Metal Lungies

First there were Jeezy-themed movie posters and now animated mixtape covers. Internet, I love you.

Look at the vibrating cup of drank and the flying rubber band on the cover of Juicy J & Lex Luger’s Rubba Band Business 2 and tell me you don’t want to tell all your friends about that shit. Or the cascading c-notes on DJ Scream and DJ MLK’s Saks Fifth: The Clearance cover. They’ll keep falling as long as there’s juice in your laptop battery. This is the future of album art. Jonathan Mannion, step your game up.

Let us know if you’ve seen any more of these. And to all the rappers and DJs out there, if your next tape doesn’t have an animated cover, you’re officially falling behind.

Valentine a hopeful pop superstar from Ukraine reaches out to mega-producer Timbaland via the youtubes.

The result is.. well, let’s just say I haven’t laughed this hysterically in a while. I really hope Timbaland reaches out to dude, to make meme worthy music.

Note: My mom sent me this video, thanks Mom! (she won’t see this, I make sure ML is blocked on her home network)

If you dare, watch RZA and Elijah Wood perform The Black Eyed Peas’ “Gotta Feeling” — a performance that may have happened as a direct response to DJ01’s recent post about the abbot’s distractions. The other guys in the video are Nacho Vigalondo, Eugenio Mira, Tim League, and Michael Lerman and they were at a karaoke concert sponsored by The Criterion Collection as part of the Fantastic Fest film festival.

via Twitch

OK so let’s talk about Robot Unicorn Attack.

I got a link from my friend last night who just told me, “play it. beautiful music.”

I didn’t follow the link right away because I was reading a book. I know, I’m lame. But tonight, I noticed two of my roommates were playing this flash game with extreme interest.

Simply put, Robot Unicorn Attack is the next big thing.

In the game, you play as a robot unicorn who jumps over floating pink cliffs, collects rainbow butterflies, and avoids giant metallic stars.You have three tries or “wishes” to go as far as you can. The further you go and the more rainbow butterflies you get, the higher your score.

While all of this is happening, “Always” by the British synthpop duo Erasure loops in the background. This really sets the tone and defines the game’s character. The endless chorus of “Always, I wanna be with you / And make believe with you / And live in harmony, / harmony oh love” while you’re jumping around as a rainbow-shooting robot unicorn (did I mention the rainbows?) is pretty mesmerizing. Half of the discussion about this game is about the music.

Then there are the dolphins. Yes, dolphins. Conversations like this are happening between college kids right now.

Guy 1: Have you gotten to the dolphins yet?
Guy 2: No?
Guy 1: Man up.

The dolphins appear every time you get 5,000 points. Some people have been trying to figure out what the dolphins do, but as one user on the Adult Swim discussion board put it, “they don’t mean anything, just that you are awesome.”

So just to recap: unicorns, stars, butterflies, and dolphins. And everything is pink and baby blue and sparkling all over.

OK. The presentation is stellar and the gameplay is addicting, but what is it about Robot Unicorn Attack that’s eliciting this kind of response from people? The game has been played 1.6 million times and there are endless comments about how “amazing” and “incredible” it is. One person wrote on Facebook, “Robot Unicorn Attack completed my life. Ive never played a game so simple yet so amazing. Everything is so rainbow its great. Live on Robot Unicorn Attack!” Something about this game has struck a cord with young Americans right now.

There’s a layer of darkness underneath the game’s cheery exterior. Before you start, you get messages like “A fiery death awaits you” and “Persistence is futile.” When you lose, the unicorn explodes and you see its severed head with wires sticking out and tears streaming down its cheek.

Maybe there was a unicron on some girl’s binder in second grade. A cute girl. A lost love, perhaps. A robot is an emotionless husk that doesn’t dare to feel or think for itself. Meanwhile, there are butterflies and rainbows everywhere and a voice sings, “Am I here in vain? / Hold on to the night / There will be no shame.”

Put all of that together, and you’ve got the mind frame of the 21 year old who is about to graduate from college into this bleak economy.

Robot Unicron Attack is the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” of my generation. Play it. Feel it.

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Flying Lotus is the only person who can get me to listen to Lil Wayne. The LA beatsmith remixed “I Feel Like Dying” and “A Milli” with mind-blowing results. Listen and freak out.

Download: Flying Lotus Lil Wayne Remixes and Instrumentals

Brainfeeeder via Passion of the Weiss

When he’s not unwinding his trademark crime stories, Raekwon is contemplating his mortality. I scanned his yrics and found three specifications for the Chef’s funeral:

1.“Iron Maiden”, Ironman, 1997:

You might get snowed on/when I go, bury me with velour on

Rae considers a track suit to be appropriate burial attire.

2. “State of Grace”, 2005:

When I’m gone, just let off like 40 rifles/aim ‘em at rappers biting off the god’s Bible

Like any self-respecting emcee, Rae looks down on biting.  But Corey takes it a step further, actually commanding people to enlist a firing squad to shoot up his funeral.

3. “House of Flying Daggers”, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx 2, 2009:

Bury me in Africa with whips and spears and rough diamonds out of Syria

Lou Diamonds doesn’t rock conflict gems, remember?

Anything I missed? Let me know in the comments.

Powerful workout visuals + dangerous quotables + Ron Artest’s unique cadence = domination. Watch this video, go do a hundred crunches, and then watch it again. Get inspired, people.

Watch Ron sing Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

Complex talked to Rush Hour/X-Men 3 director Brett Ratner about his history directing hip-hop videos. Notably, Ratner directed the million dollar video for the Wu-Tang Clan’s “Triumph” and it sounds like it was a life-changing experience.

So three days into the edit, I get a call that Ghost had had been kicked out of like eleven hotels, and I’m like, ‘Why were you kicked out?’ He’s like, ‘I don’t know man, I got fucked up, and I just start breaking shit. Can you come get me? I got no place to stay.’ So I let him stay at my house. Suddenly my phone rings, and it’s Steve Rifkind, ‘Whats going on?’ I go, ‘Nothing, I’m just bringing Ghost over my house ’cause he got kicked out of the hotel.’ Then there’s silence on the other end of the phone. I say, ‘Whats wrong?’ He goes, ‘I gotta call you back.’ Five days later, he calls me up and goes, ‘Are you okay? Oh my God, you scared the shit outta me, man. How can you let this guy stay at your house? I don’t even let these guys know where I live!’ I go, ‘What do you mean? He’s the nicest guy in the world.’ He goes, ‘You don’t know what Ghostface has? He hallucinates, he hears voices like kill your mom, kill your mom. He has to be medicated because he has homicidal thoughts.’ So a month goes by, and I would edit all day, and Ghost would just chill at my house until we finished. A month later, I’m with my girlfriend in the backyard, and the cat starts going fucking crazy and starts digging into the dirt. We dig up a bucket of fried chicken. Ghost buried a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken in the backyard. How fuckin’ freaky is that?

Ratner also talks about the guys doing mushrooms and stealing clothes from the shoot.

I’m waiting for the documentary/biopic that can do Wu-Tang justice. Brett Ratner need not apply.

via Complex

So you are probably still asking where I’ve been hiding out, kinda lacking on the posting front? I’m actually working on bonding with my cat thanks to the advice this lady has blessed my life with. Be back soon.  MAJOR WHISKER ALERT till then.

They talk about crushing on Pam Grier and Snoop’s entry into acting. She also forces Tony to drink a nasty looking drink called an Obama. Snoop has an AMAZING laugh.