If you are seriously into the hip-hop culture, you’ve heard about the movie Wild Style. Heralded as the best hip-hop movie of all time by Source magazine and praised by Vibe as being one of the top-ten soundtracks around, Wild Style represented all things good about the scene back in 1982. It features live performances by Grandmaster Flash, Fab Five Freddy, and battles by the famous Rock Steady Crew. For many graffiti artists as well, Wild Style was their first exposure to the street art form. It’s been one of my favorite movies for a few years now, and so when I found this, I had to post.
I found this documentary, believe it or not, on Comcast On-Demand, in the free movie section. That was about three years ago, and since then, I completely slept on it. In the last week or so, however, it appeared on one of my favorite blogs, and I watched the first part of it again. I had to post it, and if you check out the first few minutes of it, you’ll see just why. It features some of the most talented MCs like Blackthought (with ?uestlove beatboxing sans afro), Mos Def, Supernat, Pharoahe Monch, Talib Kweli, and many more. It also has some sweet old footage of Dj Kool Herc, Run-DMC, Rock Steady Crew(!) and more of that old school you love, not to mention some of the sickest battles I’ve ever heard. I’ve posted the rest of the movie in parts two through nine as well.
Start your day off right with some of the best. Flying Lotus is a DJ/producer out of Winnetka, California, known best for his extensive work with Adult Swim, doing the Segues with other greats like Madlib, Oh No, and J. Dilla (RIP). His music can be best described as a Dilla-esque use of MPCs to get that “boom-bap” sound combined with ambient loops that come together to form a synthscape of sound. Flying Lotus, or Fly Lo to his fans, creates multi-layered, heavily textural tracks, often times incorporating real sounds and recordings, which he works in with turntable work. If you haven’t heard of him, that’s okay, he’s definitely underground, but with his latest album release, Los Angeles, he’s been getting a lot of praise around the web.
If you don’t know what Robo Tussin’ means, I got some Urban Dictionary stuff to help you out.
6. tussin
Cough Syrup: Promethazine with Codeine. A pharmaceutical and recreational drug also referred to by a variety of street names, such as sizzurp, purple stuff, drank, lean, and tussin. The street names may or may not refer to the straight cough syrup or the mixture of the syrup and soda, most commonly Sprite.
Flying Lotus-Robo Tussin ft. Lil Wayne
Check out Flying Lotus’ MySpace for more of that good stuff
During my daily surf-fest around the internet, perusing many a MySpace Music pages and the like, I found this dude, MachineDrum, out of Brooklyn, who really blew my mind. His name had already come up a few times in the previous week, whether it was on Mofomatronix’s Top Friends or somewhere else. Anyway, I finally clicked through and loved what I heard. Check out “Laugh and Cry” and MachineDrum’s remix of Cassie’s single “Me and U” remix especially.
I’m a sucker for beat-making/deejaying videos, too, having dabbled in electronic music for a few years myself. So when I saw this on MachineDrum’s MySpace page, I flipped out. The things you can do with M-Audio’s Axiom 25 and Trigger Finger, plus your third party Digital Audio Workstation (I personally prefer Ableton Live), can be astounding. That’s actually pretty close to my setup, so this is a lot of fun to watch. Give this a little time. It’s a long video at 8 minutes, but like a skilled musician of any kind, Machine Drum allows composition to add to the artwork. He lets the beat build and breathe. There are parts where you can nod your head to the beat, there are banger moments, and even ambience-esque lulls in the tempo. It’s a very skilled integration of many types of electronic music.
According to Stones Throw, the underground hip-hop label known for being the home of J. Dilla (RIP) and other brilliant producers and emcees, the artist known as Madlib got tired of waiting to team up with the mysterious MF DOOM and decided to remix the original Madvillain debut album, Madvillainy. The new album, Madvillainy 2: The Madlib Remix is the fresh result, and if you have ever heard of Madlib or DOOM, like hip-hop, or enjoy good music, please, throw down ten bucks Here. It’s an investment you’ll not soon regret. I’ve been rockin this all day and the album is hot.
I can’t remember which one of my buddies from school said it, but aparently some people can’t listen to much of 9th Wonder. Those sweet beats which are at once intoxicating can get stale and fade out, sounding all too much familiar like his previous music. I am, however, not one of those people. I can listen to 9th wonder beats all day long. Since I copped the new album from Murs and 9th, Sweet Lord, today has been one of those days.
The Murs and 9th legacy has been a good one. The new album, released “fo free” online just this past wednesday, is the third Murs record produced by 9th wonder. The first two, 3:16 and Murray’s Revenge are personal favorites in my collection, and both have recieved excellent reviews in the underground hip-hop community. Songs like “Walk Like a Man,” “Love and Appreciate” and “The Pain” are bangers from those albums that still get play on my iPod, years after they came and went. So you can imagine my excitement when I got my hands on Sweet Lord.
The album is short, only 10 tracks, but they are all hard hittin’ and will leave you satisfied. I don’t want to give too much away either. I always loved Murs’ story-telling style that is a lot like Nas’ but unique nonetheless. His raps on Sweet Lord cover the usual things for Murs. Girls, Hip-Hop, and being broke. It would seem that for an artist that has come so far, not too much has changed. 9th brings some strong beats on this album, using a kick drum the way it should be used and cutting up samples with his Akai like always. I’m for sure gonna be ridin’ to this for the next few days.
