 2005’s Beauty And The Beat, he fuses golden age hip hop with 60s psychedelia to accomplish his goal of putting “Syd Barrett’s face on Biz Markie’s body” with “Kool G Rap’s brain”. It’s wildly creative and really consistently great all the way through.

The standout song for me and the one I’m specifically writing about today is “Fumbling Over Words That Rhyme”. Edan uses the song to educate the listener about the true pioneers in hip hop and urges them to “Pump your fist, but first give praise to the true scientists”.

The OG version, produced by Edan himself, rocked a dusty drum break, Mellotron sounding synths, and a vocoder singing the song’s title as a hook.

The remix I’m covering today was never actually pressed to vinyl, unfortunately. It was done by currently unsigned Toronto producer Beat Chemist and was originally put up on his now defunct website. It replaces the spacey synths and vocoder and switches out Edan’s drums for a more frantic break, accompanied by pumping horns. Chemist adds some scratches of Das EFX (“REAL HIP HOP!”) and of all the rappers Edan mentions throughout the track.

Both versions are dope but Chemist really brought out some uncut raw dopeness in the song. As mentioned, though BC’s official site is down, he has some great beats and instrumentals at his MySpace and his New Music Canada page that you should check out.

Listen to “Fumbling Over Words That Rhyme” here.

Listen to the Beat Chemist remix of “Fumbling Over Words That Rhyme” here.

Buy Beauty And The Beat while you’re at it.

Kardinal Offishall is hosting his annual Christmas party at the Mod Club in Toronto on Dec. 23, with the legendary Pete Rock on the ones and twos. Cipha Sounds from Hot 97 will also be there.
Kardi will be giving out presents all night while PR spins hip hop, r&b and reggae.

This sounds amazing, wish I could go. Any Canadian readers should get on this. T-Dot stand up!

Ticket Locations: $20 Advance
Play de record – Toronto – 416.586.0380
Nappy’s – Brampton – 905.453.3037
Nappy’s – Mississauga – 905.949.6787
Nappy’s – Markham – 905.948.0884
Big It Up – Eaton centre – 416.597.6773
Big It Up – Yorkdale – 416.785.3770
Big It Up- Square One – 905.803.8407
Broadway Fashions – Scarborough Town Centre – 416.296.0609
Doors: 10pm
Dress Code: Your best 90’s gear
Mature Clientele – 23+

Via PAID & POPULAR

So after the mixtape release of the very dope Bishop Lamont/Black Milk collaboration Caltroit, the album is seeing an official mastered release with no DJ tags and an altered track listing. You can listen to snippets of the mastered album and buy a CD copy at FatBeats.com here. Other stores will have it in stock by January 2008.

Production by Black Milk, DJ Khalil, Mr. Porter and Jake One, among others. The guests are pretty crazy on this too, including Kardinal Offishall, Elzhi, Bussa Bus, Ras Kass and the ML-approved Phat Kat and Royce da 5’9.

The final track listing is below:

• 1)Murder Hextro
• 2) Caltroit (feat. Indef & Chevy Jones)
• 3) On Top Now (feat. Stat Quo)
• 4) Inconvenient Truth
• 5)Bad Girl
• 6)Goatit (feat. Phat Kat & Elzhi)
• 7)Go Hard (feat. Ras Kass & Royce Da 5’9″)
• 8)Mouth Music (feat. Guilty Simpson & Busta Rhymes)
• 9)Juggernauts (feat. Young Dre, Glasses Malone, & 40 Glocc)
• 10)4 All My Niggaz (feat. Planet Asia, Mistah Fab, & Ya Boy)
• 11)I Need It (feat. Ras Kass)
• 12)Bang That Shit Out (feat. Diverse)
• 13)If You Ready (feat. T3, Illa J, & Kardinal Offishall)
• 14)Ape Shit
• 15)Everything (feat. Kardinal Offishall)
• 16)Not The Way (feat. Mike Ant)
• 17)Get Em (feat. Fattfather, Marv One, & Trick Trick)
• 18)Spectacular (feat. Busta Rhymes, Illa J, & Frank Nitty)

The original mixtape, mixed by DJ Warrior and hosted by Lamont, is still available here and is highly recommended for a couple great tracks exclusive to the mixtape version.

Take a listen to the title track, produced by Black Milk, as a sample.

Had to be posted. Something ill coming Tuesdayish.

Mp3: Three 6 Mafia Ft. UGK-On Sum Chrome.

Seriously, dude is in his 30s and he’s acting like he’s on a plane for the first time. Smarten up, 50.

And picking on Yayo is liking picking on a mentally handicapped kid. He can’t defend himself.

Produced By XP aka The Large Professor b.k.a. the guy that put Nas on the map, for the uninformed. Just a sick song, I heard it a couple months back and fell in love with it so naturally I’m happy they shot a video for it. I like the cinematography on this piece, it’s gutter and creative all at the same time. Something different at a time when hip hop is becoming too cut and paste, na’mean. Crazy lyricism and the double chorus is bananas, if, you know, you pay attention to that sort of thing.PS. I was trying hit ya’ll with the newest Killer Mike Panel Discussion yesterday and almost crashed the site, so here’s the link instead. In the immortal words of Cameo, Word Up!

I’ll keep updating this post as new lists go up. Let me know if there’s any good ones I missed.

PopMatters has a good one that mirrors mine on a quite a few albums.

Noz from Cocaine Blunts has his list for the year, with a focus on singles.

The trusty Allmusic.com has their list up as well, with a few unexpected surprises. Worth a look.

Part 2 of their list is here.

The great Passion of the Weiss counted off his 25 best hip hop songs of 2007 in 5 five–song posts. It’s a solid list, accompanied by mp3s.

Edit: He’s also doing a list of his top 50 albums of 2007, and there’s a few more lists up there as well..

Hi-Tek did a list of his favourite 5 hip hop albums of 2007 for LAist. Nothing new here, really. Where’s that Reflection Eternal album, Tek?

My friend Joseph at Geek Down had a unique take on this: he’s compiled his favourite Lil’ Wayne songs & appearances of ’07 into 2 hefty compilations, plus a roundup of all his videos this year. If you’re a Weezy fan, you’ll dig this shit. Check it out.

The dope Floodwatch Music has part 1 of their top 20 records of 2007. Well worth a look.

Strangely enough, so far the big release schedule on the 4th hasn’t really impacted any of these lists too heavily.

Dart from Poisonous Paragraphs has a great list up as well, with a lot of overlap with my favourites.

Hip Hop Is Read has a list of their favourite beat tapes and their favourite mixtapes of ’07.

Expect a proper list from ML soon. Stay tuned.

There were a lot of great guest verses this year, but this would have to be my favourite. Three Stacks & Snoop both guest on Devin the Dude’s “What A Job” off his excellent album Waiting To Inhale, but Dre kills it.

Peep it:

Andre 3000:

We work nights, we some vampires
Niggas gather round the beat like a campfire
Singin’ folk songs, but not no Kumbaya my Lord
You download it for free, we get charged back for it
I know you’re saying, they won’t know they won’t miss it
Besides, I ain’t a thief, they won’t pay me a visit
So if I come to your job, take your corn on the cob
And take a couple kernels off it that would be alright with you
Hell no! Yeah, exactamundo
But we just keep recording and it ain’t to get no condo
And Candy Bentley fanny with no panties in Miami
And that cute lil’ chick named Tammy that you took to the Grammys
See we do it for that boi that graduated
That looked you in your eyes real tough and said ‘preciate it
And that he wouldn’ta made it if it wasn’t for your CD number 9
And he’s standing with his baby momma Kiki and she cryin’ talkin’ bout
That they used to get high to me in high school
And they used to make love to me in college
Then they told me ’bout they first date, listenin’ to my tunes
And how he, like to finger nail polish
I say hate to cut you off but I gotta go
I wish you could tell me mo’ but I’m off to the studio, gotta write tonight
Hey, can you put us in your raps? I don’t see why not.

“What A Job”-Devin the Dude ft.Andre 3000 & Snoop Dogg

“International Player’s Anthem” definitely up there too, obviously.

What would be your picks for verse/guest verse of the year? Let us know in the comments!

Well the numbers are in from the “The Day” and…well, we were wrong with a part of our prediction (Wyclef charting highest of the debuts) and right (Ghost not charting highest). Not surprisingly, half of the original  list got pushed back/shelved.

17      SCARFACE          M.A.D.E                          62,901                           63,084 26     DJ DRAMA           GANGSTA GRILLZ           48,738                      48,848 28     WYCLEF JEAN       CARNIVAL 2                 46,397                            46,519

Ghostface= #41 @ 35,563 &  Styles P= #52 @ 28,518

In general, outside of Scarface surprisingly doing the best out of all the debuts, these numbers are sobering. By the way, none of those compilations charted it looks like.

Numbers from HipHopDx.