Feb
06

Blu Jesus

Fun fact: this video was created entirely out a photo collage of pictures taken from Blu’s Instagram page. Media TakeOut told me that Lana Del Rey demanded her swag back after watching this (and a full definition of what swag means in 2012).

Madlib is credited with the beat. Only the IRS knows if he got paid.

Feb
06

Ugandan Warhorns and Eagles

Dear Internet,

Remember that one time when a bunch of you gave money to foot the bill for the weed carrier in Animal Collective to travel to Mali to play a concert and buy all sorts of exotic sandals. Well, this time I have an even better and less culturally noxious offer for you. Mike Eagle and Ras G are two of the best musicians that Los Angeles has yielded in the last decade. The former popularized the phrase “art-rap” to make Animal Collective fans feel guilty for ignoring experimental rap in favor of exclusively Dipset (I know, you’ve all changed.) The latter helped found the Beat Scene that brought you such artists as Flying Lotus, Nosaj Thing, and Allen Ginsberg.

Now they’ve collaborated to help promote a trip to Africa to school the Ugandan youth on both the boom and the bap. A full-length project will come out of it and Mike and Ras have already raised half of the necessary funds thanks to a grant from the LA Department of Cultural Affairs. Now they need another $5,000 in matching donations. Mike’s spiel is below the jump. So is the song they’ve recorded, which I highly endorse. You can donate here and you should. But don’t take my word for it, listen to the advice of the famous Hollywood celebrity.

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Feb
06

Ride the Pace Like At 33 Dark Shades: Gangrene, Evidence & Roc C Throw Shade

Jonah Bromwich moves on to the year 3000.

The knock on Gangrene is fair: the beats are mostly more interesting than the raps. The easy fix is Evidence, the slow-flow professional, who adds his pedigree to a beat which echoes the dank inter-workings of a futuristic factory — the slow-clanging and gurgles suggesting the mechanical movements that murderers move with.

Evidence is in his element here. His sharp pronunciations rings out above the clamor, clearing the way for humanity amidst the dusty and dirty sounds — as though Pigpen programmed the keys. Evidence’s Cats and Dogs was unfairly ignored last year, an unflashy album that showcased an MC who hasn’t stopped growing in two decades.

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Feb
06

Son Raw: Araabmuzik – Vocal University


Son Raw was bored so he made this. If aggregating Hulkshare links can be considered “making something.”

Newsflash: rap beats almost always sound better when emcees rap over them, so while Araabmuzik’s Instrumental University may be of great interest to aspiring swag rappers from Harlem to Houston Street, there’s not much there for the rest of us who enjoy hearing songs in their final form. That’s a shame though because while Electronic Dream remains one of my favorite releases last year, there’s a whole side of Araabmuzik’s production that doesn’t revolve around making DeadMau5 palatable to people who aren’t on ecstasy. Read more »

Feb
03

Should you bank on Azealia?

Jonah Bromwich slightly prefers Ashley Banks.

What made “212″ great? It’s actually pretty easy to explain.

1. It came from a person that no one had ever heard of.

2. It was well-rapped, (incredibly well-rapped, actually) by a person that no one had ever of.

3. It was raunchy as hell, while being well-rapped, by a person that no one had ever heard of.

Now that we’ve heard of Azealia Banks, now that we know she can rap exceedingly well, she’s going to get judged a hell of a lot more harshly. Two minutes into “Bambi” she goes off like we know she can, for all of thirty seconds. This is after two minutes of irritating blather over pretty generic beat. It’s not going to cut it.

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Feb
03

Boldy James : Concreatures and Crack Spots.

Jimmy Ness is neither related to Elliot nor Neutron.

Boldy James has a love affair with the block. He sounds like Prodigy, flows like Curren$y and creates the kind of grimy tracks that most 90s rappers should return home to.The 29 year old bares his wounds and retells his days of struggle in a similar style to perennial gangsta poster boy Freddie Gibbs.

Boldy’s proud of his hood conquests and the small triumphs that come from making illegal dollars. But he’s also unflinchingly honest in his failures. The Detroit native isn’t playing Scarface and importing Cocaine straight from a Mexican cartel. He’s trying to get off the ground while fighting with family and thinking about the consequences of life in prison.

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Feb
02

Question in the Form of An Answer: Mayer Hawthorne

Some dismissed Mayer Hawthorne’s debut, A Strange Arrangement as overly contrived. But the record was truly one of the great growers of 2009, helped in no small measure by Stones Throw Records and Hawthorne’s vintage connoisseur taste. Not to mention, Hawthorne’s  rare knack for pleasantly deluding people into believing that they could do what he does with the right snappy retro suit.

Soon, a bunch of major labels were trying to break down Hawthorne’s door and sign him to lucrative deals. But many were surprised when a month before the release of his new album How Do You Do, he announced his departure from Stones Throw to sign with Universal Republic. I caught Hawthorne on the horn for 15 minutes before he set off upon the latest leg of his “How Do You Do” world tour. He’s a breezy conversationalist, but there’s a confidence here that perhaps didn’t always come out in his earlier interviews. We chatted about Detroit, label moves and Thanksgiving shows.

The interview was originally conducted for a Scene Magazine feature story, but is reproduced in full for Passion of the Weiss. – Matt Shea

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Feb
01

D’ Angelo – Live in Paris, 2012

Should you attempt to do a Google Image search of D’ Angelo, you will come across two types of pictures: shirtless and shredded or morbidly obese and hirsute. There is no in-between. Then I stumble across this shot, taken from his recent gig in Paris. The blog Funk It somehow managed to wrangle fairly high quality audio of his live performance, complete with new material and “Space Oddity.” He is in a tank top and no longer needing to cover himself up in a Muu Muu. I think this bodes well.

Download:
MP3: D’ Angelo – Live in Paris, 2012 (1/29/12) (Full Show)

D’Angelo – solo medley – January 29, 2012 Paris, France – Le Zenith by Funk It Blog

Feb
01

Gold Mann Saks

Mann & Y.G. are nemeses, ex-jerk rappers fighting to see who can appropriate 90s hip-hop LA classics to better ends. They are probably the most popular 20-year old rappers in the city without a skateboard. Both have graduated from Candyman rap into the G-Funk era (radio edit). Y.G. recently snatched “Bitches Ain’t Shit.” Mann plunders “Nuthin But I G Thing.” I’m waiting for the rapper that will artfully pilfer “The $20 Sack Pyramid.” After all, weed and writing salaries are the only things that haven’t seen any inflation since 1992.

Neither of these songs will make you put down your Curren$y, Gibbs, or Danny Brown, but they are catchy Los Angeles radio rap. Middle school kids need dance songs too and not every generation gets the Soul Train or “Scenario” it deserves. Both have ways to go before they supplant “Rack City” as the greatest song of all-time to tell a woman to cover herself with a poncho.

Feb
01

Don Cornelius, R.I.P.

All apologies to the Don Mega and Cartagena, but there was only one Don. The late Cornelius, who put himself to sleep at the age of 75. I spoke with him once for the LA Times in late September of 2010, right around the time the Best of Soul Train was being released. The conversation was brief, maybe 20 minutes or so, but he still had that honey- smoked, ripple-free baritone. Perhaps the most soothing and reassuring voice ever ingrained in my memory. The aural equivalent of a paternal pat on the shoulder — one that conveyed eternal wisdom, gravity, and rhythm. Cornelius was the born salesman, more soul sage than loose cannon. He might have occasionally matched Sly Stone in his paisley flamboyance, but he conveyed a garish gravitas that meshed perfectly with the libidinous funk that he reigned over.

You don’t need me to rattle off his list of accomplishments. Michaelangelo Matos did an excellent job of mournful contextualization at Sound of the City. Even though I was far to young to have seen the glory era of the long-running syndicated program, even into the 90s, a pre-adolescent Saturday ritual included Saved by the Bell and Soul Train. As rap eclipsed soul as the sound of the youth, he was able to parse it with a certain bewildered clarity. Despite his initial reluctance to embrace hip-hop, he did — with the resigned embrace of someone who knows that the kids can’t be all wrong.

It’s reductive to say that this is the end of an era. That era died a long time ago. Cornelius may not have even been as influential as his older predecessor, Johnny Otis, who died a few weeks ago. But he had the TV show and the great hair and suits and soul. There were the guests, the dancers, the bell bottoms, and his role as the great gatekeeper, everyone’s cool dad.  The dad became the granddad and everyone’s granddad is dead. So what are we supposed to say but peace and soul and rest in paisley. You and I both know that the only good advice is to keep on dancing.

My interview with Don Cornelius is below the jump, alongside a litany of classic Soul Train performances.

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