The Audacity of Dope

For getting a mention on the cover on the new Billboard!  Not a bad look for the homey Grynch or the town…I love it.  Peep the Q&A right here.

A little before Pac Div dropped their Church League Champions project, Like, Mibbs, and BeYoung came through the Sound Session studio to chop it up on a variety of topics.  We discussed that mixtape, the digital EP they put on iTunes a while back, and of course their upcoming full length debut, Grown Kid Syndrome.  They also talked about the importance of their live show, how their creative process likens to their game on the court, their favorite underrated West Coast MC’s, the L.A. scene, a possible collaboration with Andre 3000, and much more.

Pac Div on Sound Session – http://www.mediafire.com/?nzmr3eh32oi
(back up / streaming link – http://www.zshare.net/audio/649045665d98875b/)

This was one of the most enjoyable interviews I’ve done, mainly because chilling with Pac Div reminded me of kicking it with my college homies back in SoCal.  These dudes are real hip-hop heads who love Dilla and basketball…pretty much all it takes to be cool in my book.  Plus, we’re both fans of the Arizona Wildcats and even spent time commiserating over that damn 2001 NCAA Championship game.  For the record: I still hate you, Mike Dunleavy.

The homey RTC and the Ruby Hornet fam put together this recap of the Sneaker Pimps even in Chicago last week.  I highly recommend all the Seattle folks to come out to our stop on the tour on September 10th:

The Clipse + Slick Rick + some of our best local artists?  Whooooooo.  We’ll be interviewing the Clipse too, so if you have any questions for them, let me know.

I reeeeeeeally hope this gets done right and if the trailer is any indication, I think it’s in good hands.  Fun fact: Big L is my favorite MC of all-time…

Sometimes the industry moves fast, sometimes it moves slow.  We had Raheem DeVaughn on Sound Session in February of last year when he had just released Love Behind The Melody, and at the time, he was planning on dropping the follow up later in 2008.  Plans changed however, but his new single with Ludacris just leaked yesterday and lo and behold, it’s the same song he previewed for us a year and a half ago.

Since we grabbed this footage before TAOD was in existence, I figured I would bring it back for those who may have missed it.  Here’s the studio version of the track with Luda as well, courtesy of 2DopeBoyz:

Raheem DeVaughn ft. Ludacris – “Bulletproof”

If you want to go back and check out the full interview with Raheem, click here or peep our podcast page…although you’ll have to scroll down a bit haha.  Damn, we’ve interviewed hella folks…we might have to dip into the archives and put up all the interviews we did in the first 2 years of Sound Session too, cause those aren’t up there yet.  Rest assured though, as the son of a librarian, I’ve got everything archived offline.

Pretty good interview if you’re looking to kill some time.  Bill’s a bit of a hip-hop head (no pun), but Jay’s laugh kinda reminds me of Kobe’s these days…seems so contrived.  Shrug.

Swiped from IllRoots.

This has been my jam for a minute and faithful Sound Session listeners will remember us playing this heavy a while back when it first dropped.  Now we get the video.  Get ’em Kaos!

As someone who has interviewed a lot of these folks that Nardwuar assaults, these are equal parts fascinating and horrifying to me.  They’re not really informative in the traditional sense, but at least their entertaining. I’m still waiting until he really uncovers some long lost skeletons though: “Do you remember the night you spent with a stripper in Atlanta in 1996? No? Well have we got a surprise for you…Nasir, Jr., come on in…”

I’m just glad I wasn’t the interviewer who had to go next…

Holler @ a Hyphey 🙂

I love when my day job puts me on to dope songs/videos and this one came to my attention today.  Peep Courtney John’s “Lucky Man” for that classic Roots meets Motown feel…perfect record to close out the summer in the next month or so.  Rock to it.

Shout to the homey Noah for the heads up.

So dope.  This is how you make a classic record.

Shout to HipHopOfficial for putting together a great piece.