While I was digging through the archives to grab that bonus Reks track, I noticed this classic joint by Soulive and thought I’d post it up. Talib Kweli jumped on one of their tracks in 2002 and Hi-Tek remixed it, creating this ill, but often slept on, Reflection Eternal track. Peep it.
This is literally the worst day in Seattle sports history. If you haven’t heard, the City of Seattle and the ownership group for the Seattle Supersonics NBA franchise agreed to terms yesterday that released the team from the last 2 years of its lease at Key Arena, effectively ending 41 years of storied tradition the Supes built in my city. If you want all the gory details, hit ESPN. If you want to see the carnage as it was unfolding, read this brilliant Bill Simmons piece.
I could write a book on this travesty, but here’s the Cliff Notes version. The head of Starbucks, Howard Schultz, bought the Sonics in 2001 and aside from some minor success, ran the team into the ground. Despite having a net worth of over a billion dollars, Schultz worried about losing a few million and decided to sell the Sonics to an ownership group from Oklahoma City, even though it was widely known that they would attempt to relocate the franchise to their hometown. He could have sold the team to other local business people and prevented this all from happening, but he declined. He’ll forever have the legacy of Seattle’s biggest traitor.
Instead, from day one of their ownership, Clay Bennett, Aubrey McClendon (who was the 8th largest donor to the Swift Boat Veterans who smeared John Kerry in 2004 and is currently raking in a fortune as the head of Chesapeake Energy while we pay $4.50 a gallon), and the rest of The Professional Basketball Club, LLC, lied to the city and people of Seattle, promising that they would do everything possible to keep the team here. Rather than keep their word, they traded behind the scenes emails that later became public about how they were planning on moving the Sonics all along, and literally laughed about keeping it a secret. At the same time, they snuggled up to Bennett’s long time friend, NBA Commissioner David Stern.
After doing everything in their power NOT to keep the Sonics in Seattle (including a Major League style fire sale that led to the Sonics posting their worst record in franchise history last year), the city was left with one last option: sue the team to ensure that they play out the final years of their lease at Key Arena or settle with them for a barrel of money and hope to receive an expansion franchise (or steal someone else’s team…hello Memphis) in the years to come. Rather than irrevocably damage their relationship with Stern and the league, the City of Seattle caved and gave up the team for $45 million dollars, or $75 million if another NBA franchise isn’t put in place within 5 years. This doesn’t even cover the economic benefits of having the Sonics here, let alone the non-financial value the team had to the city and residents. There’s also no guarantee that we’ll get another team, and one of the greatest cities in the world (not to mention the 13th biggest market in America) will be without professional basketball for years to come.
In layman’s terms: a bunch of really rich people decided to become local heroes by going to another city, swindling more rich people and an inept local government, and stealing a franchise that had been there for 41 years. In the process, they ripped out the hearts and souls of the people in that city, including my own.
Teams have relocated in other sports and other cities in the past, but never under such devious and unscrupulous auspices. It’s unfathomable that a city as brilliant as Seattle is going to be without an NBA team, and it’s a warning shot to sports fans everywhere. If a city’s franchise can be hijacked and stolen away in broad daylight, it sets a frightening precedent.
Worst of all, this has a real effect on the kids in this area. I grew up obsessed with basketball and shaped almost every aspect of my life around it. The friends I made, the memories I had, in full, the person I have become…are all direct results of growing up in the Seattle basketball community. It’s part of who I am. Now similar kids won’t have this opportunity here. Dads can’t bond with their sons at Sonics games like I did with my stepdad. That’s gone. The 8th graders I coached this past year are absolutely crushed, and all because a few rich people decided to screw us all over.
I’ve been doing my best not to swear on this site (no easy feat on a hip-hop blog), but this is the first time where it’s completely justified, and in fact, too lenient.
Fuck you Howard Schultz. Fuck you Clay Bennett. Fuck you David Stern.You stole basketball from the city of Seattle and you stole memories from me. You extinguished the possibility of life changing experiences for future generations and I hate you all.
(NBA Finals, 1996. The start of summer after 8th grade. We were louder than the PA announcer. I’ll never forget it.)
I don’t think anyone is spitting harder than Reks right now, other than perhaps Royce. He’s attacking every beat like his life depended on it, and this DJ Premier track is no different. If you’re a Sound Session listener, you know we’ve been playing lots of Reks material over the last few years. If you’re a Hyphen stalker, you know I used to play his old Brick Records 12″s back on my college radio show from 2000 to ’04. Either way, be happy you’re up on him now. Reks’ new album, Grey Hairs, drops July 22nd and it’s [M.O.P] FIYAAAAAAAAAA [/M.O.P.].
Here’s the “Say Goodnight” mp3 and a bonus Throwback joint from his 2001 album, Along Came The Chosen, where 8 MC’s represent 4 cities:
Asher seems to be polarizing hip-hop listeners left and right. Either people think he’s dope, or they hate his very existence. Personally, I think he’s pretty nice with it. This is a video he made for the “Roc Boys” freestyle joint he flipped on his mixtape (which you can download here if you haven’t already). Dude’s whole steez reminds me of college, except he can actually rhyme…unlike all the brosephs I went to school with. I’m looking forward to seeing the moves he makes, though I’m not sure throwing some shots at Jigga is the best way to introduce yourself to a whole lot of people…
As I mentioned in the Throwback post about JJ+FP, there have been rumors that Jeff and Will would team up for some performances this summer in support of Hancock. The homey Mick Boogie DJ’d at the premier in Los Angeles and managed to get some footage of their quick set (“Summertime,” a freestyle joint, and “Brand New Funk”). Hopefully we see some actual dates, and not just a few one offs. The video isn’t the greatest quality, but still, this is so dope.
Trailer for the new Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, due out November 7th. Daniel Craig did a great job in the last one, so I have high hopes that this will be equally as fresh. I doubt anything is going to top the parkour scene from Casino Royale though:
Huge super duper hyphenated Euro shout out to my man Nils, who sent me this email recently:
Hey Hyphen,
I am writing from Germany, and I want to say “Thank you” for putting your sound session show online so that I can download it each week! I started listening to it in June 2006 starting with show #50-something. (I don’t know why) but I got to your myspace page somehow (googling, I guess) and started listening and cutting the shows to single mp3 tracks on my PC, having a good time every time I am listening to the mp3’s. The first mp3 track that I can cutting remember is “The storm” by the “Procussions”. Other remarkable artists are Grynch and Choclate.
I have been watching american TV shows since my youth (starting with Star Trek:Enterprise, ALF, A-Team, Simpsons, Baywatch among many others), so that I feel some kind of connection to the USA. This might seem strange on the first sight, but I just think that american culture is just some kind of different. I watch “Conan O’Brian” and “Jay Leno” since 10 years. I listen to your show since 2 years. : )
Well, I don’t know what you think of this email, but for me you are a kind of “anchor” to american hip hop culture and music. I don’t understand each sentence of the music, but many beats (connected with the vocals) are a very welcome earcandy.
I have learned English language for 9 years at school, but I still don’t get the lyrics. Maybe I just I don’t really want to understand, I just want to feel the beats and the flow of the rappers/singers. The sound of the music is just satisfying enough, and understanding 48 bars of foreign language is really hard work.
Without you, I wouldn’t have bought the “Kenna”-CD, downloaded the U-N-I mixtape and so on.
Last week I have started reading your audacity of dope website/blog. Thanks for that as well, you have a huge output. That is remarkable. I will read your blog in the future.
Greetings from Germany,
Nils
(Nils’ English is crushing my German)
I get emails like this every now and then (as I’m sure a lot of artists & DJ’s do), but it’s always wild and encouraging to see how I can affect what people listen to all over the world. I started DJ’ing back in 2000 with the sole purpose of helping shine light on good music that people might not be hearing elsewhere. Things have evolved a bit since then, but still, that’s the whole point of all this. To put a dude from Germany up on Kenna, U-N-I, Choklate, and other dope artists is the illest thing to me. I love living in a world where technology brings us closer together with every day that passes.
I really appreciate every single person who’s checked out anything I’ve done over the years, especially those as dedicated as Nils. It’s all about the music though, and I’m just lucky enough to be the conduit sometimes. Big shout to all music fans, artists, DJ’s, bloggers, industry heads, and friends who genuinely care about this artform. Y’all inspire me daily.
“I drink like an uncle, smoke like a rasta/
Ball like a superstar, talk like a boxer/
F**k like a rabbit, sh*t like a dinosaur”
–Lloyd Banks, “Casualties of War”
I understand what he was trying to do here, but I don’t think I would have included that last part.
Posted in Sports, Videos on July 1st, 2008 by Hyphen
I’m a little ashamed that as big of a sports fan as I am, I managed to go the entire Euro 2008 soccer tournament without mentioning it in a single entry. It’s even more blasphemous because I watched pretty much every game and saw every goal. When you’re a Western European mutt like me, Euro is great because you can root for a handful of teams. My English side couldn’t cheer since they choked in qualifying, but I could claim allegiance to Italy, Sweden, France, and the eventual champion, Spain. Still waiting for my Maltese homies to qualify for a major tournament…ok…I’d be happy if they could win a single game. Actually, maybe I should go try out for them…
Anyway, I won’t bore you with all my thoughts on the tournament, but basically, it was great. If you missed it, here’s a good mix of someone’s top 10 goals, and I agree with most of ’em:
(if you weren’t sick of this song already, you will be now)
Daniel Guiza staying onside and clinically scoring off Cesc Fabregas’ dime
Lukas Podolski cleaning up some sloppy German play with a sweet volley
Arjen Robben drilling home a stunner from an impossible angle
Nihat Kahveci kissing the underside of the bar to cap Turkey’s stunning comeback
Philipp Lahm opening up his body to send the keeper the wrong direction & win the game
Wesley Sneijder poking home a one time effort to complete a “total football” goal
Zlatan Ibrahimovic audaciously scoring far post with the wrong foot from that angle
Wesley Sneijder scoring my favorite goal of the tourney with a long range bomb
Michael Ballack blasting a free kick that continues to rise all the way to the top right corner
Off the top of my head, the only one I would have included that they left out was Andrei Arshavin‘s goal against Sweden. That was end to end brilliance. Funny that Spain only has one representative on the list, but their goals weren’t necessarily that amazing. They just played the best football over the course of the tournament, hands down. Good stuff.
Posted in Artists, Videos on July 1st, 2008 by Hyphen
Skateboard, Chad, and Shae talk about the world of tattoos. Chad’s sense of humor is hilarious by the way.
I’m not sure I’m cool with that skin graft stuff. I’d rather think ahead and avoid getting a million tattoos rather than have to get new skin applied to hit the reset button. If you’ve already gone all out though, perhaps it’s worth it. LOL @ how these fools will look at 60 years old (correction: LOL @ them now). I’m good with my single tat…though I may get another to match it on the other shoulder blade when the day comes.
Sidenote, go cop Seeing Sounds. “Time For Some Action” is the official workout song of the moment.
