Marvin’s Room (Shlohmo’s thru tha floor remix) – Drake by shlohmoA question I hear frequently asked about Toronto based Hiphop/RnB rapper/singer/child actor Drake in the press is why his new music is so depressing sounding and what does he have to be unhappy about? He’s young, rich and famous! He’s got a seemingly endless supply of adoring fans, pretty women, drugs, alcohol, money and a venue for his artistic expression to talk about his feelings. Hot97 is his psychotherapy couch.
When he sings: ‘Cups of the XO
Bitches in my old phone
I should call one and go home
I’ve been in this club too long
The woman that I would try
Is happy with a good guy
But I’ve been drinking so much That I’ma call her anyway and say “F-ck that nigga that you love so bad I know you still think about the times we had” I say “f-ck that nigga that you think you found And since you picked up I know he’s not around”
(Are you drunk right now?)
I’m just sayin’, you could do better Tell me have you heard that lately? I’m just sayin’ you could do better And I’ll start hatin’, only if you make me’
Drake strikes me as being honest here. Even though he has all of the above material and ego-enhancing things that many of us want, he is still not happy. When artists are honest and speak about what’s really happening with them instead of repeating tropes that seem like the ‘industry standard’ (I’m balling! I’m awesome! I’m getting money!) it adds a richness of meaning, the texture of personal reality. The current vogue for sipping XO (aka sizzurp, purple drank, or cough syrup made with promethazine and codeine) popularized by many rap/rnb artists including recently Drake and The Weeknd seems to support this pretty well. Codeine is an opiate, the same active ingredient found in heroin. It’s a central nervous system depressant that makes you sleepy and dulls pain when used when you’re sick. If consumed when you’re healthy it pushes pleasure buttons in your brain and feels great. Taking codeine also kills you. If you slow your central nervous system down enough you’ll just stop breathing. RIP DJ Screw and Pimp C. My question is: how much must you be suffering to make this glamourous lifestyle choice? Scientific research has pointed to links between the way we experience physical and psychic pain, like the pain of depression, including the fact that depression sufferers seem to have more acute physical pain. As far as I can tell people who are happy and fulfilled don’t need to constantly take large amounts of central nervous system depressants like codeine and alcohol.
It confounds me when people use the word ‘leak‘ when they really mean ‘release.’ While I like the ideas of studio engineer subterfuge and secret key-logging and usb stick replicating – mostly your media consumption is fairly engineered. ALL YOUR TASTE BELONG TO US/THEM.
We release the first glistening taste of Atropolis to the cloud world this week. His full length drops 4/26. If you missed it the first time- he’s on some next level movement. It’s been a quiet first quarter at DA- but we’re just mining the data and building the killer app.
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Ghostleg, our VJ friend in Australia re-ups the visual remix of some United Fruit Company propaganda he started on for New York Tropical, this time with Uproot Andy‘s Vale La Pena remix.
& here’s the future! Lil B’s new video “Like A Martian,” also directed by Kreayshawn.
This is definitely dumbest track I’ve heard from Lil B this year -mind you, I can only listen to his material in tiny doses so I’ve heard less than one tenth of his output this year. Andrew Noz/Cocaine Blunts has the time and patience/attention for this. Grab the mp3/audio dope here if you dare.
French Montana dropped a new mixtape with DJ Drama last week appropriately titled Cocaine Konvicts/Gangsta Grillz. If you have been sleeping on French Montana and his partner Max B, wake up now. They’re responsible for some of the most interesting mixtapes to come out of New York in 2009. Beyond the horrific, nightmarish images, violence, drugs and guns— we all like some gun shot sound effects in our rap music, right? The sound here is remarkable, cinematic, moody, and funny. French Montana was born in Morocco, and grew up in the Bronx. I came across a footage/trailer for one of his Cocaine City DVDs sometime in early 2008. Montana was pretty much under the radar as an emcee (known more for his DVD business than for his mixtapes, Live From Africa, etc.) until sometime last year when he linked up with Max B (poor Max B is currently holed up in a jail cell somewhere in Hackensack, NJ pending a 75 years or life sentence.) The two began collaborating on songs, both of them rapping and singing over beats by Dame Grease and other less known producers. Montana and Max released the mixtapes Coke Wave, Mac Wit Da Cheese (Montana), and Quarantine (Max B) this year. “In The Morning” is from French Montana’s Mac Wit Da Cheese mixtape and “All My Life” is from Max B’s Quarantine tape — easily two of my favorite rap songs of the year. The tracks here should serve introduction to Max & French. Both are at their best on these tracks, in my opinion. The first leak from Cocaine Konvicts/Gangsta Grillz “Playin’ In The Wind” continues the Coke Wave tradition (Coke Wave 2) brilliant sing-along chorus with great/good enough rap verses. French Montana recently signed a deal with Akon’s label Konvict Music. If only for a moment Akon would stop popping bottles with models and watching them drink, they’ll do a mixtape title Live From Africa part 2 or something. Look for French Montana’s album next year, and pray for Max B.
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Raekwon‘s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II is a great album! In fact, it is an infinitely better rap sequel than Jay Z’s Blueprint 2 or 3.
…Swastikas on the church, they Satan
Holiday Season is here, I’m vexed
Who the fuck made Christmas up?
I’m fucking broke, it ain’t making no sense
Newport is 7.50, a box of Huggies is of the meat-rack
She’s back, 30 days she relapse
Our troops need to leave Iraq, and rap n****s need to go on strike so we can get more cash… - Ghostface
“In 1993, at the height of apartheid in South Africa, the incarceration of black males was 870 per 100,000. In 2004 in the U.S., for every 100,000 people we are sending 4,919 black males to prison. And the majority of those are for nonviolent drug offenses. But we’d rather send people to prison than give them information and treatment.”
Great article on the benefits of full legalization & the drug-prison-cop industry over at Esquire.
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Schlachthofbronx are preparing to release their debut. In meantime, the Bavarian bounce developers link up with South African cribwalkers (them Slush Puppy Kids aka Spoek Mathambo + Big Space) to offer us an appetizer, a taste of what’s to come. This mini-mix, which contains tracks from a forthcoming EP that drops before the album, is a dancefloor scorcher–extreme heat.
This episode of “Gangland” is a crazy documentary about gangs in the Third Ward of New Orleans which get’s even crazier when Katrina hits. It’s definitely pretty sensational but also a compelling and candid portrait of a place and a group of people on the edges of society in a dark moment. It’s 45 minutes, stream it when you’ve got some time.
It turns out Lil B’s “My Baby” wasn’t an isolated instance of lunacy but just one small part of a grand experiment. The 19 year old Pack frontman currently maintains 114 myspace pages… all launched over roughly the last eight months and each showcasing five or six original songs and freestyles.
The pages are numbered chronologically and listening to them in order is like reading an abandoned space journal, a slow descent into madness. Except it’s the good kind of madness.
read more! it’s hard to fathom. There’s a greater narrative to explore here (ref. Lil Wayne) about what happens when a compulsion for content outstrips all editorial filters. FWIW, Shoot the Bitch Bra sounds like ‘golden era’ Lenny Dee / Industrial Strength. And not The Pack.
This Friday, the Dutty Artz crew is servin Brooklyn all u can eat bass to ya face from an underground bunker just below the earth’s surface.
Our tropicaliente beats and bassline party, New York Tropical, is back with resident dj’s Geko Jones, Matt Shadetek and DJ/ Rupture. This time around, live and inside the place we’ll be joined by Brooklyn’s hometown heroines Bunny Rabbit. This is your last chance to chance to check Bunny out before they head to Eastern Europe to spread their Cult of Miracles gospel in March.
NEW YORK TROPICAL 3: OUT N’ BAD
FEB 20th @ Kodeez
834 Myrtle Ave @ Marcy (G Train to Myrtle-Willoughby)
