Perhaps in the spirit of the day hip hop legends De La Soul will be making their entire catalog FREE for download via their website starting Friday (2/14) at 11am and continuing until Saturday (2/15) at noon. There is an interview with the band right now over at Rolling Stone worth checking out that goes into some further details on why they are doing so.
Previously we brought you the video for "In the A" from the new Big Boi album, Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors. Today we got "Mama Told Me" featuring Kelly Rowland, which is a spacey symmetrified vid directed by Syndrome Studio. Big Boi requested something "trippy and colorful" and the video definitely contains that, looking influenced by old 70's blacklight designs.
There has been some confusion regarding this track because while Kelly Rowland performs this track on the album, Big Boi has recently been performing it live with Little Dragon's Yukumi Nagano. The story is the track originally was recorded w/ Nagano but due to "label disputes" was replaced with a version with Rowland. Below is the original to compare.... which one do you like better?
After a number of mixtape releases in 2011, self described Philly "bedroom composer" Lushlife(aka. Raj Halder) released his debut LP Plateau Visions.
One of the stand out tracks, "Magnolia" recently got a video directed by duo Nik Harper & Jesse Lamar High (LAMAR+NIK) and does alot with what can be guessed as a limited budget. The concept is really cool and probably was a bitch to pull off. Kudos...
Blue
Sky Black Death seem to be the hardest working producers in the game. Having
only just dropped the Cliff of Death ep with Deniro Farrar, the Seattle production duo have yet another
release for us before the end of 2012. Skull and Bones is a full-length
collaboration with young Seattle spitters Bolo Nef and Caz Greez. The only
guest appearance is by frequent BSBD collaborator Nacho Picasso, stream
and download the LP below…
Seattle production duo Blue Sky Black Death have returned
with a new partner in crime in North Carolina’s Deniro Farrar for the new seven-song Cliff Of Death EP. Much like their
collaborations with Nacho Picasso the production
sound on this EP is laced with glacial sounds and dreamy vibes.
Credits:
Released 20 December 2012
Album produced, mixed and mastered by Blue Sky Black Death. Artwork by Blue Sky
Black Death. Vocals recorded by Mike Pepe @ In Silence Recordings.
Whenever I start getting sad about the state of hip-hop these days I pull out my old De La Soul records and remember why I got into hip-hop in the first place. De La hasn't put out a release since 2006's The Grind Date but its members have been active collaborating with groups like Gorillaz and have had various side projects. Recently 2 of its members, Posdnuos (aka. Jacob "Pop Life" Barrow) and Plug 1 & Plug 2 (aka. Deen Whittier) have formed a new project entiled, First Serve.
They have plans to release a full album in April and in the meantime released a new downloadable mixtape called The Goon Time Mixtape via Soundcloud which you can grab below. It's been a while since I've seen some House of Pain or Ini Kamoze make their way into a mixtape.
1 - First Serve - We Made It Interlude
2 - First Serve vs Aloe Blacc – Pushin’ Aside, Pushin’ Along
3 - Notorious BIG vs De La Soul – Whatchu Want
4 - Krs-ONE vs 2&4 –
5 - Jay-Z – 99 Problems (Prodigy Remix)
6 - First Serve vs Run DMC – The Work/Walk This Way
7 - Run DMC vs Jason Navins – It’s Like That
8 - Theophilus London – Girls Money
9 - 2&4 vs Akil (of Jurassic 5), Busta – Must B The Music (Remix)
10 - First Serve vs Eminem – Move ‘Em In, Move ‘Em Out
11 - Lupe Fiasco feat. MDMA – Coming Up
12 - Cee-Lo – Bright Lights, Bigger City
13 - Grand Master Flash – The Message (2&4 Mash Up)
14 - Mystikal -Bouncin’ Back
15 - Jurassic 5 – The Influence (2&4 Mash Up)
16 - Redman vs Dj Quick – Get Dirty (2&4 Remix)
17 - IAM – La Saga (2&4 Mash Up)
18 - First Serve – Must B The Music
19 - The Beatles vs Joan Jett vs Cypress Hill vs House Of Pain vs RATM – Mash Up
20 - BB King – Boom Boom Boom (Remix)
21 - De La Soul – Say No Saturday
22 - Nas – Made You Look (Remix)
23 - Ini Kamoze vs Naughty By Nature – Here Comes The Hotstepper
24 - First Serve – Move ‘Em In, Move ‘Em Out (Demo Version)
Christmas came early for fans of The Weeknd with yet another free "mixtape", or as I like to call them..."albums". One wonders when our favorite (post?) R&B/Hip-Hop act of this year will get an official release, yet we're guessing they're consciously stalling and choosing their own release schedule and strategies. Not to mention that free or not free, signed or unsigned The Weeknd's music is special. We should note that track 7 is produced by another favorite of ours: Clams Casino (whose instrumental mixtape is a 2011 highlight and you should also download for free here, if you haven't already) Download the new The Weeknd mixtape "Echoes of Silence" here or through their site. In case you were wondering, we're still loving the crew.
Earlier this year, Providence MPC wizard AraabMUZIK released his solo album Electronic Dream, Today, roughly six months later he releases a deluxe edition of that album. The deluxe edition features six new tracks, and we’ve got one of them below. Listen to “I Remember,” Araab’s reworking of very well known club anthem from Deadmau5/Kaskade of the same name.
If you've been sippin' on som' syzzurp chances are you'll really enjoy this (Sincerely Yours approved) chopped & screwed version of jj's excellent mixtape "kills" (which was given away by the Swedish duo last Christmas and is still available as a free download here) by newcomer Joel Rampage. If slowed down hip-hop is your cup of drank than you should definitely give this a go. Download it for free here.
Thom Yorke and DOOM (formerly MF DOOM) are known fans of each other's music and a collaboration has long been in the pipeline (the former has already done a remix for the latter's "Gazzilion Ear"). That day has finally come with the addition of Jonny Greenwood, another Radiohead member, to the team. On the track "Retarded Fren", indie hip-hop's favorite villain raps in his characteristic on-the-verge-of-spoken-word flow while his two collaborators provide the sleak broken glitch-beat production with some pizzicato strings to take the edge off (don't go looking for a Thom Yorke chorus, he doesn't offer up any vocals on the song). The track will feature on a 10th Anniversary Compilation for Lex Records. Stream the track directly at this soundcloud link.
Last week we featured AraabMUZIK‘s remix of The Big Pink‘s “Stay Gold” today we bring you the Danny Brown remix of the remix which sees the man throwing some rhymes over Araab’s beats.
A while back we posted The Big Pink's "Stay Gold" single and accompanying video clip. Never in our wildest dreams would we have expected AraabMUZIK to toss it in his MPC blender and deliver a banging remix for it. Listen to or download both the original and the remix below, the latter being probably the most pensive track we've heard from this young producer (who by the way just produced a 50 Cent track) signaling a promising versatility we were previously unaware of:
It's that time of the month again. Lil B just released another free mixtape (the Based God don't need no money) that you can stream or download below. Expect lo-fi beats and signature stream of consciousness flows with about an equal ratio of hits and misses. Oh and if you don't get the cover art reference than this probably isn't your cup of tea.
J Dilla's "Donuts", the last album to be released before the seminal producer's passing, is being re-released with a new "smiley version" cover on Stones Throw records. Instead of taking up half of this blog's real estate to describe just how much this man influenced every single genre of music that involves the use of beats, watch a new video posted by the label of album track "U-Love" which was submitted in a relevant competition too late to make the cut, but too appropriate to be skipped. Enjoy:
We here at Onomatopoeia have been quite keen on DJDoc Delay (out of Brooklyn, NY) for a while now. With each release he brings something new to the table whether it be South crunk/60's psychedelic mashups (Psycrunk) or straight up 70's Turkish psych/Hip-hop beats (Rajaz Meter) he shit never sounds like anyone elses. Best part is he has no qualms of throwing mixes up on his site for free or download. These are not necessarily new but definitely are on a high rotation at casa de' Scraped Knee (aka. my house). Highly recommend picking up his backlog of releases.
Galactic Convertible Music
Soulful mix of tripped out beats and old 70's Sci-Fi.
Galactic Hot Tub Music
Space-wave... just made that up... at its finest. Download here...
We got the new video from Rhode Island MPC wizard AraabMUZIK in the form of “Streetz Tonight” from his debut LP Electronic Dream. The video features Abraham Orellana walking into a hotel, sitting down at his pad and busting out a slightly different version of the song nonchalantly, all viewed from CCTV, enjoy…
We've been looking forward to our first post on Onomatopoeia, but we wanted to wait for something special. This mini documentary on the Rhode Island MPC wizard AraabMUZIK seemed like the perfect way to start things off. Gone are the days when hip-hop producers spent more time crate-digging for obscure ancient samples then they did on their actual equipment: the source material on this young producer's debut LP "Electronic Dream" is bargain-bin commercial trance music, which he chops and cuts through ruthlessly with his ultra-compressed hip-hop beats. Listen to the stand out track "Streetz Tonight" below and you can decide for yourself whether you'd rather grind or fist pump.
As we mentioned earlier this week New York's Company Flow, aka the trio of El-P, Mr. Len, and Bigg Jus, have announced their first performances since they broke up in 2001.
To celebrate, El-P has let loose a lost mix of the Co Flow single "End 2 End Burners" for fans to enjoy and get amped for this upcoming reunion. Check it out in the player below.
Here we have a BBC documentary entitled "Once Upon a Time in New York - The Birth of Hip Hop, Disco & Punk."
By the 1970s most pop music in the USA was dominated by West Coast artists and that NYC, despite being home many creative types, was experiencing a period of stunted growth - the video goes on to explain how three unique genres of music managed to rise from a gritty, decades-old New York. From the rise of punk in the Bowery's legendary CBGB to the glamorous all-night parties at Studio 54 and the rough beginnings of modern hip hop in the Bronx - "Once Upon a Time in New York" does an excellent job of chronicling how the city reclaimed musical relevance in the 1970s. Including interviews with the likes of Patti Smith, Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaataa, Chuck D, Tommy Ramone, Chris Stein, David Mancuso, Jayne County and more, the video is certainly worth a watch for anyone interested in the history of music.
