The Words Paint Pictures EP from Rapper Big Pooh is finally here, and you can stream the whole set below. Clocking in at nine tracks, its more of a full album than an EP, which of course is a good thing. Pooh has grown as a rapper since those classic Little Brother days, and Apollo Brown is always mad nice on the boards. Listen now, then go but it.
Category: 9th Wonder
Rapsody – ‘The Man’
It took an appearance on Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly for most of the world to find out who Rapsody was, but we’ve been championing the 9th Wonder/Jamla artist for a while. Now we’ve been treated to a nice-looking video for The Man from last year’s Beauty and the Beast EP, perfectly timed to ride that Kendrick wave.
Rapper Big Pooh – ‘Augmentation’
We’ve pretty damn excited about the return of Little Brother legend Rapper Big Pooh, and his new album Words Paint Pictures. The latest single is Augmentation, and its an Apollo Brown banger of a beat. Watch the video below, and then go pre-order the album.
Let’s hope 2015 is full of MF Doom goodness
DJ Premier has been busy conducting interviews over the last few days, documenting the sad demise of his beloved D&D Studios. We’ve been reading along with a few tears in our eyes, but there was also some enticing details from Primo about an extended deluxe version of the PRyhme album. That alone would be exciting enough, but when Preem added that one of the tracks will feature MF Doom, us and everybody else started losing our shit.
There’s many artists we’ve dreamed about hooking up with Metal Fingaz over the years, but Premier has always been right around the top. Catch them both at their best, which is pretty much always, and this could be incredible. It would also be the prefect way to kick off a year that, metal fingers crossed, will bring us a lot of Doom.
There’s that long-delayed and almost mythical full length album with Ghostface Killer. GFK himself recently hinted it is coming this year, and for now it has at least been confirmed that Doom will feature with Ghost on his upcoming Sour Soul album with BADBADNOTGOOD.
In a rare interview with Bonafide magazine last year, Madlib also seemed to suggest that he and MF are at the very least throwing around ideas for the next Madvillain project. That news almost trumps everything else listed above.
Who else is on that list of our dream MF Doom collabs, you ask? Well, some are from way back, like the thought of him sharing the mic with Sir Menelik (currently somewhat AWOL from the game), Company Flow era El-P, Edan, Ill Bill and Kool Keith (before you purists go nuts at us, we know Kool Keith was on Venomous Villain, and there are also tracks with El-P dotted around online, but we want a more significant set of hookups).
Current artists on the wishlist include Action Bronson, Your Old Droog, and the modern era El-P (riding shotgun with his Run The Jewels partner Killer Mike of course). A few months back, 9th Wonder also mentioned how he’d love to work with Doom, and the prospect of that is equally incredible.
If just some of these projects see the light of day, this could be another vintage year for good hip-hop music.
Legends of the game combine as Indie 500
Heavyweights Talib Kweli, Pharoahe Monch and 9th Wonder today announced a new collaborative venture named Indie 500. It’s not clear yet if it’s set to be a record label, a group or just a movement, but with these three involved, only good things can come from it.
The aim seems to be to uphold the quality and tradition of the Native Tongues and that classic A Tribe Called Quest/De La Soul vibe, and the legacy of it that has lived on through artists associated with the good people at Okayplayer (J Dilla, the Roots, Little Brother, Mos Def, Q-Tip, Common, Slum Village and others).
All three artists have spent their careers in and around this creative circle anyway, so it’s likely just a case of quality business as usual. Which of course is no bad thing. Any project that combines two of the most gifted rappers of all time with one of the best producers will definitely equal incredible music.
Watch the video below from Okayplayer for the full lowdown.