Slick visuals for a dope song. I’m definitely looking forward to Keelay and Zaire’s forthcoming album Ridin High.

via RubyHornet

Either they were really tired or I was really boring, but Kidz in the Hall, the duo of Naledge and Double-0, seemed extremely disinterested when I hollered at them. Nobody is ever that excited to talk to a blogger about their favorite foods and colors, but Naledge sounded like I woke him up from a nap or something. Their sophomore album The In Crowd was well received when it came out earlier this year and the single “Drivin’ Down The Block (Low End Theory)” even landed a spot on TRL (which is now sadly defunct). Right now, they’re on tour with Murs who makes a surprise cameo in this interview!

Remaining tour dates:

11/22 - Boulder, CO
12/11 - Los Angeles, CA

ML: First thing’s first, Naledge you take a pretty nice mug shot.

Naledge: [laughs] Yeah, nah, I mean I figure if you gon’ go, you gon’ go smiling.

ML: You guys went to Penn right?

Double-0: Yeah, University of Pennsylvania.

Naledge: Definitely.

ML: What did you guys study?

Naledge: I studied communications.

Double-0: I was a systems engineer.

ML: Double 0, you were an Olympic runner for Belize, right?

Double-0: Yeah, that’s the way the story goes.

ML: What did you compete in?

Double-0: Four hundred meter hurdles.

ML: How was that?

Double 0: It was a great experience. Obviously I wish I could’ve done better, but at the end of the day you can’t predict how any of these things turn out and it didn’t turn out the way I wanted, but it is what it is. It was a great experience, kinda gotta just learn from it and keep going.

ML: So how did you guys get into hip-hop seeing as you’re Olympic runners and Penn graduates?

Double-0: Hip-hop was well before that. We’ve been doing this stuff for a minute. We’ve been working together since 2000. While all those other things were going on, we were doing this as well.

ML: Would you say college was a waste of time then?

Double-0: We would’ve never met.

Naledge: Never would say that. Definitely wouldn’t say that. College serves its own purpose. It has social aspects beyond the academic aspects. Most people make lifelong connections that are gonna ultimately determine their fate. Kinda develops your network. To be honest with you, I met my manager, I met Double-0, I met a lot of different people in school that quite honestly if I didn’t meet, I might not have taken music as seriously as I did. ‘Cause at that time when I entered school, I didn’t envision this being something I could do for the rest of my life. Saying school’s a waste of time is definitely a misquote. You’ll never hear that coming out of anybody’s mouth in Kidz in the Hall.

ML: A lot of my friends wish they went to Penn.

Double-0: Really?

Naledge: I get that. I don’t know, it’s weird. I think Penn has a certain aura about it. It’s in Philly, so it’s like a getaway city and then if you’re trying to get into a business school, it’s probably the best option in the country. I think a lot of kids try to get into Wharton [School of the University of Pennsylvania] more so than try to get into Penn and Wharton is very selective.

ML: Yeah all my friends in [NYU] Stern [School of Business] were trying to get into Wharton.

Double-0: Yeah that’s what’s up. I mean, they shouldn’t have fucked around in high school, they’d have been aight. [laughter]

ML: I’ll tell them that.

Double-0: Tell them when their parents stuck ‘em in those PSAT classes they should’ve paid attention. [more laughter]

Naledge: To be honest with you, I think people focus too much on their grades and less on being well-rounded. At Penn in general, most kids I’ve met had a unique story. It wasn’t like ‘Oh, I have a 4.0′ it was like I would meet somebody who was like a concert pianist at the age of like fourteen or like some kid who was in some nationwide contest about picking socks. Stuff like that.

Double-0: The student body at Penn is always a fairly diverse student body. I think that being well-rounded and being fairly adjusted socially is an important part of the Penn experience ’cause you can’t just jump into west Philly being so far into the books that you don’t realize anything else in the world around you, ’cause you’ll quickly get a reality check.

ML: Do you have any advice for young people trying to get into hip-hop?

Double-0: Don’t do it! Nah, it’s an excellent time to really try to get some sort of satisfaction in expression in terms of hip-hop right now and my advice always is tell your own story, be true to yourself and always operate as if you’ll never get a record deal.

Naledge: I would question somebody’s love. If this is what you really love to do, what you’re passionate about, that in itself is going to carry you, you’re not going to quit. And if you actually have talent people are gonna recognize that. The only other advice I have is going to a major city. I would recommend going to New York or going to Los Angeles. To be honest with you, it’s like if you gon’ be heard in those cities and you’re good, you’ll be found. That’s my advice.

ML: What about young people in general, people trying to pick a career right now? Do you have any advice for them?

Naledge: It’s the same thing, pick your passion. Don’t pick hip-hop because you think it’s cool and it’s on TV. Go out and do something you love. I think parents oftentimes steer kids in certain directions to cover for their own insecurities about where their life has gone or has went and being protectors and providers, they want to see their kids go on a certain route and reach a certain level of success monetarily. For many, especially working class, middle class, lower class families, parents oftentimes, and specifically with minorities, they don’t know any better than to tell their kids to be a doctor or a lawyer or something that has to do with counting money, like being an accountant or working at a bank and that might not be what your child has a vested interest in, that might not be where their skill set lends itself the best. You can’t be scared to go outside of the box and do what you want to do and go your own way.

Double-0: Yeah, exactly. Your parents are always gonna want, honestly, to create stability for you which is why they chose those things, because they require a certain amount of stability and once you get to that point, you’ll advance to a certain class and tax bracket that they always want to see you do better than they did. But the reality is, you gotta let your own life figure it out and more than that, you can’t be afraid to just let life lead you where need to go, because you don’t always figure it out immediately. Most of the people that have graduated college will tell you what they graduated in is nothing they’re even doing right now. So, you kind of have to let life lead you and just go along for the ride and eventually it’ll lock itself in as long as you continue to work hard. And the other thing is, things that you’re good at sometimes, aren’t even things that you even necessarily like to do. So, you never know what’s gonna happen.

[Read more]

The Hip Hop + Art feature is back from hiatus! I came across these 2 dope portraits on my man Kon’s favorites on Devart. I really dig the gold standing out from the rest of the composition of the portraits.

Pharrell:

Kanye:

Very nice bonus Barack Obama campaigning in Boston in October photo after the jump:

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How did I miss this? An incredible interview with Big Daddy Kane on Cipha Sounds and Peter Rosenberg’s Juan Epstein podcast.

Download: Juan Epstein ft. Big Daddy Kane

Bonus: The music video for Paul Simon’s “Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard”, featuring Biz Markie and Kane freestyling. BDK talks about this video in the interview.

Microsoft recruits a sampler and a sampleree (now word!) in the form of Common & Afrika Bambaataa for their latest TV spot.

Personal tech note: I got a demo of the Zune software last month, and its not bad at all, if you are all about discovering new music, check it out you might prefer it over itunes.

Just got the 2nd video from The Renaissance in the e-mail box from the video’s director- Rik Cordero.

ML mega-favorite DJ Premier shows how effortlessly he makes dope beats, then talks about where Ludacris stands in his top MC ranking.

Video for Johnson & Jonson’s “Up All Night.” Blu going crazy with the flow and a dope video. You’d best have that album already.

via okayplayer

One two/who got more style than son do

It’s been a minute, people. My apologies - midterms and essays got your boy busy.

“Thief’s Theme” is a 2004 single released by Nas in support of his double album, Street’s Disciple. Salaam Remi flips the guitar riff and a soaring organ line from the Incredible Bongo Band’s cover of “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”(later used in almost identical fashion by Wil.i.am for “Hip Hop Is Dead”). Remi throws a short bongo break on the chorus, where scratches Nas’s lyrics from “The World Is Yours” for the chorus:

The thief’s theme, play me at night they won’t act right/Understandable smooth shit that murderers move with.

Keeping with the theme of the song, the video features people robbing stores in ski masks.

I owe my discovery of today’s featured remix entirely to Dan Love at FDB, who tipped me off to this track at the end of last year. “Thief’s Theme” was remixed by Canadian producer Midas Touch for his online mixtape The Remix Tape Volume 1, which you can download here. Obviously, this remix is internet only, but it’s a shame; Midas does a better job behind the boards here than Nas’ current stable of mostly crap producers.

Midas switches up the percussion to heavy snares and hi-hats. He adds pretty, echoing piano keys and brings in stirring strings and some really dope horns every few bars. Midas also chops us some classic Otis Redding groans and layers them on top. Midas’s take on “Thief’s Theme” is cinematic and sounds like a lost Premier beat circa Moment of Truth - never a bad thing.

Which version is better? I’m leaning toward Midas on this one. Remi’s beat is hurt by the fact that Nas used the same sample for “Hip Hop Is Dead” but two years later. Still a good beat, just feels a bit redundant, I suppose. What do you guys think?

Download: Nas - Thief’s Theme

Download: Nas - Thief’s Theme (Midas Touch Remix)

You know you are major when not only do you get a cameo, but you get to perform on a kids show. The Roots did just that appearing on the Nickelodeon show Yo Gabba Gabba.

Check the performance of Lovely, Love My Family below:

If I had kids you better believe they’d be rocking with this over the Sean Kingston X Kidz Bop.

In other pertinent Roots news, according to a few sites (and mysteriously disappearing videos), The Roots maybe going on a touring hiatus come March in order to become the house band for Jimmy Fallon’s takeover of Conan’s Late Night show. If this turns out true (all signs are pointing to it, it was even hinted to in that OKP ?uestlove Famous People thread), I need to catch The Roots one more time live before this (as do you!), because they are one of the best live acts, ever.