Grown Up Rap

Review: Joey Bada$$ live in London

Lets be really honest for a moment. Most live hip-hop shows are disappointing. Late arrival from the artist, too much crowd hyping and not enough rapping, bad mic quality, short set lengths. We’ve experienced them all, even from some of our favorite acts.

We still had high hopes for the Joey Bada$$ tour, and on the whole it didn’t disappoint when we caught one of the shows in London. The set-up was classic no frills hip-hop: Joey on the mic, with a deejay out back. No more flash or flair required. For a rapper like Bada$$, still just 19 but making the kind of hip-hop that throws back to the classic era, its an environment that suits him well. When the deejay also happens to be Statik Selektah, its even better.

It turns out Joey knows how to rock a crowd too. Full of energy but without the unnecessary and over-the-top swagger of other acts, he lets his music do the talking, giving us proper versions of his biggest tracks.

Obvious standouts included Waves, truthfully one of the finest hip-hop tracks of all time (yeah, we said it), and the DJ Premier produced Unorthodox. There was also the obligatory heartfelt tribute to fallen Pro Era member Capital Steez, reminding us all just how tragic it is to lose a talented rapper at only 19 years of age.

With a decent live show, teaser trailers and documentaries, the hype over Joey’s debut album B4.Da.$$ just keeps on getting stronger. It drops January 20, 2015.

Go behind the scenes with Joey Bada$$ on tour

It’s been a good week for Joey Bada$$ fans. First up was a new cryptic teaser trailer that finally gave us a solid release date for B4.DA.$$. The highly anticipated debut album will drop January 20, 2015, and although full details are yet to be released, its expected to include singles Big Dusty and Christ Conscious, and feature production from DJ Premier, J Dilla and Statik Selektah amongst others.

A new video has also now emerged, documenting Joey as he travels around Europe on the latest leg of his tour. He talks about why he loves performing more than being in the studio, how to give the fans what they want, and the inspiration he’s taken from seeing Jay-Z and other major artists on stage.

We’ve been itching to hear B4.DA.$$ for months and months, and its nice to hear the young Mr Badas$$ stay humble and grounded as he prepares for what will surely at last be his breakout year.

Watch the mini documentary below, and the album teaser further down.

Why a multi-million dollar contract probably won’t change Mac Miller

Mac Miller recently featured in an interview with Fader, talking about his signing to a major label for a rumored eye-watering $10M. It’s a decision likely to split opinion, but at the end of the day, you can’t really fault him for making the choice. And just because he’ll now have a shit load of money, it doesn’t mean his music will all of a sudden turn pop.

Miller is one of the most interesting artists to emerge in the last few years. Crazy, fucked-up, addicted to lean. He’s been all of those things, but he’s also a talented kid both on the mic and behind the boards.

Underneath the persona there’s also an ultra-smart brain with a clear idea of how the modern music industry works. Like others making a comfortable living at a time when most musicians aren’t making any money, Miller has put in work and built up a solid empire. He also has the respect of his peers, which is harder than it should be when you happen to be a young middle class white boy from Pittsburgh.

When you’ve got talent, savvy business skills and a solid idea of what your fans want, then a big contract can mean better music rather than a watered-down, overly-commercial offering.

The candor of the interview alone is telling. Whereas a chat about a contract as big as that with a mainstream artist would usually consist of them bragging about what they’ll do with the money, Miller talks of how it will allow him to have enough budget to do things musically he couldn’t before, all the while keeping laid back about it.

Time of course will tell, but can you really see the man they also call Larry Fisherman in a flashy video dancing with Chris Brown? Us neither. Here’s to hoping we are right.

Watch the video from Fader below:

Mac Miller’s latest mixtape Faces is out now.

Meet the genius bringing you Meow the Jewels

The name Sly Jones probably doesn’t mean that much to you, but he’s the part genius, part madman who worked hard as hell to make Meow the Jewels a reality. He recently got to hook up with El-P and Killer Mike before their show in his hometown of Phoenix, and broke down how the project came about.

Bored one night on Twitter, he read El-P’s tweet about remaking Run the Jewels 2 with cat sounds, and took it upon himself to take it seriously. It’s shit like this that the internet was invented for, and we can’t wait to hear how it turns out.

Considering how money from the project is going to the families of Eric Garner, Michael Brown and the fight against Police brutality, Run the Jewels take time in the interview to remind us that this whole crazy project also has a serious side, and will hopefully help to raise the profile of the issues at stake.

Watch the clip below, including shots of Sly Jones joining the group on stage – surely the ultimate experience for any music fan.

RTJ2 is out now on Mass Appeal. Read our review here.

Watch DJ Premier and Royce Da 5’9″ documentary Raiders of the Lost Art

Raiders of the Lost Art is a documentary about Royce Da 5’9″ and DJ Premier’s new group PRhyme, and its pretty damn good. Short but sweet, Part 1 gives us an interview with Primo, talking about how he first got noticed in NYC all those years ago with Guru, and about how he’ll never stop making that boom bap sound, no matter what the younger generation is doing.

Hearing that alone is worth it for us Preem fiends. But even more special are the parts with Royce. He opens up about his alcohol abuse and the effects it had on his kids, including a scene where his shows how his car won’t even start until he’s taken a breath test.

Its a rare insight into the real life of a rapper, far from the fake lifestyle we’ve come to know from so many flashy videos. We see Royce spending precious time with his wife and kids, making sure he doesnt pull into his driveway too fast, and telling his young daughter to go back inside to get a jacket. There’s no posturing and no ego, just a man who works hard to give his children a life that he never had.

Of course, the flick is also part of the promotion trail for the upcoming PRhyme album, which hits stores next month. It’s safe to say we are excited as fuck, and you should be too. Watch Part 1 of Raiders of the Lost Art below, and keep them eyes peeled for the next installment coming soon.

We salute Tyler, the Creator for crying like a baby

We’ve all seen that clip of Tyler, The Creator crying at the sight of N.E.R.D. on stage (haven’t seen it? Wake the fuck up), and how star-struck he was in a recent interview with Pharrell.

Funny shit, but at least the guy clearly has some genuine passion for the music and its biggest stars.

In a music fueled by egos and trash talk, its all too rare for a young hip-hop artist to show mutual respect for their peers. Its even common now to hear modern rappers talk about how they don’t even listen to rap at all, not even hiding how they are in the game solely to get money.

Compare this to the veterans and older artists and its a completely different story. They have no trouble shining a light on others, and acknowledging the history of the music. Take Run the Jewels, currently the hottest property in the game. El-P and Mike not only have a detailed knowledge of hip-hop, but also have no issue singing the praises of the legends and other artists. Same goes for Common, Talib Kweli, Pharoahe Monch and others. As for the legends themselves, like DJ Premier, they are forever paying respect to others and the masters of genre.

Its perhaps unfair to say all young artists are ignorant to other rappers (Freddie Gibbs frequently points to Drake as being the best there currently is, as contentious as that may be), but a little acknowledgment that they at least like hip-hop and appreciate others would be nice.

Tyler himself has stated he doesnt intent to make hip-hop for much longer, but this is still a man with a deep-rooted respect for the music. And for that, despite all the other crazy and stupid shit he does, we salute him. It was his party, and he can cry if he wants to.

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 Aloe Blacc getting ripped off is no big surprise

Former Stones Throw artist and chart-topper Aloe Blacc recently announced that he has only earned $4,000 from Pandora streams of his monster hit Wake Me Up (with Avicii), despite clocking up an incredible 168 million plays in the US.

A shocking revelation, but is anyone really that surprised? The game changed beyond all recognition years ago, and the plates have shifted again several times since, each time leaving the artist with little to show for their efforts.

Gone are the days when a musician could sell millions of CDs and make big bucks. Save for the occasional exception, like Taylor Swift, who recently shipped well over a million copies of her latest album 1989, sales ain’t what they used to be.

What’s interesting in relation to hip-hop is how all that big talk about sales figures that dominated headlines a few years ago has all but disappeared.

As a music built upon bragging rites and proving you are the best, there was a time when commercial artists like 50 Cent were obsessed with sales numbers, making them as much of a badge of honor as the amount of times he’d been shot.

If a big release didn’t ship more than a good few hundred thousand right away you were done, and your rivals would tell you so. Nowadays though, no one is moving units, not even Em, Pimp Juice or Rocafella, as Jay-Z once famously said (sort of).

Everyone knows the big money is now to be made from touring, where eye-watering prices can be charged for a show that, lets be honest, usually sucks.

But it would be hard for a rapper to deny that still being able to make big money from sales would be nice, especially when facing the necessary tough grind that comes with traveling around the world on tour.

New ways of getting music to us are appearing all the time, and as always hip-hop is at the cutting edge. From the biggest albums to the humblest of indy material, most work is now available for stream before release. Run the Jewels even gave away RTJ2 for free, following in the footsteps of U2 and others.

It remains to be seen if the industry will ever find a way to get those sales revenues back up, but whats certain is that a rapper will need to be pretty damn successful to get anywhere even close to that Taylor Swift money.

Rare old video of MF Doom way before the mask

Images of MF Doom without the mask on are rare. Dig around YouTube and you’ll find some of those old KMD videos with him in, back when he was known as Zed Love X. Since then though, clear shots of the man with the government name Daniel Dumile have been hard to come by.

Look closely at the Viktor Vaughn Mr Clean video and you do catch some glimpses, but these are obscured by the animation. It all adds to the mystique of course, and its one of the things we love most about the mythical Metal Face Doom.

A little insight is nice once in a while though, which makes this little gem of a video doing the rounds yesterday a bit special. Its from 1991, where a fresh-faced 19 year old Zed Love X addresses congress peeps about Rock the Vote and other initiatives to get young people voting.

It’s interesting to hear him drop knowledge, but even more fascinating when you remember this is the same man that has gone on to give us so much good music since. Watch the clip here:

http://www.c-span.org/video/standalone/?c4513596

Read our review of NehruvianDOOM here.

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.