New York rap has a new mascot. Happy Pesach, everyone.

Download: Action Bronson – Blue Chips

via DJBooth.net

I kept watching this, trying to figure out why everyone had bells.

Mo Kolours presents further proof that beats are the universal language.

Metal Lungies is trying to make things more professional around here. Everyone here at ML wanted to share a little a bit about ourselves to show, you, our reader that we are more than robots writing about raps and falafel.

Dj01

Alexandra ‘Dj01′ Goldberg is a 45 year old married mother of two/ hip hop fanatic living in a suburb of Washington DC . She fell in love with the rap game by accident, when she lived on the same NYU dorm floor as Rick Rubin. She thought the iconic Def Jam logo that was being plastered all over was “super rad and edgy” and became intrigued by the music the logo represented. While she never realized her dream of becoming the first female to carry crates for the Beastie Boys or DJ Red Alert, she was did have a wildly heralded collection of scrapbooked photos of rappers (which she hopes to tumblerize in the next year).

When a girlfriend told Alexandra about internet journaling, she orignally started Metal Lungies on LiveJournal. When she isn’t posting breaking news like the latest behind the scenes 15 second youtube preview clips on Metal Lungies she has a few passions. Alexandra is really passionate about neatly cataloging .jpegs of some her all-time favorites like Nas (Alexandra has the God Son tattooed on her thigh) to newcomers like Machine Gun Kelly. She also enjoys to neatly compile freestyles of big songs of the moment like ‘Stay Schemin’ by various rappers on her iPod shuffle to play in her Honda Odyssey for her two sons, Larry & Mac to enjoy on their way to school.

KnobbzXL

KNOBBZXL is Ruth Gallow, 47, of Farmingdale, New York. Ruth grew up as a field hockey phenom and a Miss Teen USA semifinalist – certainly not a hip-hop head. But that all changed during her sophomore year at Barnard when she struck up a conversation with Popa Wu at poetry slam. They were fast friends and Ruth will be the first to tell you that it was she who designed the Wu-Tang logo, not Allah Mathematics. “I still have the page from my Multivariable Calculus course pack as proof!” she claims. Ruth was a mainstay on the tour bus after she introduced the Clan to her mother’s famed tofu steak.

Her kids Johnathan, Amy, and Derek have the distinction of having the only mom in Mulberry Estates who edits a rap blog. Alexandra “DJ01” Goldberg reached out to Ruth in 2007 after downloading one of her blend tapes from DatPiff and the two have collaborated on Metal Lungies ever since. Ruth hosts a weekly workshop on the Five Percent Nation at the local library and she has an Etsy store where she sells Shaolin Shadowboxer mittens and scarves. “With Bob Digi’s blessings, of course!” she adds.

Meaghatron

Ed ‘Meagatron’ Nelson is a 56 year old music enthusiast currently spending most of his year in Baltimore, MD. When he isn’t scouring the internet for new music and frequenting venues he makes his living whittling small wooden figurines. He relocated near the Mason/Dixon line so that he could focus his business on becoming an expert whittler of Civil War memorabilia but also so that he could become a larger part of ML. Ed met Alexandra when she bought one of his figurines for her aunt. She noticed that he had one of her favorites (Curren$y) playing in the background and it sparked a conversation that has since progressed into where ML is today.

Swedish natives Miike Snow recently released the highly anticipated follow up to their self titled album. Happy To You has arrived two years later but it was worth the wait. The album builds on the foundation its predecessor laid,  adding more layers to their sound, some dissonant and some made purely for dancing. There really isn’t a single track on Happy To You that isn’t noteworthy. The two most circulated tracks thus far have been Devil’s Work and The Wave but my personal favorite is Pretender (and also the transition from the track leading up to it, Bavarian #1). If you can, I would recommend getting your hands on the Deluxe Version since it includes two phenmenal remixes by Wolfgang Gartner and Alex Metric.

Listen to Paddling Out here:

This is a remixed version of NoYork!, I guess? Tasteless artwork aside, I actually like this a lot more than the original because the beats are so far left. Half of them sound like they were recorded through a McDonald’s drive-through intercom, which can be grating for some, but I love it in this context: an alternate reality version of NoYork! where Blu has nothing to do with Warner Bros. and he’s still hurtling deeper down the rabbit hole after Below the Heavens. For all his ups and downs, Blu still has a unique brand of psychedelic rap that keeps getting more potent.

Danny Brown is so fucking cool. Further evidence below.

I’d like to think that they dropped the visual Harry Potter motif they had in the teaser (below) after they read my post.

Big K.R.I.T. has condensed a career’s worth of work into three mixtapes. If K.R.I.T. Wuz Here was his humble debut and ReturnOf4Eva was his star-studded follow up, then 4Eva N A Day is his high level concept album here he shuns famous features and keeps it super personal. In the Behind the Music version of K.R.I.T.’s life, this would have spanned ten years, six Grammys, two divorces, and a DUI. That’s actually not quite the case for K.RI.T., who has yet to drop his major label debut. 4Eva N a Day is K.R.I.T. ascendant, turning from raucous trunk rattlers to deeper reflections on the traditions surrounding his Pimp C/Willie Hutch derived organic funk. His old school car gets a humble ode. Wah wah guitars are abundant (a staple of country rap tunes, DJ Burn One once told me). Strippers. Beyond that, K.R.I.T. gets elbow deep in the moral juxtapositions on his album cover. Forget a debut album with Def Jam’s fingerprints all over it. I’m content with another three mixtapes.

Download: Big K.R.I.T. – 4Eva N A Day

Bonus: David Banner – Believe (ft. Big K.R.I.T.) (produced by Mr. Lee)

Yo! I have a flight to catch in about 4 hours, yours truly is going back to SXSW.  I’m currently shaking with anxiety, as there is so much to do so much to see, that I have oodles of content from last years SXSW that I never got to share with y’all (stay tuned I’ll probably crack open the vault real soon).

Incase you are curious are/or going to be down there, here are some showcases that caught my eye/people forwarded to me:

[Read more]