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Posts Tagged ‘rap’

It’s been over a decade since One Be Lo first burst on to the Midwest’s hip-hop scene as part of the now legendary Binary Star and he’s still more than alive and kicking. His fourth solo release since the original dissolution of Binary Star, L.A.B.O.R., is due out on September 6th and if its first single “The G.O.A.T.” is any declaration of what’s in store One Be Lo’s powerful wordplay and trade marked murky and soulful beats are back in full form.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3_JfmBejjw

In years gone by, there just never would have been a debate: Snoop Dogg is black.

In recent years, however, Snoop has been seen to engage in a number of typical “white person” pursuits, such as expressing a desire to appear in Coronation Street, playing Metallica songs and continuing to use words ending in “-izzle” years long after it became annoying and everybody else agreed to stop. He may even play golf.

It took an appearance on TBS’ George Lopez show earlier to finally answer the question we’d all been asking: who’s blacker, Snoop Dogg or Charles Barkley? The results are below.

Many of you will remember producer wait what‘s, mashup project the notorious xx. The album quickly gained a ridiculous amount of attention from a variety of sources including The New Yorker, New York Magazine, and Rolling Stone among others. Rather than sit back and live fat, wait what decided to ball out and follow up with a mixtape, this is real life, which features some hood tracks that gather source materials from modern indie (Sleigh Bells, Justice, LCD Soundsytem, etc.) and the annals of the late nineties rap (Black Rob, Lord Tariq & Peter Gunz).

wait what – this is real life [Download]

this is real life by wait what

OJ Simpson
Here is a bonus track from Guilty Simpson and Madlib‘s collaborative album OJ Simpson. The choruses are Motown soul smoothness, but the verses are subtle and laid back, letting Simpson’s deep, authoritative voice take over.

Guilty Simpson and Madlib – “Friends Only”

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Last week we enjoyed the worldly wisdom of Eddie Vedder and Chris Cornell, so this week I thought we could move on to the underworld by balling out with Bone Thugs-n-Harmony‘s “Tha Crossroads,” one of my favorite songs of all time.

“Tha Crossroads” is about losing a homie (in this case Eazy-E) and how sometimes the only way to honor your fallen brother is turn gangster rap into a barbershop quartet performed four times as fast. The Thugs – Bizzy Bone, Krayzie Bone, Wish Bone, Layzie Bone, and Flesh-n-Bone – deserve exceptional respect for their work on “Tha Crossroads.” Not only is it an epic meditation on youth, death, and the violent realities of thug life set to stellar production, but they go the entire song without using the phrase “gotta smoke that hydro whoa,” something they were unable to do to date in their career.

The video itself is an audiovisual experience like none other. Bone Thugs start the video at a funeral where a diegetic gospel choir sings a hymn, introducing the main character of the music video, the grim reaper. In case you didn’t know the grim reaper wears a trenchcoat, leather hat, shades, and has a pair of white, feathery angel wings hidden beneath all of this. As the song proceeds we get various shots of the reaper haunting the Thugs. He takes out a homie early on, then Uncle Charles (“oh ya I miss my Uncle Charles, y’all” at 2:31),…

ClaudioWhen most people (as in people who don’t play Dungeons and Dragons) first hear Coheed and Cambria, they think something along the lines of, “well, those dudes are pretty good at their instruments, but I hate that chick’s voice.” That “chick,” the androgynous, interstellar-creation-myth-spawning, graphic-novel and guitar wizard known as Claudio Sanchez has few vocal peers, the closest being Geddy Lee or Alvin of Chipmunks fame.

So when presented with a MASHUP (because this is the internet after all) of Tupac‘s “Dear Mama” & Coheed and Cambria’s “Welcome Home,” we’d all expect Claudio’s falsetto to be replaced by sensitive Tupac verses. Instead, we, the listeners, are treated to Claudio soloing over soulful guitar licks and a chill beat. If I had to sum up my feelings about this MASHUP I’d have to cite both of these lyrical geniuses.

Tupac – “Changes”

“I made a G today” But you made it in a sleazy way
sellin’ crack to the kid. ” I gotta get paid,”
Well hey, well that’s the way it is

Coheed and Cambria – “The Crowing” and “2113”

Dear Ambellina, the Prise wishes you to watch over me
Dear Ambellina, the Prise wishes you to watch over me

But IRO-Bot will never die.
IRO-Bot will never die.
But IRO-Bot will never die.
But IRO-Bot will never die…

Tupac & Coheed and Cambria – “Welcome Home Mama”

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