The long-time-coming The Diary album from J Dilla arrives soon, and Nas is ramping up the anticipation with this preview of The Sickness, during his SXSW set, produced by Madlib. Watch below.
Category: Nas
J Dilla – ‘The Introduction’
Today Nas announced there’s a new J Dilla vocals album named The Diary coming soon on Mass Appeal Records. The Introduction is our first taste, produced by House Shoes. Listen below.
Here’s why the Stretch Armstrong & Bobbito Kickstarter is worthy of your money
Hip-hop radio icons Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito Garcia have launched a Kickstarter campaign for contributions towards the launch of their anticipated documentary film, Stretch & Bobbito: Radio That Changed Lives. Its a project worthy of your cash, and here’s why.
Goofy, sometimes ridiculously immature, but always bringing the freshest music from new hip-hop artists, the Stretch & Bobbito show on Columbia University’s WKCR radio station ran for the best part of the 90s.
Much has been made about how the show was influential in helping to launch the careers of many who would go on to be huge, most notably Jay-Z, Nas, Biggie Smalls and the Wu-Tang Clan.
More importantly, at least in our eyes, the show also supported independent and alternative hip-hop artists, championing the likes of Kool Keith when he reinvented himself as Dr. Octagon, and showing much love to groups like Company Flow, Juggaknots, J Treds, Godfather Don and countless more.
Bobbito even founded his own label to release a lot of the underground material that was appearing on the show. The much-missed Fondle’em Records helped to introduce the world to MF Doom, and laid the foundation for labels of a similar vein, including Rawkus, Stones Throw and Def Jux.
It’s therefore no exaggeration to say that Stretch and Bob played perhaps the most important role in creating that classic mid-late 90s indy boom of creativity that many of us are still stuck on today. And that is surely reason enough to throw some money their way.
Donate here, and read more about the documentary here, including upcoming screenings.
De La Soul – ‘God It’ feat. Nas
New music from De La Soul is always good news. When it has Nas on it, even better. You won’t find God It on the new Kickstarter-funded album, but it is being presented as a teaser of things to come. Check it out on the link below, and let us know what you think.
http://www.audiomack.com/embed4-large/2dbz/god-it
Album Review: Ghostface Killah’s 36 Seasons
While everyone else was talking about the Wu-Tang Clan reunion album, the most talented member of the group modestly announced that his latest solo record would be dropping exactly one week after A Better Tomorrow.
36 Seasons is Ghostface Killah’s eleventh album, and its another decent addition to an almost impeccable back catalog (the less said about Ghostdini: Wizard of Poetry in Emerald City the better).
Most GFK albums have some sort of loose story arc, but this one is billed as being a full-on concept album. In reality, the concept is pretty close to the same one on every other joint since his classic debut, Ironman, but this is no bad thing.
Similar to the 2013 Adrian Younge-assisted Twelve Reasons to Die, the music is something of a departure for Ghost, with different beats to what we are perhaps used to. Production is handled primarily by The Revelations, with some tracks nothing more than soulful interludes from the street drama happening in the narrative. Nice idea but hardly new, and after a while most of the beats start to sound the same. Intriguingly, Blood on the Streets is co-produced by The 45 King, marking a welcome return for one of the most iconic names in the game.
Surprisingly, and breaking tradition from other Wu solo albums, 36 Seasons doesn’t feature a single member of the Clan. Instead, AZ appears on five tracks, and veteran Kool G Rap features on three. The story behind how the album came about is unclear, but both are odd choices for this many features.
He may be one of the best to ever bless the mic, but G Rap’s heyday was a long time ago, and he’s lost the energy and flair of his many classics. AZ meanwhile has always been an underachiever at best, never quite living up to the promise of Illmatic. Both put in credible performances here, but we’ll take a Ghost and Rae collabo over AZ or G Rap all day long.
The poetry album aside, Ghostface has yet to make a bad album, but hasn’t made a truly great one since Apollo Kids. 36 Seasons won’t go down as one of his best, but an average GFK album is still miles ahead of most other artists, and its definitely a lot better than the long-awaited but lackluster new Wu joint.
36 Seasons is out everywhere, December 9.
Listen to a new PRhyme track from Primo and Royce Da 5’9″
Its been a good few weeks for us DJ Premier heads. A crazy interview with Snoop Dogg, where he dropped teasers about that future Nas album, new music from M.O.P. coming soon, and of course, PRhyme, his latest collaboration with Royce Da 5’9″.
We’ve had some clips of the music already, but now we’ve been blessed with the title track too. Primo is assisted on the beat with samples by Adrian Young, who adds some extra little flourishes to the mix.
It’s another impressive sign of the quality that is no doubt set to come when the album is fully released next month. Listen to the new track here, courtesy of our friends at the always-entertaining EgoTripland.
PRhyme is already available for pre-order in some areas. Look out for our review when it drops.
Why we miss the classic hip-hop breakdown
Hip-hop production has changed and evolved many times since the late 80s, swaying back and forth between old styles and futuristic ones.
The basics don’t change much though, with most tracks roughly sticking to the classic structure of the first two golden eras: Short into with ad-libs, or cuts and scratches. Verse 1, hook. Verse 2, hook. Verse 3, hook. More hook, shout outs, extended cuts and scratches. Fade out.
We are know it well, not just from hip-hop but also most other popular music genres. Classic rap tracks sometimes had an extra special treat though, between the second hook and the start of verse 3. It was known as a breakdown, and we miss them like crazy.
A breakdown tended to include extra cutting and scratches, variations on the beat, extended use of the main samples, and various other types of niceness.
They provided a chance for the listener to pause for reflection, to take in the meaning of the first two verses, and get ready for the third, which was often the most powerful. They also gave the producer time to showcase their abilities, and flex their cutting skills if they also happened to be a deejay.
We’re not necessarily saying we need them back, and in fact producers like DJ Premier and Pete Rock still tend to produce beats in this way. Other modern hip-hop tracks still have them too.
Lest we forget how fucking dope they were though, so here’s a few of our personal favorites. The breakdowns all appear after the first couple of verses.
Nas, The World Is Yours. Produced by Pete Rock.
Lords of the Underground, What I’m After. Produced by K-Def.
LL Cool J, Mama Said Knock You Out. Produced by Marley Marl.
Nas previews new J Dilla track at Run the Jewels press event
Just when we thought the hype around Run the Jewels 2 couldn’t get any hyper, a special press conference in New York City last night took the situation into overdrive. El-P and Killer Mike were joined on stage by none other than Nas, who seems to be taking his role as Mass Appeal boss seriously.
The legend gave some supportive words to the label’s hottest act, before then giving us all one hell of a treat: a preview of a track from his next album. New music from Nas is always exciting, but when it turns out the track uses a J Dilla beat, that excitement reaches a whole new plain.
Rabid Dilla Dawg fans will instantly recognize the beat as Gobstopper from Donuts. To now have Nas drop vocals over it is an incredible look.
Watch the full video below, and check out our review of the incredible RTJ2.
Run the Jewels 2 is out now on Mass Appeal.
Listen to a Time is Illmatic mix from Pete Rock
Time is Illmatic is showing in cinemas around the world right now, and to celebrate, Pete Rock has blessed up with a new Nas mixtape.
As the producer of one of the classic album’s finest tracks (The World is Yours), there’s few people more qualified than Pete, and he does a fine job reminding us of just how groundbreaking Illmatic was. Not that we’d forgotten of course.
Check below for the full stream, and see here for our review of the Time is Illmatic documentary.
Visit the Time is Illmatic website to find out if the film is showing in your town. It is also available from iTunes in some regions.
Watch: Snoop Dogg interviewing DJ Premier
Snoop Dogg’s online TV show is usually too smoked out and crazy for us, but on the latest episode his guest is the one and only DJ Premier. It starts off with Snoop paying homage to the early Gang Starr records, before Primo moves on to talk about PRhyme, his new project with Royce Da 5’9″.
Also up for discussion is the tracks they have collaborated on together. It’s easy to think of Primo as a producer who only works with boom-bap artists from New York, but he’s mixed it up with Snoop, MC Eight and plenty of other West Coast rappers over the years.
Premier also drops in a little teaser about that long-awaited Nas collaboration, which hopefully will see the light of day at some point after Nas finishes his duties with Def Jam. Amazingly, Snoop claims not to have known that Primo has worked with Nas since Illmatic, but that may have just been the weed talking. Watch the full clip below.
The PRhyme album is set to be released in the next few weeks.