The Audacity of Dope

Whoooo, this is fire.  If you aren’t familiar with the CunninLynguists, you need to get up on the 3 man group from Kentucky/Atlanta ASAP.  They’re right up there with Outkast, Little Brother, Slum Village, the Roots, Inverse, and U-N-I as my favorite groups doing it today.  One of the MC’s, Natti, just paired up with their producer extraordinaire, Kno, to rework Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida” record.  The result is an ill “cautionary tale about the decline of the ‘one-trick-pony’ rapper.”  Super fresh.

Natti (of the CunninLynguists) – “Ruled The World (Kno’s Viva La Vida Remix)”

Swiped from the QN5 blog.

I’m posting this for a couple reasons.  First, it’s a dope track.  Second, a lower quality mp3 of it has been floating around the net for the past week, but this is the fully mastered version.  Third, who doesn’t remember their teenage love?  Talk about timeless…those were the days.  Life was so simple then, before this whole “job” thing got in the way.  Lastly, I just wanted an excuse to Google image search Alicia, easily one of the hottest women on the planet.  I picked an older shot of her, back when she came on the scene with the braids, hat, and all.  I remember seeing the video for “Fallin’” and being mesmerized by her eyes.  And I don’t even notice eyes like that.  She was just ridiculous, and still is.

Alicia Keys ft. LL Cool J – “Teenage Love Affair (Remix)”

Props to Swizz Beatz for actually making a nice track too…though the original beat is still the ish.

You’ve seen the video, now you get the studio quality mp3. I smell a workout classic.  So dope.

Busta Rhymes – “Don’t Touch Me (Throw Da Water On ‘Em) (Travis Barker Remix)”

Here’s a new version of Nas’ “Cops Keep Firing” featuring a nice little verse from David Banner.  Banner’s dope, but kinda bipolar these days.  He’s clearly talented and makes a lot of ill, socially relevent material.  Then at the same time, he drops generic ish like this.  I guess you have to do both to play ball in this system.  Anyway, peep the remix.  The original appeared on Nas’ n-word tape with Green Lantern…

Nas ft. David Banner – “Cops Keep Firing (Remix)”

Shout to JM

Being the huge Lupe fan that I am, I had to post this up for y’all to check out. A Chicago producer named Itch13 remixed Lu’s “I Gotcha” off Food & Liquor, and it turned out pretty dope. I still prefer the original, but this is a good one for the collection:

Lupe Fiasco – “I Gotcha (Itch13’s Maceo Parker Funk Mix)”

Swiped from IllRoots.

Yes y’all, Seeing Sounds drops today and I highly recommend you cop it. Pharrell, Chad, and Shae did a great job and there are some instant classics on the album. It’s pretty much had a monopoly on my stereo this past week, so apologies to any artists that sent me music recently. I’ll check y’all out as soon as I’m done spazzing.

A few bonus tracks hit the net yesterday, so I thought I’d use this reminder post to toss up all the stuff that’s online that didn’t make the US album.

N.E.R.D. ft. Kanye West, Lupe Fiasco, and Pusha T – “Everyone Nose (Remix)”

N.E.R.D. – “Everyone Nose (DJ Ice Freeze’s Baltimore Style Mix)”

N.E.R.D. – “Everyone Nose (Live In NYC, 5-13-08)”

N.E.R.D. – “Spaz (DJ Freakii’s I’m Right Herre Mix)”

N.E.R.D. – “Spaz (Live at SXSW)”

N.E.R.D. – “Laser Gun Carrying”

N.E.R.D. ft. Santogold and Julian Casablancas – “My Drive Thru”

Res – “You Know What (Demo Reference Track)”

That last one is Res singing one of the best songs off the album, apparently as a demo reference track for Pharrell to finish later. Props to 2DopeBoyz for digging that one up.

Speaking of joints that made the final cut, one of my favorites is “Yeah You.” It chronicles an overzealous relationship Pharrell got himself into, and – *shifts into Concrete Loop/Miss Info gossip mode* – it turns out it’s all true. When N.E.R.D. came through Sound Session last month, he mentioned he had a stalker off the air. Later on, we were talking to his assistant and she told us the full scoop.

Apparently P met a super wealthy Japanese girl who went to college in Boston backstage at one of his shows. She had a rep for being crazy (“Niiiiiigo told me don’t do it”), but he figured she could be that night’s jumpoff. Little did he know that she was completely psycho, and afterwards, she ended up calling/emailing/texting him literally a hundred times a day…for months. The assistant stepped in, thinking she could handle the situation (“my friend asked me for your email address, she said she’d take it from here”), but the girl just moved on and is now stalking her. As of a month ago, they were still getting annoyed by the girl. I’m not sure writing “Yeah You” about her will help though, but at least it makes for an interesting story. Just like in the song, she’ll just hit pause and give him a call.

And since I can’t end this entry on some completely worthless gossip ish, check out this great article about Seeing Sounds, written by the homegirl Phayde. She was there with us when N.E.R.D. came through and got some real interesting info on the creation of the album out of the fellas. Here’s a part where Pharrell talked about “Anti Matter”:

Anti Matter
Pharrell: “That’s where we found the subject of ADD and ADHD. A lot of kids become discouraged because it’s a fairly new concept in elementary schools. All they want to do is give you Ritalin but they don’t really want to talk about it. It’s funny, because when a kid has the right parental environment, and the parents are on them quick, that kid with ADD that nobody wants on any sports team usually becomes one of the most successful chairmen of corporations … or a super incredible multi-tasker. The beat is kind of metaphorical for the way those kids perceive things. You’ll see that the beat is very simple in the beginning but then it transforms into this fast-paced thing because that’s the way they hear things.”

You can read the full article in the upcoming issue of Pound Magazine, or online right now…right here.

You just can’t go wrong with Dwele and Slum Village.  Every one of their collaborations has been dope, and this joint is no different.  T3 and (the rhyming god that is) Elzhi hop on Dwele’s new single, “I’m Cheatin’.”  I would have liked some longer verses, and perhaps a remixed beat…you know, like “remixes” were meant to be…but this is still the jam.

Dwele ft. Slum Village – “I’m Cheatin’ (Remix)”

The D, and the entire midwest region, is really on fire right now…

 

Never been a Blink 182 fan, but their behind the scenes stuff on MTV always made me think they seemed like cool dudes. I remember they renamed fan “meet and greets” as “meet and creeps,” which anyone who has helped run one can definitely relate to. Then again, I also remember seeing some of that awful reality show about Travis Barker’s marriage. So I guess it’s a push.

Anyway, Travis has been “remixing” random hip-hop joints over the last year by playing live drums alongside the track. This one with Busta Rhymes’ “Don’t Touch Me (Throw Da Water On ‘Em)” is the best one by far, mainly because he actually picked a good song to rework. No matter how much you kill the drums on a Soulja Boy track, I still can’t listen to that…