The Audacity of Dope

While in town for the “Ambition” tour on 11/25/11, Wale stopped by KUBE and the SNSS studio to chat with me for a few moments.  We talked about his Ambition album, years of grinding for success, what it’s like seeing fans quote his lyrics on Facebook & Twitter, and more.  Since he’s always known as one of hip-hop’s most fervent sports fans, we had to talk some football so I asked about his recent debates with Skip Bayless at ESPN, who is the best running back in the NFL, his take on Tebow-mania, and what we should do with the BCS.

If you’d prefer to just listen to the audio, download/streaming links are below:

Wale on Sound Session – http://www.mediafire.com/?hdqw9fmweo1trjc
(back up / streaming link – http://hulkshare.com/rosy83wfkyfi)

Ambition is in stores now, cop that.

The final track on Phil’s A Different World mixtape was easily my favorite record on the project, so I’m glad to see the heartfelt song got some visuals.  If you like what you hear, download the full album here.

I’ve been meaning to post this up since last week, but I’ve been caught up in the post-Thanksgiving madness.  Florence kills this version of Drake and Rihanna’s soon to be smash in this live performance for BBC Radio 1.  As I’ve mentioned on Twitter, I can’t tell whether I live it and then Drake puts it in to song, or he writes about it and then it happens to me.  Either way, I’m pretty sure he owes me royalties on my life right now.

I heard a new record from Scheme tonight that features Astonish and I realized that Astonish is probably the dopest MC around that nobody seems to have heard of. Sure, he’s got some notoriety in his hometown of Chicago, and the Molemen affiliation helps a bit, but people don’t seem to be up on him.  In this world of massive blog exposure, that’s insane.  Here’s hoping he gets a lot more exposure in 2012.

Up top is a relatively new video and below is one of the first tracks I heard from him and played on SNSS in 2008.

No Yukimi in the video = no bueno, but it’s still a cool, quirky clip and one of the best records of the year. Just the thought of memorizing a full deck of playing cards gives me an aneurysm though…

Take chances and come closer to me babe // I’m falling out…now

Hahahah, this video is fresh. Good concept, reminiscent of Conan’s classic “lip-overs,” and a dope track on top of that.  Well done fellas!

Damn, Robin went ahead and cast his wife, Paula Patton, in this video, completely sonning the rest of the industry. You win my friend, you win. Game, blouses.

I remember watching some of the Joe Budden TV episodes (side note: Joey is one of the most entertaining cats in the industry, hands down) when Drake put out So Far Gone and I always thought it was interesting how open Joe was in praising Drizzy’s work.  Take this one, for example, where Joe spazzes over “A Night Off”…and rightly so, it’s a phenomenal record.  A year or so later, he had the same reaction for Frank Ocean’s “Novacane,” which later led to this (Internet) classic.

Another year later, and it’s not surprising to see Joe release music with that same vibe, though he’s doing it fairly coyly as part of a side project with Emanny, jokingly called Summer Leather Vest (you’ll see the inspiration in the video hahaha).  It’s a shrewd, smart move, because it allows Joe to try something new without fully committing to it.  I’d expect to see some of this sound permeate his upcoming solo releases, but I doubt he’ll bring much of it to the Slaughterhouse project so fans of the rappity rapp rap shouldn’t fear.  I’m glad to see him diversifying his sound though, especially because joking or not, “Unison” came out fresh.

The Weeknd’s first official is for “The Knowing,” and as you might expect, it’s rather open to interpretation. The song, however, is not.

After “Like Smoke” with Nas, which we’ve been playing on SNSS the past few weeks, “Our Day Will Come” is the second track to leak from Amy’s posthumous Lioness: Hidden Treasures album dropping December 5th.  I can’t wait for a new Amy album, but it’s tragic that we’re getting it under these circumstances.  So talented.  RIP.