Realness seems to be making a come back in Brooklyn. Exhibit A: Troy Ave aka Harry Powder. There’s a few rappers popping up on my radar from NYC lately that are piquing my interest and Troy Ave is one of them. He’s coming with some hard non-retro BK drug dealer rap. I’m on board.

Get the mixtapes Powder to the People: Bricks in my Backpack part 1 and the new joint part 2.

 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.

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Angola meets meets Atlanta in this mix by DJ Eridson. One for the Fruityloops Hall of Fame indeed. This track is 3 years old but Eridson has new music up on soundcloud, including this Coupé-Décalé track he upped yesterday:

D.D 179 Gina Hot [2012] Dj Eridson, Dj Dorivaldo, M.Pondu, Dj Havaiana, Jacobe e Dr.Tchubi (remix) by djeridson

Bonus Tarracha:

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Kendrick Lamar – Fuck Your Ethnicity

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Kendrick Lamar – Rigamortus

Both tracks from Kendrick’s new album Section.80 out now on Top Dawg Entertainment, and it has been in heavy rotation for the couple of weeks. If you’re into rappidy rapps and don’t know who Kendrick Lamar is, please get familiar! Can’t believe this is his third album. He’s performing somewhere in the five boroughs this weekend!

dead-freaks

FRIDAY MAY 6TH
10PM – 4AM
MADE IN AFRICA
featuring DJ SIRAK of AFRICOLOGY
MIA residente’s CHIEF BOIMA + LAMIN FOFANA
CAFE NUNEZ – 240 W. 35th St. (Between 7 & 8th Ave.) NEW YORK, NY
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=219117971431923
Cover $10
Special $5 well drink till 12
Complimentary cocktails for 1st 20 ladies…
couPe decAle zouK house hipHop r&B danceHall Raï kwaiTo zouGlou kaPouka genGe maRRabenta kiZomba KuDuro pandZa soUKous nDombolo hipLife mBalaX salSa… cot damn! whatevEr uLTra afriKaNess pluS pluS!

& bug out to this!

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DJ Quik – “Fire And Brimstone” from The Book of David (2010 Mad Science)

Here’s what I was listening to, as I read Tally post about fresh and exciting new Dutty Artz gear; the opening track from that other legendary producer/rapper from Compton, California DJ Quik. Undoubtedly, one of the most underrated rappers/producers, Quik is without question one of the greatest producers. Super talented, adventurous, and unafraid to experiment with with bugged-out rhythms and structures. If you dig “Fire And Brimstone,” definitely don’t sleep on his new album The Book of David, or his last collaboration with Kurupt BlaQKout or Trauma or any of his early album. Get it how you live!

“Goodnight” from Tity Boi’s new mixtape and DVD Codeine Cowboy.

Umbrella!

Shout out to Old Money Massive!

Palaceer Lazaro of Shabazz Palaces, better known as Ishmael “Butterfly” Butler of Digable Planets
Portrait by Kyle Johnson

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Shabazz Palaces “An Echo from the Hosts That Profess Infinitum” from the upcoming album Black Up on Sub Pop Records. Considering how heavy we’ve been listening to the first two EPs, and how hungry we are for new Shabazz, this is obviously some some great news! A glimpse of things to come “An Echo from the Hosts That Profess Infinitum,” densely textured poems and verses delivered with that signature measured cadence, swirling and chewed up synths and samples, ridiculous beats and more mbira solos!  Looking forward to seeing Shabazz Palaces at SXSW this week. It will be very interesting, even if they’re only giving abbreviated performances!

Tendai , Dougie, and Ishmael

Recent news report on Al Jazeera

It has been quite disheartening watching the post-election crisis in Cote d’Ivoire turn from yet another power struggle among African politicians to very dangerous and explosive situation. I’m watching this from a room in Brooklyn, a couch in Northern Virginia; seeing yet another African country on the brink of civil war after its leader refuses to step down gracefully following an election. Mind you, Ivory Coast is still healing and rebuilding from a recent civil war.

In late November, President Laurent Gbagbo, who has ruled the Ivory Coast for the past ten years, lost to opposition candidate Alassane Ouattara in the presidential elections, elections which Gbagbo has already postponed five times in the last six years, meaning polls taking place in 2010 should have happened in 2005! Gbagbo, backed by the national army and security forces/hired youths – “young patriots”/militias refuses to concede and hand over power to Alassane Ouattara, who is recognized as the clear winner by regional body ECOWAS, the African Union, the United Nations and most countries. Ouattara also has the support of former rebel forces (fighters from the civil war still armed and active!)

At the moment, tensions are high. The situation gets awful, more dire with each news report. With more than 170 people reported killed in the post election violence, thousands are fleeing into neighboring countries – with most people seeking refuge in Liberia and Guinea. ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) initially talked about armed intervention using its military wing ECOMOG (which was instrumental in bringing peace to Liberia and Sierra Leone albeit criticisms of abuse and property theft during the civil wars in those countries) but later open the door for more discussions with Gbagbo. In the Ivorien capital, Abidjan, Gbagbo’s security forces/militias are conducting raids, and killing dozens of Ouattara’s supporters, and also threatening to invade the UN-protected hotel in which Ouattara and his ministers are staying/trying to conduct a state business.

International pressure on Gbagbo is failing and the mediation/action from ECOWAS is providing immediate results. We hope for a peaceful settlement, but some sort of resolution must be reached soon so the situation doesn’t escalate. Something radical has to happen to turn this situation around.

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Streets of Abijan – CIAfrica’s Greendog “Afristepdub“

I’ve never been to Ivory Coast (not completely true, because my mother went to Abidjan several times when she was pregnant with me) and I don’t speak or understand french (well, I resisted learning another Euporean language through my high school and college years.) I mentioned these things because I want to say I don’t completely understand CIAfrica’s lyrics and the topics raised in their songs. If you don’t know, CIAfrica is a militant, pan-Africanist rap/reggae/bass music collective based in Abidjan. The collective came of age during the turbulent years of the Gbagbo administration, marked by civil and military unrest. According to the song descriptions/summaries of the tracks on their album on Dutty Artz, CIAfrica makes defiant music, speaks out against fraudulent, hoggish leaders who are determined to stay in power no matter how much blood is spilled, against corruption and brutalization. They are making music in this currently political chaos, and are hustling and trying to visit Europe and North America in 2011. Listen to the track “Negro Politicien” -

Barboza “Negro Politicien” (DJ rupture Presents CIAfrica) by Dutty Artz

This week Google unveiled Ngrams, “a mammoth database culled from nearly 5.2 million digitized books available to the public for free downloads and online searches, opening a new landscape of possibilities for research and education in the humanities.” Which is the long view writ large.

Here in Brooklyn, Tahir Hemphill is cooking up something much more immediate.

Tahir & I were resident artists at Eyebeam together, where he began constructing Hip-Hop Word Count, a crazily smart rap-lyric-geomapping datacrunch project which lets you do stuff like, say, locate the first mention of ‘champagne’ and watch it migrate across the boroughs and peak across the years. Tahir’s doing a Kickstarter to continue developing the “searchable ethnographic database built from the lyrics of over 40,000 Hip-Hop songs from 1979 to present day.”

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Becoming Real – Showdown In Chinatown feat. Trim from Spectre EP (Not Even, 2010)

Greetings from the darkside, Londoner Toby Ridler’s Becoming Real project recently unleashed a vicious EP entitled Spectre, outright insane beats with vocals from one vocals/raps from one of grime’s most amazing/underrated MCs Trim. There is also a wicked juke refix of the lead track by DJ Rashad.

Also, don’t sleep on his FACT mix.

Ten years ago today, a man who redefined the grind passed away. You can read more about him and his influence in Jace’s article for Frieze magazine (mentioned here last week), as well as in a couple of other pieces that are mentioned in the comments section. I’m just gonna add the following love song for the occasion.

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Eightball & MJG – Reason for Rhyme (screwed by DJ Screw)

I have to say, at the Monterrey tribal guarachero rave I wrote about for The Fader, it was incredible to watch the DJs go from 128bpm tribal, then slam into a cumbia rebajada (crowd cheers!) then move onto crunk-en-espanol, then Cypress Hill en espanol, then back to tribal, all in the space of 10 minutes. It was the only rap moment of the night — mediated by syrup-cumbia… and the dancing never stopped! Outside the party, one kid walked around with a SWISHAHOUSE tee on.

HOUSTONE TEXAS BITCHES.!

dtshow214 2 years ago 8

Here’s what ppl dont understand. We were raise in Texas, so screw music is what we know. But our parents raised us with traditional music like cumbias, etc. This is our music, a mix of what we know and what we grew up hearing.

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