Posted by iyae on November 13, 2010 at 7:35 pm. Filed under: Music, News
With only 9 days to go until the album drops, reviews for Kanye West‘s highly-anticipated album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy have been slowly creeping up with only positive things to say. It’s good to hear, and it’s great to read. With all the negativity in recent times people can quickly forget the music.
For the full interview hit up the link after the jump.
After recording an album-length, Auto-Tuned sigh, Kanye West is ready to celebrate again, but not in the way we’ve come to expect. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy isn’t idly titled. It’s a sinister, orchestral, hugely grandiose affair that owes as much to the artist’s self-aggrandizing ego as to the voracious id that would destroy it publicly. Exhibit A: West to album cover portraitist George Condo: “Look, I’ma let you finish, but can you make me look even douchier?”
A princely narcissist among narcissists, West has never been afraid to marvel at, pose questions to, or generally bask in the inner folds of his psyche, but there was only one way to interpret the early message sent by “Runaway.” He was calling himself an asshole, in the chorus of an epic, piano-driven, ear-worming single. Fantasy is filled with similar moments, as if West is working from a checklist of his faults. Workaholic. Commitment phobe. Loose cannon. Substance abuser. On “Dark Fantasy,” the album’s beyond luxe opener, he raps: “The plan was to drink until the pain over / But what’s worse, the pain or the hangover? / Fresh air, rolling down the window / Too many Urkels on your team, that’s why your Wins-low.” See what he did there? Loss becomes win.
Posted by iyae on October 5, 2010 at 4:42 pm. Filed under: Music, Videos
Damn! I missed this. New video from three of the hottest emcees in the game right now. Royce da 5’9″ and Elzhi drop jewels on this heater from Detroit’s own Black Milk. I think I’m gonna have to cop Black’s new LP Album of the Year now. iTunes or the record shop? Man I don’t know. But it’s bought. peace
Posted by iyae on September 25, 2010 at 8:29 am. Filed under: Music, News
Just peeped this interview on Vanity Fair with the one and only Ice Cube. It’s actually quite an amusing read, I recommend you check it out. Eric Spitznagel waxes intellectual about his new album, the n-word, and pagers (damn, people still got pagers?). Check it out below.
Some of you are probably too young to remember, but there was a time when hip-hop music was legitimately threatening. These days, even the shtick of the most hardcore rappers seems at least a little staged. Not that guys like Jay-Z and 50 Cent are completely faking it—you don’t survive a nine-bullet fusillade without having some gangsta credibility—but they’re also following a script, even if only subconsciously. During the late 80s, before the advent of coastal rap feuds and saggy pants, a group like N.W.A. (an acronym for “N-words With Attitude”) was legitimately shocking, and not just to suburban white kids who couldn’t so much as whisper their name without feeling a little racist. Ice Cube, N.W.A.’s de facto leader (Dr. Dre notwithstanding), was a living/breathing/rapping example of an equal-opportunity intimidator. It didn’t matter if you were black or white: when Cube expressed relief at being able to enjoy a day without using his A.K. or confessed that he had no moral quandaries about gunning down a police officer who’d gotten a little too comfortable with his “authority to kill a minority,” you’d have to have been an idiot to accuse him of being ironic. Remarkably, his gangsta-rap posturing still has credibility after two decades and a few too many Friday sequels. It’s almost impossible not to sound like a bitter old man when explaining why things were so much cooler back in your youth, but seriously, with all due respect to Lil Wayne’s diamond-studded grill and tat-covered torso, he will never be able to compete with the testicle-rattling fear that Ice Cube could inspire with a mere scowl.
I called Ice Cube to talk about his new album, I Am West, which drops next Tuesday, September 28.
Maybe I just listened to Straight Outta Compton a few too many times as a teenager, but I was honestly nervous about talking to him. As it turned out, he was affable and facetious, quick to laugh and play along with any absurd line of questioning that was thrown at him. But then he told me that some of the funniest people he’s ever known are also the most dangerous. “They’ll make you laugh and shit,” he said. “But the moment you turn your back, they’ll fucking kill you.” So I’m not sure what Cube was trying to tell me exactly.
Posted by iyae on September 20, 2010 at 5:19 pm. Filed under: Music, News
When life is actually too busy to post a few words on a blog a day you know you need to take a rest. But I got a good one for ya. Veteren producer Ski Beatz is dropping his debut album 24 Hour Karate School tomorrow and I’m hyped. After producing pretty much all of Curren$y‘s latest album it’s no surprise that we got dude all over this album. Hey, It’s a good thing.
There is also a slew of dope emcee’s on this spreading between underground, boom-bap, and commercial. With names like Talib Kweli‘s latest labelmate and legend in her own right Jean Grae, old school conneisuers The Cool Kids, Pittsburgh’s own Wiz Khalifa, Rass Kass and Camp Lo over dope-ass Ski Beatz Production you know this is gonna be heat. Check out the Video for Nothing But Us below and cop that ish tomorrow!
TRACKLIST
1. Nothing But Us (feat. Curren$y & Wiz Khalifa)
2. Go (feat. Jim Jones & Curren$y)
3. Prowler 2 (feat. Jean Grae, Jay Electronica & Joell Ortiz)
4. Do It Big!! (feat. The Cool Kids & Stalley)
5. S.T.A.L.L.E.Y. (feat. Stalley)
6. Not Like Me (feat. Tabi Bonney)
7. Scaling The Building (feat. Wiz Khalifa & Curren$y)
8. Super Duper Bad (feat. Rugz D Bueler)
9. I Got Mines (feat. Tabi Bonney, Nikki Wray, Ras Kass & Stalley)
10. Back Uptown (feat. Camp Lo)
11. Cream of the Planet (Instrumental)
12. Taxi (Instrumental)
Posted by iyae on September 14, 2010 at 11:37 am. Filed under: Music, News
Sometimes I love mailing lists. Definitive Jux have just sent me an email informing me that the late rapper Camu Tao‘s posthumous debut album King of Hearts is available! So obviously I went straight to their site and copped the digital download.
King of Hearts is a compilation of all the work Camu put in for his debut album that was supposed to be released 2008. It’s unfinished and It’s untouched. Now I’m in two minds as if this would be a good thing or not and dude had been experimenting with a new style. Saying that it seems to have garnered him to pretty mainstream fans such as Dangermouse and Kid Cudi, so I am kind of excited at the prospect of hearing his vision without any posthumous, unapproved altering.
I haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet but once the work day is over, I’m going straight home and bumping that. I suggest you do the same. Click the link below to head over to the site and cop it!
