Check out this massive roots, ska, rocksteady, calypso, reggae and dub haven. It is a fantastic resource for anyone even remotely interested in these genres, and in good music in general. One Love spread through the internet. Biggup! This has been your pick of the week. Highest recommendation.
Columbus, Ohio-based MC Tero Smith, alias Camu Tao, has passed away after a three-year battle with lung cancer, reports his long-time collaborator El-P of Definitive Jux Records. In his press release, he writes: “To those who knew Tero, he was an almost uncategorizable force of nature. Wild, hilarious, proud, loving, tough, outspoken, spontaneous and brilliant.…
Public Enemy brought it all back home Friday night. Performing, for the first time ever, their classic album It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (1988) in its entirety, they returned to a defining moment in modern music history and consolidated their status as perhaps the greatest hip hop group ever. Though…
So why it is such an upsetting photograph is not just because we see someone smiling in the context of the horrible, but that when we look at her, we begin to have to resist smiling ourselves. So it’s a terrible, terrible picture for that reason alone. — Paul Ekman, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at…
This is great. These mixes go year by year, covering the history of hip hop music from 1979 to 1999, incorporating incontrovertible classics with forgotten gems in smooth, eminently listenable and ear-opening mixes. This is your pick of the week, if you have even the slightest interest in hip hop. Photo of the Crash Crew,…
Majors is a new Danish supergroup delivering traditional, well-crafted boom-bap hip hop in spades. In consists of former DMC Champion DJ Noize, DJ and producer extraordinaire Static, as well as the MCs NatILL, J-Spliff and the hottest new talent on the block, Negash Ali. Their album is out, you can check out their first video…
The picks of the week from around the web. Winsor McCay’s 1911 Little Nemo cartoon (above). For no other reason that it’s bloody awesome. McCay’s all the rage again, here’s a good article by Jeet Heer. Great DJ Shadow breaks mix. Kinda the Cliff’s notes to a bunch of Shadow classics, but first and foremost…
The picks of the week from around the web. Music for One Apartment and Six Drummers. Cool Swedish short. Tom Breihan: In Defense of Li’l Wayne’s “Lollypop.” This is a pretty impressive feat of criticism; writing substantially about a song that has nothing in it — no hook, trite sexual analogy, lots of synth/vocoder: unabashed…
Already some ways into 2008, I figured I’d still write a little something about the hip hop albums I enjoyed the most in the past year. The genre is clearly going through changes, seeing not only a substantial generational shift and a geographical displacement of its creative locus to the South, but also what seems…
The picks of the week from around the web. The Crumbling paper index. This site is a treasure trove of old comics. Go there and loose yourself. Rap explained. Dropping science, hilariously. HuckChuckFacts. Just in case you haven’t seen this. You must, to believe.
The picks of the week from around the web. Frank Rich: “The Billary Road to Republican Victory”. The New York Times‘ great op-ed columnist looks ahead at what a Hillary Clinton ticket for the presidency might mean for the presidential elections. An interesting corrective to the otherwise commonplace view that Hillary is the stronger candidate…
Ike Turner went to see the preacherman on December 12. I wanted to acknowledge that before the year was over. I was never one of his greatest fans, but a lot of the 60s material is still damn good. Known more as an abusive bastard than as a musician these days, we would do well…
Where I been these last few days? Texas hip hop veteran Pimp C, real name Chad Butler, passed away from unknown causes on Tuesday, and I just want to take the time out here to pay my respects. Though I have never been a huge fan of UGK’s, I have been digging them on-off since…
Som et supplement til lyden fra det relativt nyligt afholdte Danske SoundClash-Mesterskab 2007, som jeg linkede til i forrige uge, vil jeg lige gøre opmærksom på, at der ligger lignende optagelser fra det første danske Soundclash tilbage i 2005, hvor People’s Choice tog titlen fra Rootsman Hi-Fi pga. af en fumlefejl fra sidstnævnte i finalerunden.…
Been peeping the podcasts of Ninja Tune stalwart and beatmaker extraordinaire DJ Vadim these last few days. Go check it out — the mixes are great, and so is the soundclash with beat maestro DJ Krush, and the Soundcatcher release party concert. Also, be sure to cop both last year’s One Self album, Children of…