The Audacity of Dope

After coming through the Sound Session studios for the web chat with fans that I posted a few days ago, J. Cole took to the main stage at the Bumbershoot Festival to perform alongside Drake and Mary J. Blige.  J. Moore and I hosted the show, so I grabbed some footage from the stage as Cole battled the rain and performed songs like “Blow Up,” “Who Dat,” “Lights Please,” “Grown Simba,” “A Star Is Born,” and more.

I’ll be posting up the interview we did soon as well, but enjoy the live show for now.  You gotta love the girls in the front row going crazy for Cole and also how hard the crowd rocked when “Grown Simba” dropped (at 8:27).  “Bitch, I’m about to blow up!”

You probably already know that I’m obsessed with anything related to flashing lights and night time cityscapes.  If not, now you do.

The homies Lace Cadence and Jon Augustavo have teamed up for the lead video from Lace’s recent mixtape, Launchpad.  If you’re still sleeping, be sure to download it right here.  Dope music and hosted by J. Moore and myself…what are you waiting for?

Oh, and man, it must be a tough gig filming a video with the beautiful Isabella Du Graf.  Jon Jon couldn’t have screwed this video up if he tried.  But on the real, I hear she has some dope records too…be on the lookout.

Not only is Andy Allo completely freaking gorgeous, but this is a dope record.  On the low, Blu is perfect for these types of records…he seems to murder every guest verse like this.  Wait.  He murders every verse.  Never mind!

The homey J. Cole was in town over the weekend for our Bumbershoot Festival and he came through the Sound Session studio to kick it with us.  We recorded a normal interview, which we’ll air soon and also post here, but in the interim, you can peep the archive of the live UStream web chat that we did with almost a thousand listeners logged in to the room.

Cole ran through some random questions from his fans in the chat and I tossed him some that people were tweeting us at the same time.  He talked about everything from his album, his upcoming mixtape, his touring, his favorite athletes, and much more.  If you’re looking for a more formal interview, peep our sit down with Cole the last time here was in town right here.  We’ll also have a new interview shortly…

Big shout to Cole, his crew, and the label homies…all some of my favorite folks to chop it up with.  Continued success…Roc Nation in the building.

COLE WORLD.

…but this is my kind of indie rock.  Lost In Translation is so damn classic.

I forget which show it was at, but while out and about at the Nectar a while back, I ran in to the homey Thig Natural of the Physics and we started talking about videos.  Since I see more music videos at my day job than you’ve seen in your life, I’m always down to share some of what I’ve learned in the music video industry.  While I can’t take sole credit for sparking this idea, I remember telling Thig that they HAD to do a video for “I Just Wanna Beat,” since it’s a classic record.  Not just a classic NW record.  A classic.

Lo and behold, the crew hooked up with Jon Augustavo and dropped the visuals right in time for the end of the summer.  To bring it full circle, it was filmed in Suzzallo Library at the University of Washington, where I spent many hours of my youth raising havoc while my mom worked in her office there.

Oh, and you’re lyin’ if you can’t relate…IJWB.  Download the High Society EP here.

Official video for one of the best songs of the year, no question.

I know I’m a bit late, but here are some visuals of Macklemore’s performance from Cougfest 2010 over at WSU.  Though it was really more like ‘Dawg’-fest, the crowd was still hyped and rocked out with all the artists the whole night. Peep the video above to watch Mack perform a few tracks off of his and Ryan Lewis’ The VS. EP which you can download here if you haven’t already.

Much like that De La Soul footage I posted recently, I’ve been meaning to get some of this footage out for months.  Here’s a quick montage of Drake’s performance at our Summer Jam from June.  If you missed out, he’ll be back in Seattle next Monday with J. Cole and Mary J. Blige for Bumbershoot.  Holler @ a Hyphey when you see me there.

Shout to mind of i on the editing.