We gave you the samples for Reflection Eternal's Train Of Thought in February, now I'm sharing this dope promotional item: incense sent out to promote the album's single "The Blast." It was sent to my older brother, who has a huge collection of advances and promos from his career in hip-hop journalism. I'm going to try to post some more promotional items in the future, but I won't spoil any of them right now.
Links to larger pictures :
On a related note, my fellow T-Dot representatives at The Meaning of Dope always motivate me to step my blog game up. In March, they posted pictures of the best promotional handout ever: a Trojan promoting Big Pun's debut, Capital Punishment. Naturally the matchbox advertises Pun's hit, "I'm Not A Player." Because he just crushes a lot.
Via Harry Allen, the media assassin
Y'all want to see AZ & Kweli collaborate, but there are other dope collabos that are happening right now. Namely Tracy Turnblad and the rest of the cast of Hairspray making a record with the Mash Out Posse, Bussa Bus, Remy & Tef!
This is what's poppin' in the streets right now:
So smooth I can't be fingerprinted...
- 'Big Dogs' from Tical 2000: Judgement Day; 1998
Anyone who saw Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals between the Lakers and the Spurs knows that some odd sh*t went down in the AT&T Center at the very end of the game. Watch the footage here. Now check it: that was a foul. Or should I say it could have been foul. As Kenny and others mentioned, it comes down to the fact that Brent didn't sell the foul. What does that mean? Well, take any 'and-one' play by Kobe Bryant, for instance. Every time Black Mamba goes up in traffic, he's pushing outwards for the three or four-point play. Brent didn't do that tonight: simple and plain! I've got great respect for Barry (and his brothers) for their high basketball IQ, but these are the Western Conference Finals we're talking about. If you don't fight for it, you won't win it. Now: was it a blown call? Maybe. But Brent didn't do what he should have done; what Kobe would have done. So what's the scenario? The Lakers are up 3-to-1 and you know the chances are slimmer than Nicole Richie's frame that they'll blow both of their home games. With that being said, I'm calling this a wrap. Again. Where you at, Boston?
I wrote a review of Skillz's new mixtape for Nodfactor.com. Go read it here and as always, let me know what you think of the mixtape. A quick summary: this is dope.
Download it here.
Here's some samples (links lead to zShare):
As reported on Friday, Hip-Hop legend Slick Rick (b. Ricky Walters) was pardoned for the shooting incident of 1990 which has put him under a haze of legal uncertainty ever since. Faced with two jail sentences, Rick had been threatened of deportation by the INS and the Department of Homeland Security; until newly-placed Governor David Paterson stepped in. Known for first speaking out in Rick's defense back in 1995, David Paterson finally gained the opportunity to officially pardon The Ruler: and he did. Kudos to David Paterson. Not let's keep our fingers crossed for a new Slick Rick album, eh?This is really powerful and insightful in ways a lot of hip-hop isn't. The video might be a bit graphic for some, but it's very effective in delivering the song's method. Download the song here (zShare link).
Sick children on television wishing
someone would just give them some money
so they don't have to be the victim
Behind them Christian televangelists
make it the mission
deny the aid unless they kneel and pray submission
Jesus saves
as long as you pay the bishop for permission
Repent the fact that you're abused
by the human condition
There's room for addiction
in every lower class tradition
Masking friction between
so called "masters" and the "wicked"
Poverty's fingers reaching everyone
without forgiveness
At least if you're not white
or in line to inherit riches
Everyone witnesses what is and isn't fiction
And goes home at night denying
that they contributed to the sickness
White people act like they're not racist
cause they have a friend that's black
Or cause they've struggled
with their economic situation
Blaming minorities for what they call "complacence"
Facing openly racist conversations by administrations
The expectation that the jail is always waiting
breeds hatred
making reparations the logical compensation
First step is equalizing education
so the concentration camps we call the ghetto
are home to more than desperationThrow your motherfucking hands up!
If you wanna see the president in handcuffs
If you think television has no answers
If you'll never be a slave to the cancerThe elected are puppets, figurines,
speakers for the invisible leaders of the regime
Felons who live on selling the american dream
Scaring the people with evil extremes till they scream
I've seen armies of human machines
march in green fatigues
Fight for the love of the blood
and their obscene beliefs
Ignoring others that grieve
brother and mothers receive
A punishment that exceeds all
but the wickedest greed
Never a choice to concede
we'd rather struggle to breathe
Fight till we drown and recede
than sit around and mislead
I'll spit a round in the seed
of who's not down to defeat
delete clowns and the sheep
till we surround the elites
Show them the aftereffects
of all the taxes and debts
All the Iraq's that reflect
the way their facts are suspect
I'll be unmasking the threat the everlasting regret
Those little bastards will get
when we start blasting the setThrow your motherfucking hands up!
If you wanna see the president in handcuffs
If you think television has no answers
If you'll never be a slave to the cancer
From Zazen's album, The Glass Should Be Full. Production by Kno (Cunninlynguists), Maker (Glue), Joe Beats (Non-Prophets), Gnotes, Scroll, J.Ferra and Confidence. Listen to the samples from the album here or at his MySpace.
Can a videogame soundtrack placement be better than having a hit single/album? Gooch weighs in:
Which brings me to my next point, the idea that having a song in Grand Theft Auto IV is better than having a hit single. That is something I truly believe. Why? Because let’s face it, video games have easily supplanted movies, music, and pretty much everything else in the world of entertainment as the dominant force of our generation. Let’s stop comparing Soundscan #’s from irrelevant rappers who can barely string together a few coherent sentences, let alone an entire album of songs. Let’s start analyzing console sales figures like THESE. How Nintendo’s Wii is still outselling Xboxes and PS3s.
Let’s talk about how Grand Theft Auto IV sold 3.6 MILLION copies on its first day of release. Let’s keep it real, most rappers these days can hardly get 50 thousand people to buy their shit in an entire YEAR, and that product costs 10-13 dollars, and can be purchased literally with the click of a button on your computer. Not only that, but the artists themselves spend 3-6 months promoting the shit out of it, they have their songs on the radio every 3 seconds, create all sorts of dumb viral videos and fictional beefs to drum up hype, and an entire building of employees (read: what most major label employees spend their days doing) adding MySpace and Facebook friends, and sending out stupid bulletins all day long. Pathetic.
Meanwhile you’ve got this video game in your hands that you paid 50 dollars for, never mind the console itself, which ran you something like 400, just so you could play. And you’ve got GTA4, with it’s myriad selection of radio stations where you can actually (gasp!) hear incredible music. Not just top40 bullshit or whatever Joe Schmoe at Clearchannel punched into the Urban AC playlist this week. You can hear Funk and Jazz and Rock and Hip-Hop and Reggae and Disco. I live in New York City, the media capital of the world, and for the life of me I can’t tell you where on my FM dial I can actually hear all of the genres I just mentioned. Shit, I don’t think we even have an oldies station here except for CBS FM.
Point is that when you have access to this music, and you’re engaged in a game as deep as GTA4, it’s almost impossible to not become connected to the music on the game’s radio stations. I myself have googled the soundtrack a bunch of times just to see which songs were playing on what stations. And you know what, even if I went and downloaded the particular song I was interested in illegally (which I haven’t, but just saying), at least my eyes and attention are now on that artist. And they may make money off me in some other way, be it by going to their concert, or purchasing their merchandise or whatever. Whereas with regular radio, how many times can I hear Usher’s “Love In This Club?” If I’m hearing it 60 times a day, why would I actually buy the album? I can just turn the radio on. But it costs so much for acts to get their music on the radio. Rising costs + decreasing % of return on investment= bad economics.
So I see something like Liberty City Invasion as this amazing opportunity for Green Lantern to showcase his music to people who are actually interested, without having to ram it down their throats (pause) like most people in the rap business do these days. It’s a zero cost product that sells itself, because it already served its purpose by being in the game. And if that’s where people’s attention spans are these days, seems like a no- brainer to me. Because I don’t know anyone tuned into MTV, BET, or any radio station to the point where they are giving it their full attention. Not like they’re giving it to their Xbox, PS3, or Wii. And aren’t those the type of people you want to be focusing on, the ones who’re actually paying attention?
Rappers like Joell Ortiz and Bishop Lamont got their big breaks on tracks from a prominent videogame's soundtrack. But the reason I used Dan the Automator's album as an example on the top is because it represents a counterpoint. These soundtracks, despite excellent guest lists and a talented producer (in this example, the Automator) don't always work out so well. You can't always just throw a bunch of rappers together under one producer and expect that there's always going to be chemistry. I think the difference between GTA & 2K7's soundtracks is that GTA is an event game, whereas NBA games are released annually. Any product associated with Grand Theft Auto will automatically have a selling point and an guaranteed audience. Which is more than I can say for a lot of albums these days, which have to include a track to appeal to every possible audience because they don't know who's buying these albums.
What do you guys think?
For good measure, a video of one of the good songs from 2K7.
Dan The Automator ft.Hieroglyphics - Don't Hate The Player, Hate The Game
The Ruler's back, with a live band! Best get your tickets soon.
Details:
Doors: 8pm
$18
More info at the Harper's Ferry website.
From an article in the Boston Phoenix about the band backing Rick:
Last year I would have said that 2006 sucked. That’s just my style. But backtracking through my pre-iCal day planner, attempting to place myself at the end of that summer, I’m tearfully nostalgic. For two years ago. That August, Gnarls Barkley smacked Avalon so hard that I held my piss for the entire set. On the first weekend that September, Brooklyn’s Boot Camp Clik reunited at the Middle East downstairs, where Jedi Mind Tricks, Kool Keith, and Lupe Fiasco played the same month. And on September 22, Jam Master Jay’s mother dropped her own needle on the record when, in front of more than 1000 people at the Berklee Performance Center, she scolded DMC for never calling with condolences after her son’s tragic 2002 passing.
But of all the tumult and talent swinging through town that summer, I cherish most my memories of Audible Mainframe backing Slick Rick at Harpers Ferry. I stood with my crotch against the stage that September night as Boston’s organic hip-hop ambassadors heroically tweaked old-school instrumentals while the Ruler guided a swollen crowd through his eternal catalogue. It was a cross-generational adventure; as “Hey Young World,” “Children’s Story,” and “Mona Lisa” spilled back-to-back-to-back, rap fans young and ancient sang along. This was not another burnt-out legend packing an iPod stuffed with instrumentals; this was Slick Rick — pimping a mint’s worth of platinum splurges on his neck, wrists, teeth, and fingers — reanimating some of hip-hop’s greatest cuts with a little help from some local boys made good.
“I felt like I was 10 years old all over again at that first show,” says Audible’s MC Exposition, who plays hype man when he’s on stage with Rick. “I used to rap those songs in the mirror to myself as a kid, so to be on stage doing the callbacks with the man who wrote them was crazy. I have a shit-eating grin on my face in every picture that I’ve seen from that night.”
Although fans might have expected the Harpers debut of Audible and Rick to roll smoothly, wariness prevailed backstage. The band had had no rehearsal time with Rick, who till that night had never performed with so much as a rhythm section, let alone a horn-and-keyboard-studded outfit like Audible. “Preparation” consisted of Rick’s management sending Audible a list of songs two weeks before the gig, with little supplemental instruction, so that when judgment day arrived, the whole thing still seemed unbelievable, if not unfeasible. “Rick showed up like an hour before the show, and even he was a little skeptical,” said Exposition. “We knew the songs, and obviously we knew that he knew the songs, but neither of us has ever done this before.”
Read the rest here.
The Internets Celebrities Dallas Penn and Rafi Kam go in for an investigative report on Check-Cashing. Themes explored include usury, economic instability, commercial banks and their profit line, and the cycle of poverty.
Oh yeah, it's a comedy.
The video is shot on location in Bushwick and Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn, New York. Also stars special guest Internets Celebrity Ben Popken of Consumerist.com.
Directed by Casimir Nozkowski
Shot by Ian Savage, Josh Weisbrot
Music by El Keter; instrumental from song "The Bottom Line" off Sankofa's album The Tortoise Hustle. Used with full permission.
More on the inspiration for the vid on the official ICs site.
And for a moment, let's revisit the classics. These are my favourite IC videos.
Ghetto Big Mac:
Bodega:
Cereal Is Dope:
1. Intro (prod. by Andre Jackson)
2. Born for a purpose (prod. by Mahjik, scratches by Jodo)
3. Illuminate (prod. by Hurricane Ivan)
4. Karizma feat. Rukus (prod. by K-V)
5. Naija Tin (arranged by Doug Funny)
6. Be great now or later (prod. by J-Zone)
7. '06 till Infinity
8. 85' Get down (prod. by B-live)
9. Word in yo' life
10. Wahala feat. Rukus & Mercy (prod. by Marciano beats)
11. After (the afterparty) feat. Rukus (prod. by Andre Jackson)
12. Naijaluvthing feat. Keno (prod. by Erik Rico)
13. Never let up feat. Plussign (B-live & Soulbrotha) (prod. by Infekt)
14. It's what you do (prod. by B-live)
15. Song of Sorrows feat. Mercy (prod. by Random)
16. Just a dream (prod. by DJ Don Cannon)
17. Shy Groovin' feat. Alexis (prod. by Doug Funny)
18. Lord Thanks gifterlude
19. Outro (prod. by Andre Jackson)
