February 6, 2010
Categories: Must Watch . . Author: bushytop . Comments: Leave a Comment
Ottoman + Moon Man
Kid CuDi cops from the Vampire Weekend cut “Ottoman” and ends up with “Cudderisback.”
Snitching in foreign languages
This is from Freeway and Jake One. They’ve got an album dropping Tuesday (The Stimulus Package) via Rhymesayers that is gonna be the truth. This is a warm-up and if the rest is anything like this — instant classic. This features Raekwon and is on CONSTANT rotation. Constant.
Click here to download “One Thing” from Freeway and Jake One (ft the Chef) (via 2dopeboyz).
While my guitar gently weeps
Let’s get caught up quick with some new music, cuz there’s plenty that’s come out in the past week or so. First is the best (and arguably worst) of both worlds. Not talking about the Pied Pieper and Hova hooking up again, but a new (sigh) mash-up featuring the music of the Beatles and the Wu Tang Clan. If it sounds familiar, it’s b/c it sounds like Danger Mouse’s “The Grey Album.” This one features music of the Beatles with some Shaolin lyricism. I like it, but dude completely phucs with me on “Cross My Heart.” Where the eff is the GZA verse?!?!?!?!?
Click here to download “Enter the Magical Mystery Chambers.”
I’ve thrown some of B.o.B.’s work on here before and his no mixtape is of the same brood aka tight isht. Dude plays gee-tar, raps, and sings — a true triple threat.
Click here to download B.o.B.’s “May 25th.”
Dude from the Wrecks-n-Effects video and Snoop collaborator Pharrell Williams is a bit of a mystery wrapped in a riddle for me — one second I love his work, next second it’s too much “Skateboard P” for my liking. But when you get ?uestlove and James Poyser to re-twork ”Out of My Mind,” I’m all in.
Click here to download Pharrell and the Yessirs’ “Out of My Mind.”
Next is a remix project of Gucci Maine’s latest work(s) put together by the always busy Diplo. The result is all over the place, but there are some definite keepers on this isht. Plus it’s free.
Click here to download “Diplo Presents: Free Gucci.”
Last
Last up is a mixtape featuring two of my favorite artists out working together — Joell Ortiz and Novel. Like Pac and L, this is a deadly combination. Joell’s one hardworking sumunabitch, and Novel is plain dope (“Caffeine and Cigarettes” is my jammy jam right now).
Now it’s coming into focus
Some well-meaning sicko/psycho made Conan out of Cheetohs.
This whole Conan-NBC-Zucker fiasco is starting to sound more and more like an episode of Jenny Jones (minus the genius of Rude Jude). On a recent post on the New Yorker’s website, it’s revealed that Conan and NBC Bigshot Jeff Zucker have a rivalry that goes all the way back to Harvard (pronouonced Haaaa-vaaahd) from their days as editors of Crimson and Lampoon, respectively (as if who worked for what needed to be pointed out). Here’s a little taste of the beef that cooked betwixt them a long time ago (the 80s) in a galaxy far, far away (Cambridge):
Lampoon editors stole the Crimson’s prized collection of caricatures of its past presidents and mailed them–for reasons too obscure to go into here–to Duluth, Minnesota. They disabled the Crimson’s phones. They published a number of wounding Crimson parodies and an issue of the Lampoon that included a fake phone-sex ad with Zucker’s dorm-room phone number. Zucker did not find any of this particularly hilarious.
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal
Some good watching here…
Here be MIA’s big EFF-YOU to the NY Times (click here for more on why):
If you don’t know the artist alluded to in the title of this post, here’s a hint — Gil Scott-Heron — and he’s back with the new single “Me and the Devil” and an album of the same name dropping Feb. 22nd. God I lovessssssssssss me “H20 Gate Blues.” Just how blind, America??
How’s about some GOOD Music love, yah? Fine, here’s Big Sean’s “Million Dollars” (which has been out forever but now gets the video treatment).
And let’s end this with some complete head-scratching nonsense (via Duryl).
Cornel West x Killer Mike
The man behind “Race Matters” and one time collaborater with my HOMEGIRL bell hooks (see below for some more bell and yes, she’s got a little ee cummings and dead prez in her aka lower case that isht!) gets up with the man behind “A.D.I.D.A.S.” for an MLK Day talk. Inevitably Eventually, the conversation takes a tangent and it morphs into a super entertaining conversation about the N-bomb. No young/old dichotomy on this one as Killer Mike breaks it down-down-down. Head nod to 2dopeboyz.
And here goes the bonus bell hooks….on rap music.
Band of Bulging Brothers
George Saunders — you know him — is at it again. Hearing that some of the highest ranking generals in the US Military are seriously concerned about the obesity of our nation’s youth and want to take an active role in curbing it, Saunders imagines the place where this fear is most readily manifested — the battlefield. A sample….
Almost immediately, Ames again became tired. Even more tired than before. And Elder’s back was feeling worse. Also, he had this rash under one arm—where the arm flab hits the torso? And that was acting up. What with all the marching and so forth. Meanwhile, Privates Leonard and Tracker continued up the hill. Until, that is, Private Leonard’s trousers began to chafe. While tight in the thighs and the rear, they were somehow slipping down in back. It was super-annoying. His back was all sweaty. He sat, a few metres away from where Elder and Ames still were not feeling quite up to snuff. Tracker continued alone up the hill, with Parker and me laying down covering fire from below. Soon, Tracker was just a few metres from the hilltop. It wasn’t actually all that big a hill, to tell the truth. More like a mild rise. Sergeant Chandler reached out his hand, as if to haul Tracker up. But, holding up one finger, Tracker paused, indicating: Wait a sec. Panting, Tracker bent at the waist, then dropped to one knee, then sat. His feet really killed, he shouted back at us. Sitting splay-legged, he used his helmet to fan his face. Tracker motioned that Elder should throw him the Diet Coke, so he could pour it over his head. Elder gestured: No way, we’re still thirsty—why didn’t you bring your own?
@mlk, jr: thnk u
Chalk this up to a day late and a dollar short, but have to throw it out there. It’s a tongue in cheek look at what-if — as in what if the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. existed in the time of twitter. It’s over here at Vanity Fair and worth the read (click here to do it).
Nothing wrong with a little bit of fun no matter how delicate the subject, but sometimes these tributes cross the line. I can get behind the Dilla-I Have a Dream mashup, but that’s as far as I go. I mean, Dr. Dre’s “Bitch Please” x MLK speeches = complete and utter fail.
If you want a quick palette cleanser after the Chronic 2001/Letter from a Birmingham Jail fiasco, this Emmett (S)Till cut by Blitz the Ambassador may do the trick (via 2dopeboyz). If you don’t know Emmett Till, you probably shouldn’t be reading my blog. Seriously. Get out of here and go read if you don’t know.
The FreEP is the new radio single
A bunch of new and FREE music is out now, and you don’t have to do a thing — I’ve done it all for you. No trolling music blogs or spending hours trying to find these albums, I do the trolling for you.
First up is a new five song EP from The Knux. If you don’t know about the Kunx, they’re two cats from New Orleans that moved West post-Katrina. They produce their own isht, play their own instruments, and generally make interesting and fun music.
Click here to download the Knux’s “F*ck You EP.”
The homey Blu also has a collection out now that compiles a ton of his unreleased music into a free EP aka a FreEP. If you have yet to hear his work with Exile or any of his other work, this isn’t a bad start.
Click here to download Blu’s “theGODleeBarnesLP.”
Chuck, Mikey, and Don Cannon hooked up again for the holidays and the result is the five song EP “Merry Christmas.” Worth the download and listen.
Click here for the Cool Kid’s “Merry Christmas.”
Last up is the always interesting Diplo and his remix project, “Free Gucci.” It’s a re-tworking of Gucci Mane’s “Cold War Mixtapes” and features production from Diplo, Flying Lotus, Benzi, and others. For someone who doesn’t understand the whole Gucci phenomenon, I found this a good jumpoff.
Click here to jump over to Mad Decent and download “The Best of the Cold War Tapes.”
I’m a business, man!
Nothing too groundbreaking or earth-shattering here, but ”Hova Goes MoMA: Why Jay-Z loves shouting out Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Damien Hirst” is still a nice read. Maybe I’m just a sucker for hip hop and art — two of my favorite things.
Having said that (nod to LD, again), this seems a bit cursory and makes statements that aren’t correct (like Kanye having only posted about Basquiat and one other group of Black artists; he’s done waaaaay more than that). But it’s still worth a read with passages like this:
The pair’s artistic preoccupations overlap, too. Like Jay-Z, who has toyed in several of his songs with popular conceptions of himself as violent, misogynist, or otherwise brutish, Basquiat also played in his scratchy canvases with the notion of the black “primitive”—a term that came under scrutiny in the ’80s art world, and which had been applied to Basquiat early on. “Every step you take they remind you, you ghetto,” Jay-Z raps on the “Grammy Family” freestyle.
I’m With Coco!
What in the world?!
Another NY Times piece takes a look at some lurking variables as people take sides in this late night battle — and it’s not just old people/Leno vs. youth/Conan. A sample…
Simon Dumenco, the media columnist for Advertising Age, suggested in a column on Wednesday that people have rallied around Mr. O’Brien not because they adore his “Tonight Show” but “because he’s suddenly become an unlikely (Harvard-educated, multimillionaire) Everyman: the freckled face of American job insecurity, a well-meaning hard worker who spent years paying his dues but has now been declared redundant by the halfwit overlords driving his company into the ground.”
I effing hate Scalia
With one of the most important legal cases of our time getting set to begin in Cali, it’s probably a good idea to brush up on the key players and issues involved, yah? You’ve come to the right place, good sir.
The New Yorker has a great piece from Margaret Talbot that is a must read (click here to do that). It also serves as a reminder of Justice Scalia’s dissent from Lawrence v. Texas and how big a jerkoff he is (but of course the jerking off is done in a consensual, heterosexual relationship among committed adults for the purpose of procreation and nuclear family stability). To wit…
Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children’s schools, or as boarders in their home. They view this as protecting themselves and their families from a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive.
Such a moron. If I could choose one person to open-hand slap, it would prolly have to be him (among others).
Game ain’t about that no more, it’s about product.
I'll use any reason to post these pics.
Sorry DJ Pauly D and any other guidos, metrosexuals, and ghettrosexuals out there, but the title of this post has nothing to do with the product you’re putting in your hair. If you you’re like me you know that’s a direct quote from one of the all-time great community college students, Stringer Bell. It’s also the intro (and the outro) to a new joint from the Lessondary crew that didn’t make Spec Boogie’s upcoming album. Shit is die-lon hot, mon.
And if you need another reason to peep this out, Spec Boogie’s “Eastbound and Down” drop should seal the deal.
Click here to download the second installment from the #sessiondary series, BANG!
Sidenote: Slim Charles is the greatest character on the Wire. Discuss…
Color outside of the lines
Here goes the — gasp! — colorized version of the Might Mos Def’s newest video “History” ft Talib Kweli. Enjoy.
Habachi!
Agent Zero aka The Boy Wonder aka Gilbert Arenas is everywhere. Everywhere. No longer a familiar name for hoops-crazy folk like myself, he is Tiger Woods with a gun. Forget for a moment that Charlie Sheen can do unspeakable things and still sling Jockey’s and bad TV, Gil effed up and now will be lucky to step foot on an NBA floor again.
Anyways, I’m not going to weigh in b/c it’s all been said on both sides of the fence. What I will do is direct you, gentle reader, to click here and read the definitive piece from the Washington Post on the history of Gil as the original “Prank Monkey” (kudos to Monty Burns and Homer for the name). Here’s a snippet:
To say Arenas enjoys a good practical joke is like saying Timothy Leary enjoyed the occasional recreational drug. He responded to the veterans’ orders to bring doughnuts to practice by buying plain ones and sprinkling baby powder on them–that is, when he wasn’t buying frosted ones, licking each one and putting it back in the box. He also took great joy in stealing his teammates’ keys and hiding them in, say, a bottle of water.
Then there was the time Arenas showed up on the team charter wearing a Fran Tarkenton jersey–make that forward Chris Mills’s Fran Tarkenton jersey, a specially ordered throwback that Mills had been talking about for months. Arenas had sneaked into Mills’s house the night before and pilfered the prized shirt. Once on the charter, he opened his jacket to unveil what he loudly proclaimed “the best jersey in the world!” and proceeded to attack the lunch spread, making sure to wipe his hands all over Fran. “Talk about someone getting choked. I got choked for like five minutes,” Arenas says, then nods appreciatively as if remembering a particularly good Merlot. “It was funny, though.”
That’s some serious committment to being the NBA’s reigning Court Jester. I mean breaking into a teammate’s house to steal his jersey? That’s either genius or lunacy, man. I say genius.
Still deciding…
…whether I actually like this song or if it’s some semi-ironic, hipster-like affinity for it. Prolly a little from Column A and a little from Column B.
Is it only me??
I love the automobile as a venue for my own brand of verbal Tourette’s. It’s intimate, private, and the acoustics are MONEY! Whether I’m doing karaoke with non-instrumentals or ripping off 16 like B Rabbit, I gets down in the ride. I know I’m not the only one to harbour this very real attachment to the car as performance art either — just look around at other performers drivers as you roll about town.
But am I the only one that gets into the car — after work, in particular but any instance where one is elated to be driving racing away in your auto — and immediately launches into some favorite song seeping through the speakers with an unbridled enthusiasm matched only by Billy Mumphrey?? I mean really belting it out. Not that weird, I know, but as my voce reaches a pitched crescendo I always do I quick but thorough look into the backseat to make sure that no one broke into my car. Really? Do I think I’m really kidnap-worthy? Cuz there’s no way my 30yo ass is even remotely kidnap-worthy. I’m no Jacob, that’s for sure….
My concern is not over personal safety or fear of serious bodily harm or death, but to stave off embarrassment. How ass backwards is that? My brain is twisted enough to be concerned about some perp breaking into my car and lying in wait (however unlikely), but not about what the motives are. It thinks more about “Is there a blood-thirsty psycho listening to my working rendition of Aretha Franklin’s “You’re All I Need (To Get By)?” than “Is some dude about to go Ed Gein on me?” I may need help…vocal help, that is. I mean if someone does break in, whose fault is it that I’m off-key? Certainly not the dude that’s about to sodomize me, yah?
Mickey Factz – thedarkphoenix: ALPHA
New mixtape for Mr. Mickey Factz that all should peep — whether it’s the hip hop or the white folk music lover in you. Take a little illuminati, sprinkle in some lyricism, and spoon it on top of beats made possible by Phoenix’s critically acclaimed “Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.” Whether it’s the re-tworking of “Rome” on “Ashes” (my favorite joint) or “Armistice” (among others), this is a must listen. Oh, and it’s free.
Click here to download Mickey’s new tape, “the darkphoenix: ALPHA.”
Some bonus Phoenix down below if ya don’t know…..
I love videos in alleyways
Something about creative videos in back alleys that does it for me. Probably because I spent the first 15 or so years of my life KICKING it in them. First up is “Cousins” off Vampire Weekend’s upcoming album, Contra (out Tuesday). Isht is gonna be dope on stick. I wonder if 88 Keys loves these cats just because they’re obvious LOheads.
And you know what this is….
Les Cousin Dangereux Numero Un
Michael Cera has been everywhere lately with his new movie “Youth in Revolt” coming out (bee tee dubs, I wants to see that isht). Last night he found his way to the “Late Show with Tiger Woods David Letterman” and brought with him some old footage from his guest spot as a murderer on the infamously horrible “La Femme Nikita” (a USA syndication classic on between “Wings” and “Silk Stockings”). Instead of pretending he didn’t know about it, dude brought it as an “example of his range.” PIMP.
This afternoon I got sent the perfection that is a Michael Cera “Jersey Shore” makeover (as in above and below). Genius. Pure genius. Just look at those pics!! If you wanna see the rest, click here.
In a completely unrelated story, I got called Michael Cera, Sr. today because we’re both tall and awkward. I took it as a compliment…except for the “Sr.” part.
)) (( Forever
Oh, how I heart thee Ms. Miranda July. If you have not heard of her, shove something in an orifice quickly (your choice as to which hole). And then click here to peep her “reading list” over at Vice Magazine. To paraphrase a friend, she makes you wish you were crazy.
PS I keep trying to title this “))<>((” for obvious reasons (if you’ve seen “Me You And Everyone We Know”), but GD WordPress won’t let me!!!!
Newsworthy briefs
Until Rush Limbaugh unleashes his boxers, these briefs are easily the most infamous singed undergarments in the free world. Last time there were undies with type of wear and tear came on Roseanne and Tom Arnold’s honeymoon. I think I Jihaded myself. I heard ABC released pics of the wrong pair; these belong to the girl from the new Taco Bell diet commercials. IBS is some shit — IBS being “International Bomb Smuggling.”
A real shit show.
