The Audacity of Dope

This is my jam right now.  That is all.

Yo…my people are DOIN’ IT y’all!

It’s so great to see two of my favorite people in the industry, Thurz & Y-O, really start to take off and make some major moves.  This track was produced by Ro Blvd (who gets a quick cameo in the clip as well), but it’s not from their Love Supreme project.  Instead, it was a special song and video commissioned by Mountain Dew’s Green Label Sound, closely affiliated with the FADER Label and my folks at Cornerstone.  Just like our collaboration with GLS, the project turned out great and this clip is yet another stellar music video in U-N-I’s library.  Do your thing fellas…

Sidenote, be on the lookout for the official Love Supreme documentary coming soon from DRG Films.  You just might recognize one of your favorite DJ’s as the narrator…nomorganfreemano.

Bobby Ray flips the classic Tribe track for his edition of the Reebok Classic series and absolutely murders the hook.  Super catchy.  Shout to the Cornerstone folks, B Rich, Tre, and TJ…dope job fellas.

This is too funny.  Shout to all my folks in the video…but damn, why did Sean have to do Blaze like that ahahahaha.  Here’s the track too, courtesy of 2DopeBoyz:

Sean Price – “Ruck Down”

Sean PEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Yes y’all, the time has finally come for the release of the newest Cornerstone Mixtape, presented by J. Moore, DJ B-Mello, and yours truly.  For those of you who aren’t familiar, Cornerstone is one of the preeminent marketing companies in the music industry and they’ve been releasing a monthly mixtape for years.  The hosts of each edition are hand selected by the Cornerstone staff and to be picked is considered a pretty high honor within hip-hop, one we’re thankful and proud to receive.  Some of the past participants  include  legends like DJ Premier, Pete Rock, DJ Jazzy Jeff, the Fantastic Four (from Friday Night Flavas), DJ Revolution, and countless others.  J and I are excited to be able to join those ranks and represent Seattle alongside our longtime friend and fellow DJ, the original West Coast Tapemaster, DJ B-Mello.

To be honest, it’s a bit surreal to see myself plastered on one of these covers since I’ve been collecting the tapes for years.  To go from a kid bumming copies from my industry friends each month, to being added to the Cornerstone ship list (what up TNT!), to now helping host a tape myself…I can’t front, it’s a really cool feeling.  Big shout to the entire 1200 Squad, particularly Blaze Wong, J, Dru Ha, and Rob Stone, for working with me throughout my college radio years and now at KUBE with Sunday Night Sound Session.  They truly respect and live this culture, and they recognize folks who are helping keep it alive like J, Mello, and myself.  Much appreciated fellas.

Alright, enough sentimentality.  If you’re interested, peep the tracklisting for our mix and download it through one of the links below.  We finished this up back in April, so a few of the songs are a little old right now.  That said, I think we did a pretty damn good job keeping it current and we even managed to hang on to a couple exclusives…no small feat in this day and age.  As always, our goal was to provide you with some great music and perhaps expose you to an artist you might not be familiar with.

Please feel free to repost and share around the net to all your people.  Most importantly, just like on my old Beats, Rhymes, and Life mixtapes, remember to support the artists if you’re feeling their music!

Download Cornerstone Mixtape #115 – http://sharebee.com/9c9bde51
(back up link #1 – http://www.mediafire.com/?ejzak2y2itz)
(back up link #2 – http://www.megaupload.com/?d=7IHDF1P6)

Enjoy!

It’s been a busy past few days  for me, so I’ll run through my thoughts for this week’s SNSS quickly with bulletpoints:

• Courtney Lee.  Courtney, Courtney, Courtney.  That was a gimme and most likely cost the Magic any chance of winning the championship.  Not that they had a good chance to begin with, but that game might have been their only lifeline against a focused Laker squad.  For those of us hoping for a long series, our hopes were dashed with one blown layup (well, two I suppose…but the scoop was a bit tougher).  I hope I’m proven wrong and we get a classic 7-gamer, but I highly doubt it.

• Aw snap, our Cornerstone Mixtape is finally out.  Read more and download it right here!

• This week’s show featured music from some of the dopest artists around, including Ghostface, Dead Prez, A.R.M., Outasight, Mos Def, Drake, Tanya Morgan, and more.  And yes, of course we played Jay-Z’s “D.O.A.”…was there ever a doubt?

• We might have given a world premiere to DJ Spinna’s excellent record with Phonte and Yahzarah, “Guaranteed.”  Not sure if that one has hit the net at all, but if you haven’t heard it, peep it…asap.  Cop Sonic Smash on June 30th!

• We were also joined in the studio by Kyle Lucas (of Vonnegutt), who talked about signing with Big Boi’s Purple Ribbon label and his new project with Seattle’s own Captain Midnite, along with one of our most talented soul artists in the city, Mycle Wastman.  Speaking of signing, be on the lookout for Mycle to sign to a very major label soon…the ink is almost dry!

• Peep our final break to hear my mini-rant on T-Pain and his “Big Ass Chain.”  I like T-Pain (kinda), but I gotta call ‘em like I see ‘em.  $410K on a chain, recession or not, is asking for ridicule.

Show #210 (6-7-09)

1. Ghostface Killah, AZ, & Inspectah Deck – “Harbormasters”
2. Marco Polo & Torae – “Danger”
3. A.R.M. – “Blame My Ego”
4. U-N-I – “Land Of The Kings”
5. Dead Prez – “Summer Time”
6. **INTERVIEW WITH KYLE LUCAS (of VONNEGUTT), PT. 1**
7. Vonnegutt – “Here We Go Again (Repeat Offender)”
8. Outasight – “Destination Somewhere”
9. Mos Def ft. Slick Rick – “Auditorium”
10. **INTERVIEW WITH KYLE LUCAS & CAPTAIN MIDNITE, PT. 2**
11. Jay-Z – “D.O.A. (Death of Autotune)”
12. Drake – “The Calm”
13. B.o.B – “Put Me On ’09 (Reebok Classic Mix)”
14. **INTERVIEW WITH MYCLE WASTMAN, PT. 1**
15. Mycle Wastman – “Still Holdin’ On” (Local Artist)
16. Busta Rhymes ft. Common, Jamie Foxx, Mary J. Blige, & John Legend – “Decisions”
17. DJ Spinna ft. Phonte & Yahzarah – “Guaranteed”
18. M64 (Ragen Fykes & Ohmega Watts) – “In The Pocket” (Local Artist)
19. **INTERVIEW WITH MYCLE WASTMAN, PT. 2**
20. Shawn Starr ft. GMK – “Past The Games” (Local Artist)
21. Tanya Morgan ft. Phonte & Brittany Bosco – “She’s Gone AKA Without You”
22. B-Real ft. Young De & Tekneek – “6 Minutes”
23. Fresh Daily ft. Oddisee & Mela Machinko – “Universal Medicine”

Link to download the mp3 of the show – http://www.mediafire.com/?1mz51ydmtoj
(back up / streaming link – http://www.zshare.net/audio/611304394b1ae0e3/)

If there are any problems with the links or if you’d like to be added to our weekly email list to receive the playlist and download links after every show, just shoot me an email, DJHyphen@gmail.com.

As I alluded to here, The Kid Daytona is one of the nicest MC’s doing it right now and I’m anxiously awaiting his debut album, Come Fly With Me.  To help set up the project and make sure that people are aware of the talent, he’s teamed up with Mick Boogie to drop The Daytona 500.  Each track flips the same legendary sample that Ghostface used (Bob James’ “Nautilus”), but Daytona and his stable of producers make each joint different and their own.  You need to download this immediately.

1.  The First Lap
2.  The Wings {prod. 6th Sense}
3.  The Body {prod. Ill Bomb}
4.  The Engine {prod. Double 0}
5.  The Navigation {prod. Jet Audio}
6.  The Take Off (Flight) {prod. The Government}
7.  The Pit Crew *BONUS TRACK* feat. Outasight, Harlem’s Cash, 6th Sense {prod. 6th Sense}

Download here.

Also, be on the lookout for another Daytona/Jet Audio collaboration on our upcoming Cornerstone Mixtape.  #115 drops any day now…peep the tracklisting here.

This song is so fire that they put it on the last Cornerstone Mixtape twice hahaha.  Rest assured, no matter how dope a song is, you aren’t gonna hear it twice in 30 minutes on our mix…

By the way, Cornerstone Mixtape #115 drops any day now!  You ready?

That’s riiiiiiight!  More info coming soon.

I’m not a huge fan of this track, but I dig all the artists involved with it.  I just like their separate work more I suppose.  Either way, here’s the video for the song that Converse & Cornerstone helped put together.  Videos like this are hilarious to me, since I know the artists probably shot two takes for a total of 15 minutes in front of a green screen.  Then some unlucky (but talented) editors slaved away for weeks, turning the raw footage into the piece of art you see above.  The visuals are dope.  Shout to all my Cornerstone folk, what up Blaze!

Pharrell, Julian Casablancas, & Santogold – “My Drive Thru”

More N.E.R.D. bonus tracks available here.

Video swiped from Eskay’s.