Ok so it’s been since the De La dunks came out that I’ve said I MUST own a pair of shoes…which is good considering how bad my addiction is, haha. So today I visit one of my regular shoe sites and see a story about these…the kanji dunks. 1)I’m a sucker for dunks, 2)I’m a sucker for black and gray shoes, and 3)I’m a sucker for shit that’s exclusive. So yes, I will own these…somehow!
Just a quick post to big up my boy DJ Paradime and his new mixtape:
Nothing but southern hip-hop. Yeah, it’s actually hosted by 9th and Paul Wall. Please buy this mixtape from hip-hop site and support my boy. As incentive, he’s put the 9th remix of Sittin’ Sideways online for people to enjoy, so download it and bump it!
sidenote: if you live in the triangle, you can get this mixtape from 4-4 Records on Hillsborough St.
Okay so I missed another friday five update and I haven’t really updated in a while…but as you know life is hectic around this time of year, especially if you work for an airline. I’ve been working a bit too much, trying to get as much as I can on that one last paycheck before christmas so I can actually buy stuff for people!
Anyway, I just wanted to put up this video of Pharrell performing “Can I Have It Like That” live on David Letterman. If you’ll notice pharell is being backed by the roots, uh yezzur! I’m not really even sure why but I’ve been feeling this song since I first got the record. So much so that I’m almost finished with my remix for it (should be up in the next few days, time permitting). Anyway, as you may or may not have heard, his album has been pushed back to February (boooooo).
I’ll take this little extra time to be shameless and tell you to head on over to ForgeAndAmen.com and order our mixtape, Lifestyles Of The Broke And Shameless. Sorry about the design, but I haven’t had time to work on it. You can preview every single track on the mixtape, and order directly from that page. These will make perfect stocking stuffers! Also for those that are on myspace, please hit up our page on there. Thanks!
That’s all I got now, off to work again…
First off I wanna let y’all know how hard it is for me to pick just five songs for this post each week. I listen to so much music that I’m surprised I can remember what any of it is. Nevertheless, here we go….
Tanya Morgan - A Love Joint Named Saturday. These guys are dope, we did a show with them up in NYC when we went for CMJ. They’re featured in the current issue of XXL with a full page (check it). This song is from their Sunlighting mixtape, which you can find on their website, Loud Minority Music. Make sure you check the mixtape out, it’s dope…
Robin Thicke - Wanna Love You Girl (ft. Pharrell). As usual the neptunes are all over the place, and this guy is one of their projects. You may remember his father, Alan Thicke, from the 80s sitcom Growing Pains. This is classic neptunes r&B stuff right here. Pharrell guests with a rap verse. Supposedly the neptunes are doing Thicke’s whole album, so it should be pretty dope. I apologize if the quality is sort of rough, I ripped it from a white label…
On the opposite end of the spectrum we have Mobb Deep - The Infamous (ft. 50 Cent). As you may or may not know, Mobb Deep is signed with G-Unit records now. I’m sure you’ll see G-Unit all over their release. Some people are bothered by this but I don’t care, Mobb deserves more exposure than they’ve been getting over the past couple of years. To go from being on Landspeed to being signed to G-Unit…well, that’s the definition of grinding. This particular track is produced by Alchemist who should be no stranger to you if you’re familiar with Mobb Deep. If you’ve never heard any of his work, just visit his page and you’ll realize he’s gotten quite a few street classics under his belt. This particular beat is a bit of a departure from his regular style, I can dig it though….
The Youngbloodz are a group who I don’t think get nearly as much credit and recognition as they deserve. People act like they just came on the scene with rise of Lil Jon’s fame. You remember that joint that had “85″? That used to be the shit!! Anyway, the remix to their song “Presidential” has been bumpin in the car for a couple of weeks now. Yeah, Akon is on it, but I can actually tolerate him on this song. Plus I like the scratching on this track…b-b-b-b-ounce like rubber…..
Last but not least is a joint called “Don’t Wanna Give That Up” that the group DMP put out last year on a mixtape. If you don’t know Nottz does their production, and while a bit simplistic in nature, this beat gets the job done. Nottz is known for his sick basslines, and this song is no exception. Not like hip-hop needed another song about weed, but at least this is a different twist to the subject.
There you go folks…Enjoy. Leave comments if you like what you hear
Oh yeah, I added a new song to the audio section, one I did with Dan Johns…make sure to check that out as well
First let me start off with the trip to LA. I missed my first flight because I woke up late, so Kaze ended up travelling ahead of me. Good thing I work for an airline and it’s nothing to switch plans like that :D. Long travel story short, I ended up in LA around 2 p.m. and met up with Kaze and his boys Carlos and Casey (casey was actually just in Rhianna’s new music video, so look for that). I don’t want to bore everyone with every minute detail of the trip so I’ll just stick to some of the highlights.
Friday night we went to this little party that was supposed to jumpoff the whole Remix Hotel conference. There wasn’t much going on here so Kaze called up his friend who works at Lucky Strike, a bowling alley in hollywood, and we headed down there to say whatup to him. Why did we get the bowling alley and not only is there a bouncer, but a dress code too?!?! That’s hollywood for you I guess. Not only that, but there was a waiting list to bowl! Long story short, I bowled a low score as usual, but I was kind of bummed out because I missed my teammate who was still back in NC. I think we left around 2 A.M. and I was exhausted because my body was still on NC time so it felt like 5..Here’s a couple of pics of the crew and the bowling alley:
The next morning we got up and headed to the Musician’s Institute, where we would be all day for the Remix Hotel. These types of events are good for making industry connections and you tend to meet a lot of “behind the scenes” people. For most of the day we sat in on some panels to learn about submitting music for various things like film and video games. In the middle of the day Kaze did his show (which is the whole reason we were there). He was well received by some pretty connected people, and I’m sure it’s going to pay off for him. He finished off his show by doing “Blood Thicker Than Oil” (courtesy of resonatedradio.com) which went over REALLY well, I guess in part because california is really liberal. Make sure to download that if you’re anti-bush, anti-war, etc. I guess one of the best parts of the day was getting to meet Hank Shocklee. For those that don’t know who he is, he’s part of The Bomb Squad. You know them best for their work with Public Enemy. I must say it was an honor to meet him, and he’s a real down to earth guy
We stayed at the conference all day, so I never really got to see any of LA (which just gives me reason to go back). By the end of the day I was exhausted so I didn’t really go out, but just went to bed early since we had to fly out at 7 AM. I sat in first class from LA to Dallas (working for an airline is great!!). Dallas to Raleigh was a different story, as me and Kaze barely got on (we got the last 2 open seats) and I got stuck in a middle seat, so I couldn’t move around much. Ended up back in Raleigh around 4 P.M.. As much as I love taking trips and going out of town, nothing beats that feeling of landing and realizing you’re back home. Managed to take this in the air just outside of LA (doesn’t it make you just want to hop on a plane right now?):
Updates for the DJ Premier show and the Friday five coming over the weekend (I’m behind, so what!)
I don’t think I had a moment to rest at all this past weekend, cause there was so much going on…
Friday night I went out bowling with my friends (Hung, Kim, Angie, Lance) and some of their co-workers. Let’s just say I’m a much better DJ than bowler. That’s okay though, cause low scores mean nothin’ when you’re rollin’ with the gutter squad!! Haha, me and Angie had the lowest scores so we came up with that nickname for ourselves. Who said teams have to be good at what they’re playin? Anyway, stayed out waaaaaay too late bowling which was a bad idea because I had to be up the next morning at 7 AM for…
The Tony Yayo and Young Buck show in Jacksonville, NC. Yeah that’s right, I had to drive to Jacksonville on only 2 hours of sleep! This was my first time driving to eastern NC and I have to say that it reminds me of Pembroke/Robeson county quite a bit. Anyway, the reason I was driving there was to DJ for Kaze who was to open for Yayo/Young Buck. The show was being held at a drag strip (okay so they actually built a stage, it was cool). Spent the majority of the day there…waiting and waiting. Finally Kaze was able to do his set, I backed him up as well as a couple of other acts. I met a couple of people to push beats to that day, so that’s a positive thing. We’re all done and waiting for Yayo/Young Buck to show up but apparently they hadn’t even left the hotel when all the opening acts had finished. It was at this point where I said screw it, and just decided to go ahead and drive back to Raleigh. Didn’t do much that night because I was so tired. I went over to Hung’s to watch a movie but ended up falling asleep and missed pretty much the entire thing. I woke up around midnight to Hung cooking steak for me, him, and Kim. Why? I have no clue, but it was good! It’s probably a good idea that I just rested that night, I was quite burnt out, and besides I had another big day ahead of me for sunday…
Sunday Common performed at UNC, and I was scheduled to be the opening DJ. Actually the only reason I agreed to DJ was to get in for free, haha. In the middle of the afternoon I got a call from 9th saying he was gonna DJ too, which was cool with me since I didn’t even really feel like DJing in the first place. Due to my previous experience from the Ghostface show, I brought about 3 crates of records, and 9th brought serato scratch (which I must have, but that’s another topic entirely). I picked up Angie and then we rolled on out to UNC, but the whole way there we were trying to find out exactly where the show was supposed to be, haha. So we get there and me and 9th set everything up, do a soundcheck, etc.. There was still quite a bit of time to kill before the doors were supposed to open so me and Angie decided to roll out for some food. We ended up getting sushi and soup at a place on franklin st.. The name of the place escapes me right now, but it was pretty good. As soon as we walked back to the venue, it was time for the doors to open. 9th started things off, then I played a few…in total we only played for about 30 minutes. Such a shame we had all that music that didn’t get played. Here’s a couple of pics Angie snapped:
After we finished it was time for Common. He had a keyboard player and a DJ/percussionist along with him on stage, so the show had a more “live” feel to it. We watched the show from the sidestage, which was cool because we’d never have been able to go down to the crowd and make it back to the front stage area. He basically opened up with a few songs from BE, then went back to I used to love h.e.r. and decided at that point it was time for his DJ to get some shine. I never learned the DJ’s name but let me just say this dude was sick. He did a battle routine using rob base and ez rock’s “it takes two” and it was insane. I wish I wasn’t so into the dj performance or I would have tried to get a video clip of it. I must say I appreciate him being a real DJ and keeping the art alive (which I told him the next day when I saw him in the airport, haha) After that, Common did a few more of his well known songs, and even pulled a girl on stage for his performance of “come close.” Everyone on the sidestage area with us was basically just chillin and most of them were sitting down. It seemed like me and Angie were the only ones getting into the music, dancing around most of the time. Anyway, Common wrapped up his set (or so he’d have everyone believe) and came off to the sidestage. At this point I’m saying “i can’t believe he didn’t do ‘The Light’” cause that’s his biggest hit. Just when you think the show is all over, the keyboard player starts into the chords from the song and Common runs back onstage to perform. This was probably my favorite part of the show because I love that song, and I love the original. Matter of fact, go ahead and download the original, you need it in your life:
Bobby Caldwell - Open Your Eyes
So Common finishes and we pack up all my stuff and decided to head back to Raleigh to meet up with everyone for bowling again. We managed to take this on the way out though (gutter squad, we ain’t scared!!):
Soo after all that fun in Chapel Hill it was back to the bowling alley in Raleigh where we had to represent for our low scorers. Something weird happened though and I bowled two strikes in a row to start off the game! Everything went back to normal after that though and I got back to the low numbers. Good thing too, I almost got kicked off the squad!! I ended up leaving early because I had to be at work at 6 am (and up at 4:30 am!!!!).
All in all, it was an awesome weekend, with sunday evening being the most enjoyable. I’ll update about halloween tomorrow or something…I have to be up in two hours for work…
Oh, can’t make this long post about Common without giving you a song (a dope one at that):