The Audacity of Dope

Alright, I’ve put this off long enough but the time has come for me to officially put out the call: we are looking for an intern to assist with Sunday Night Sound Session on KUBE 93 and The Audacity of Dope.

Long story short, with my day job going well, I’m finding less and less time for SNSS and TAOD related projects.  Meanwhile, the demand for radio show and website content gets greater and greater. 

Sound Session has been broadcasting on KUBE’s 100K watts for over 4 years now and we’ve established ourselves as one of the premier outlets for dope, progressive hip-hop on the radio throughout the country.  We have great relationships with artists and labels and folks tune in from all over the world each week.

Likewise, the blog has grown from merely a place where I archived radio shows and interviews, to a fairly active site with an increasing amount of traffic every quarter.  I would like to post up more content, but my schedule doesn’t allow that many updates each week.  Even with the limited posts, TAOD is pretty well known in the hip-hop blogosphere, and I’m always pleasantly surprised when I’m talking with an artist or label and they mention they check out the site regularly.  But the bottom line is that there’s a lot of untapped potential here, so it’s time to turn this up a notch.

That’s where you come in.

I’m looking for someone to assist with a few main things regarding the radio show and the website:

• Recording and editing our video interviews. We interview artists almost every week, but the amount of time it takes to edit the video and post it often means that they sit on my computer for weeks, if not months (…or even years).  We turn down interviews all the time as well, just cause we don’t have time to put together the content after recording.  We want someone who can record them (either on your own camera or our Kodak Zi8) and then edit them in iMovie or Final Cut Express/Pro for posting online.  We can tweak the format if you have new ideas, or we can stick to the current presentation that we use.  Check out www.vimeo.com/hyphentv for some examples.
• Editing our audio interviews. Sometimes we don’t record video (though hopefully this would be less often if we had an assistant), so we’d like someone familiar with editing audio.  You don’t need to be a Pro Tools expert by any stretch of the imagination, but you should be familiar with basic editing concepts and be able to use an audio editing program or two.
• Assisting in the studio during Sound Session. If you’re able to come down to the station most Sunday nights, we’d love to have someone help take phone calls and assist with the production of the show.  We don’t run a very complicated broadcast, but if you’re interested in learning how it all goes down and chilling with J. Moore and myself, we could use an extra hand.
• Blogging on The Audacity of Dope. I would like someone to help post dope content on the site.  It would probably work two ways: 1) I’d send you some material to post up when you have the chance.  2) You’d find content that you think should be posted on your own and then toss it up (probably with my approval at first and then if that goes well, you could post up whatever fits with the site at your discretion).  This would also entail sending content to some of the other main blogs to post up from time to time, so you should be able to network fairly well without annoying folks.  I.e., if you’re unfamiliar with the magic of the BCC function in emails, please stop reading now.

So there you have it.  Nothing too fancy and, in all honesty, nothing too glamorous.  This won’t make you a star or guarantee you a job in this industry, but it should be a great way to learn about the business.  Plus, you’ll get some fun perks like hanging out with artists, free tickets to shows, being cooler than your friends, etc..

Unfortunately, we cannot offer school credit right now because the Clear Channel intern system would require us to get a new person after every quarter.  I don’t want to have to find a different person every few months if I can help it.  I’m looking for someone who wants to really throw themselves into this, take pride in his/her work, and dedicate a few hours a week to it for a long period of time.  If you’re interested in interning for the KUBE promotions staff and receiving school credit, you can read more here.

A few people have also already asked, “is there any pay?”

Of course not, welcome to the music industry!

If you’re interested, please email me at DJHyphen@gmail.com with a brief letter and any links to work you’ve done that might be similar to this position.  I’d also like to know:

• Who you are
• Why you want to help
• Why we should select you
• What special skills you may have

Obviously you’ll need to be a Seattle-area resident to help, but if you’re not and still want to get involved, hit me up and we can talk about it.  If you know someone who might be interested, please help spread the word via email, messageboards, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, etc..

Thanks y’all…

This is the kind of song/video that makes me want to get away.  I haven’t taken a vacation in ages and it might necessary soon to clear my head and recharge.  There’s only so many emails you can do before you literally start going insane.

Thankfully, songs like this calm everything down…

As I’ve mentioned before, Amen has been one of my favorite MC’s for a minute now, but he doesn’t get anywhere near the exposure he deserves.  He’s gearing up to release more music than ever these days and after dropping Head On recently, he’s back with his “Entourage” inspired project, Queens Boulevard.   Check it out…

Download here.

The day job keeps a lot of great music videos coming across my desk and this quick one from Stefon Harris and Blackout caught my eye.  Dope graphics and a real cool jazzy sound combine for a great piece off their recently released Urbanus album.  The band and Concord Jazz are also hosting a contest for all you aspiring videographers to remix this clip.  Learn more here.

Yeah, this dropped a little while ago, but for some reason I didn’t get a chance to post it up then and I think it definitely deserves some shine.  I’m not too familiar with Rob Murat, but the stuff I’ve heard from him has been dope.  Plus, this joint features the homies Naledge and Double-O from Kidz In The Hall.  Be on the lookout for their new “Jukebox” video dropping soon as well!

Man, it’s a shame this video didn’t drop a little earlier because the song and visuals would have been perfect for the summer.  I’m not sure I really like the stutter video effects, or if I really understand highlighting the hair spin maneuver, but I still dig the video and the song is flawless.  I could listen to those drums all day.

Thanks to a pretty massive power outage in the Queen Anne/Magnolia area of Seattle on Sunday night, our recorded archive of SNSS had a bit of a malfunction.  While we lost the first 30 minutes of the show when we got knocked off the air, the back up generators kicked in and we still have the final hour for y’all.  The link below picks up right before the brand new track from Big Boi, so you can still hear great music from Kid Cudi, Bilal, Shad, De La Soul, Warren G, Aloe Blacc, and more.

Shout to the homey Skyzoo calling in from Brooklyn as well.  Be sure you cop his official debut album, The Salvation, in stores today!

Show #226 (9-27-09)

1. Crown Royale – “We Gotcha”
2. Royce Da 5’9” – “New Money”
3. Mistah F.A.B. – “Follow Me”
4. Consequence ft. Rick Ross – “The More I Get”
5. Wale ft. K’Naan – “Um Ricka”
6. Brother Ali – “Crown Jewel”
7. Anton Genius ft. Naledge, Dominique Larue, Apollo Cain, Truth, & Pugs Atomz – “Gettin’ Up (Remix)”
8. J. Cole – “Lights Please”
9. Big Boi ft. Too $hort & George Clinton – “Fo’ Yo’ Sorrows”
10. Kid Cudi ft. Chip Tha Ripper – “Hyyerr”
11. Shafiq Husayn ft. Bilal – “Cheeba (Nottz Remix)”
12. They Live – “Meth Heads” (Local Music)
13. **INTERVIEW WITH SKYZOO #03**
14. Skyzoo – “The Beautiful Decay”
15. El Prez ft. Donwill & Von Pea (of Tanya Morgan) – “Victory Lapse”
16. Shad ft. Jermiside & Destruments – “The Calling”
17. De La Soul – “La La La”
18. Warren G ft. Raekwon & Nate Dogg – “100 Miles”
19. Kyle Lucas & Captain Midnite ft. Sol & Grynch – “The New Light” (Local Music)
20. Othello ft. Now On & Mayer Hawthorne – “Active Balanced (Terry Cole Remix)” (Local Music)
21. Kam Moye – “Let’s Be Honest”
22. Aloe Blacc – “Houston”

Link to download the mp3 of the show – http://www.mediafire.com/?z1gymnywiix
(back up / streaming link – http://www.zshare.net/audio/6627369668e80d1f/ )

If there are any problems with the links or if you’d like to be added to our weekly email list to receive the playlist and download links after every show, just shoot me an email, DJHyphen@gmail.com.

RTC at Ruby Hornet grabbed some great footage of 2009’s breakthrough artist, Mayer Hawthorne, performing live at the Dark Room.  Peep part of “Just Ain’t Gonna Work Out” above, then a little reggae flip of the single below.

Head on over to Ruby Hornet for more clips and be sure to catch this tour when it hits your town!

Pretty self explanatory…the homies Tunji, Kam Moye, Jern Eye, and Evangillest rocking rhymes over live production from Keelay and Cook.  Shout to GregTheDude on the visuals!

There’s something a little Lebowskian about the style of this video (“no Donny, these men are nihilists…there’s nothing to be afraid of”) so it’s quirky, but I dig it.  Hudson is a really dope writer to me.

Ever told some white lies to get close to someone?  Be careful…