The Audacity of Dope

As I showed y’all yesterday, we’re snowed in here in Seattle and as a matter of fact, it’s even worse than it was during that video.  I think we’re up to about half a foot of packed snow on the ground, with no signs of it letting up for the next few days.  It’s really cool looking outside and fun to walk around in, but the downside is that I’ve been stuck around my house for 4 days straight now.  Wait…that’s probably not such a bad thing…I have good food, a warm place, football (and futbol!) on TV, and I’ve been able to finish up a ton of work.  I take it back, this snow thing is kinda dope.

Well, aside from the fact that I haven’t done any Christmas shopping yet and I’m suppose to be moving in 10 days.  If I have to move my couch on ice skates, I’ma be very, very upset.

Anyway, in the meantime, I’ve been getting some old projects finished.  Here’s some simple Flip Cam footage I grabbed of the homies Black Milk and Elzhi performing at the Red Bull Big Tune stop here in Seattle on 9/12/08.  If you recall, we recorded a dope interview with them the day before, which you can still check out right here.

At the show, they ran through some of their illest songs, including “Sound The Alarm,” “Motown 25,” “Hiding Place,” “1, 2,” and more.  If you’ve never seen Milk and El rock live, you’re missing out.

“Detroit in the muhf****n’ buildin'”

I think Shad is my favorite discovery of this past year.  I know he’s been doing his thing for years, but apparently I was sleeping cause I just caught on to him at the end of 2007.  Better late than never though and in fact, this video is from back in July, but the new homey G just shot it over and I was floored.  This dude is crazy.

Be on the lookout for big things from Shad in ’09.  He’ll be at SXSW in March and on the Warped Tour all year, including a Seattle stop in August.  Prior to that, it looks like he’ll be out here in the Pacific NW rocking shows, so I’ll keep y’all posted when things get announced.  In the meantime, be sure to cop The Old Prince asap.

I would imagine that everyone prefers Sam Cooke’s original version, but of all the R&B singers out today, Hamilton is one of a few that could pull this off nicely.  The original is beyond classic, but Anthony does a pretty damn good job.

Swiped from 2DopeBoyz.

I think I remember seeing this footage go around the blogs back at the end of September, but I never posted it up for some reason.  As I mentioned in the post on his Sound Session appearance, Murs is one of the hardest working artists out there.  He consistently puts his all into his live performances, and that’s on display here in the footage from Amoeba’s Hollywood store.  Peep the video and watch him run through tracks like “Better Than The Best,” “H-U-S-T-L-E,” “Bad Man,” “Can It Be,” “Silly Girl,” “Lookin’ Fly,” and more.

Thanks to Paul for sending this through.

The downside of being able to work from home due to the Seattle snow is that I’ve been firmly planted at the computer for the last 12 hours.  So when the homies are about their business and provide perfect descriptions for stuff to post, it makes one happy Hyphen.  Take it away fellas:

Follow a night in the life of new supergroup Idle Warship (Talib Kweli + Res + Graph Nobel) as they travel through NYC, hit the studio to record, DJ a set at a club, perform, and generally talk sh*t. You can also preview new songs from the group’s forthcoming mixtape and album. Shot/Edited by Court Dunn for Restless Films. Second camera Andrew Baxter.

Shout to young Tunj for sending this through and peace to the entire Blacksmith fam.  As a bonus, Tunj included the song featured heavily in this clip:

Idle Warship – “Steady”

Now all that said, minus 10K points for making me hear “Pop Champagne” at the end of the clip.  Blech.

“illlllllllll“

Criminally underrated producer Exile is dropping his new album Radio in January and he’s been shooting some of these ill promo videos leading up to the release.  In this edition, he chops up Lil’ Wayne and some Hiero to show you what true mpc mastery looks like.  Weezy never sounded so good.

Shout to the homey Jon Kim for sending this through.

(or watch on HyphTube)

The homey Braille has made a few appearances on Sound Session before, but this was the first time he’s been able to make the trek up from Portland to Seattle to kick it with us live in the studio. He brought along his Lightheaded fam too, Othello and Ohmega Watts, so we caught up with them all for a minute and talked about their current projects. Braille allowed us to give a world premiere to “Fill It In,” one of the joints off his upcoming album with S1 (of Strange Fruit Project). Also, before he left, he even dropped a real freestyle (remember those?) off the dome and killed it. You can watch the freestyle above and download the audio of the full interview through either of the links below:

Braille on Sound Session – http://www.mediafire.com/?mmzmmkjwzjq
(back up / streaming link – http://www.zshare.net/audio/524711662323a585/ )

Northwest people: be sure to check out Braille’s holiday event, “Everybody Say Ho!”, on the 11th in Seattle (see flyer) or the 19th at Berbati’s Pan in Portland. It’s going to be a great time…be there!

Ok, I’ve had some recent discussions about how Barack’s election might inspire artists to create happier, more hopeful music, but this is ridiculous.  Nah, just playin’.  Great stuff here from the Legendary Roots Crew for all the witto ones, swiped from NahRight.

Y’all are up on The Dino 5 too, right?

I’ve been trying to tell y’all about Chester French for a minute now, but if you’ve been sleeping, check out their appearance on OKPtv courtesy of GregTheDude and Tunji.  D.A. and Max talk about their background, their sound, and misrepresenting Inverse as “an instrumental hip-hop group” hahahah.  Not exactly, but he’s still learning.  Peep the clip and see why Pharrell signed these dudes immediately after hearing their demo.

I’ve been real sick lately, but also real inspired.  I hope to blog more in the days to come, but right now work is piling up and headaches are killing me.

But guess what?

We did it.