The Audacity of Dope

Get ’em Tunj.

Courtesy of Eighty’s Baby.

Nuff said.  Let’s get to work.

(watch part one in High-Def on HyphenTV)

Loyal listeners of Sound Session know that the big homey Jake One often drops by the studio to kick it, but we’ve never really done an official interview with him.  With the release of his debut album, White Van Music, a few weeks back, we had to bring in Jake and talk all about it.  Not only did he give us all sorts of behind the scenes stories about the project, but we ran through the entire album on air, joint by joint.

If you haven’t checked out White Van Music, you’re missing out on some of the best beats of the year and guest appearances from Black Milk, MF Doom, Alchemist, Busta Rhymes, Bishop Lamont, M.O.P., Freeway, Posdnuos, Slug, Little Brother, Prodigy, Elzhi, Royce The 5’9″, Young Buck, and many more.  Another guest from the album, Brother Ali, also came through SNSS that night to pay his respects to the latest chapter in Seattle’s rich musical history.

You can watch all the interview segments through part one (above) and part two (below), but make sure you watch them in HD on the HyphenTV Vimeo channel.  If you want the audio of the entire show for the mp3 player or the ride, here you go:

Jake One on Sound Session – http://www.mediafire.com/?ijm0j7uyj90
(back up / streaming link – http://www.zshare.net/audio/20192616e1aa393c/ )

(watch part two in High-Def on HyphenTV)

Cop White Van Music right now!

(watch it in High-Def on HyphenTV)

A few weeks back, David Banner came through Sound Session and I jumped at the chance to talk a little politics with one of the more socially aware rappers out there.  Granted, Banner drops his fair share of standard commercial/club type joints (“Play” comes to mind…), but it’s all about balance, and he provides that with his social commentary.

In this clip, Banner talked with me about the importance of the election coming up a week from today.  He explained why he supports Barack Obama, what the presidential candidate represents to him, and why it’s critical that the youth get involved in the political process.  With the election so close, we really need everyone on board down the home stretch.  Are you in or are you out?

As always, Jay Smooth comes through with another on point video.  The importance of the youth vote has never been higher and this is the biggest election in our lifetimes.  It’s imperitive that you actually go vote (or send in your absentee ballots ASAP) on the 4th.  No excuses whatsoever.

If you weren’t able to make it to Tacoma last Sunday to hear Joe speak, here are a few short highlights.  It may sound trite, but he’s right.  Every vote really does count, especially here in Washington where Governor Gregoire needs your support.

If you have your absentee ballot, vote now.  If you have some free time in the next 10 days, volunteer to help out right here.  And that’s not just empty rhetoric, I’ve been volunteering since the start of summer.  Get out there and help bring us across the finish line.

I’m glad this video is dope, because otherwise I’d almost feel contractually obligated to post it.  Let’s see…

• It features a ton of my good friends.
• It bigs up the 206.
• The Red Bull Big Tune was created by the other half of Sound Session, J. Moore, along with the homies Jake One, Vitamin D, and Marcus.
• I was in the building.
• It’s a great event.
• Budo is hilarious.

I could go on, but the video is pretty self explanatory.  Congrats to Brainstorm and Rising Son for advancing to the finals in NYC.  Let’s hope we get back to back Seattle champions…

Fail.

Double fail.

Ok, so we all already knew that Jay-Z and Nas have been two of Barack’s biggest supporters in hip-hop, but it’s great to see the Obama campaign reach out to them and film these official endorsement videos to help win swing states where the artists performed.  Every state has their own page on Barack’s website, so go track down yours and get involved.

Washington people: as we talked about on the last Sound Session, your page is located at Washington.BarackObama.com.  Volunteer.  All the cool people are doing it (…aka…me).  You know, if the campaign wants me to film one of these celebrity endorsements, they should just holler @ a Hyphey hahaha…

The homies Naledge & Double O have been out on the road with Murs recently and it looks like they’ve begun to upload some stuff to their Kyte Channel.  Tour life definitely isn’t for me, but if I had to embark on one, I think those 3 dudes would be hilarious to kick it with.  We had some great conversations when they came through Seattle — i.e., Murs is super psyched for High School Musical 3 and prefers old No Limit to vintage Blackstar…wtf — and I’ll be posting up the interviews soon.

Along with the Kyte video, you can follow along with the fellas over at Naledge’s blog on Ruby Hornet.  Peep entry #15 for his recap of kicking it with your boy Hyph:

We went on DJ Hyphen’s show on KUBE.  We always go to Hyphen.  Hyphen was the first person to play a KITH record on Clear Channel, so we always remember that.  He was our first interview on a Clear Channel station.  We’ve always maintained a relationship.  We never even sent him the record, he pulled it off of iTunes and just rocked it that way.  That’s amazing to us.  He’s always rocked with us, so anytime we’re in Seattle we always hang with him.  We got a lot of love in Seattle, it’s one of our better markets and it’s always a great time when we go out here.  We know the lay of the land.  We went out there with Blue Scholars and did three shows in a row at the Showbox that were sold out, then we went back out there with Redman, and we went back there on our own and did a show.  We’ve been to Seattle enough times now that we kind of know the lay of the land out there.  But Hyphen is really good peoples.  He mentioned the website and the blog and he said he reads the blog and all of that stuff.  We had a nice long discussion.  He’s a music person too.  He really keeps up with what’s going on.  He knew about RubyHornet and Fakeshore.  He actually mentioned it during the interview.  He’s a big supporter.  He plays pretty much anything we do.  We send him a new record, he’s always playing it.  It could be a freestyle. That’s one thing about his show and the way he does things.  He plays what he wants, and just so happens to be a supporter of ours and has always been there as an outlet for us to get our music heard.  He’s always reached out to us, and we always do an interview when we’re in town.  We’ve done call-ins, about four interviews.  It’s almost like checking in, he’s a homie so we always get down with him.

Word up, Naledge is that dude.  It’s so dope to watch great artists and awesome people achieve success doing what they love.  The Kidz are only beginning…shout to the whole fam, Naledge, O, Matty, and DSolo…what up!