I’m gonna start this one off on a somber note, because I want to bring your attention to two friends of mine who went through some hardships recently.

First off, the big homie DV One in Seattle was the victim of senseless police brutality, along with his daughter. You can read about it here. And I want to point out, DV is one of the most positive and righteous dudes I know, so this news came as a total shock to me. Feel free to show some love on his MySpace page. Hold your head up, DV.

And second, I gotta say my man Trackademicks is one of my favorite up-and-coming producers right now. He’s bringing that hard-hitting slap music and bridging a lot of gaps in an effortless way, which to me is the way to go. So I’m sad to say that his studio burnt down last week. You can read about it on the blog on his MySpace page. I’m sure he’d appreciate your support.

Now if we could change gears for a second, let’s do a little September recap, shall we?

XXAt the top of the month, Chromeo showed New York why they’re the Dipset of Funk music and annihilated CakeShop. My man was like “I feel like I’m in Minneapolis!” Check out the pics here. Then I went to play at a Crooks & Castles party in San Diego for ASR. Could there be a new Sunglasses Is A Must t-shirt in the pipeline? Was that a rhetorical question? (Why do we drive on parkways and park on driveways?) Anyway the party was great until a massive brawl broke out right in front of the club and sent us all home early. Fair enough. Then I headed to New York for the big move. I put my all-over Yankee hat on, wolfed down a couple knishes and started referring to pizza as “pie”. Give me about 6 months and I expect to be exactly like this guy.

You might have also heard that Kanye was opening up for the Rolling Stones this month. That was an interesting experience — if interesting means spending Rosh Hashannah in Halifax one door down from Alice Cooper and his pet snake, to do an outdoor show under the rain in front of the entire population of Eastern Canada. We also played Boston and New York, in those massive football stadiums, in front of crowds that could have just as easily been there to watch a game. I was really hoping to get a snazzy snapshot with the specter commonly known as Keith Richards, but I didn’t even see any of those dudes. I did unintentionally break the juicer in their catering area, however.

Continuing in this tradition of the great outdoors, I played solo at Summer Stage in Central Park a few days later, and then headed up to my OG hometown for the Pop Montreal festival. Shout out to the Peer Pressure dudes for keeping the parties a-knockin’ the whole week. I dj’ed an afterparty with the brethren Chromeo and played tour guide for Chicago fam Kid Sister and Flosstradamus– we had some famous bagels but didn’t even have time to visit the “Canadian ballet”, if you catch my drift.

Now speaking of Kid Sis, hopefully by now you’ve heard “Damn Girl”, the track I produced for her. Pitchfork just put up the mp3 with a little news story, so now all the emo thugs will be rocking out to it. Much appreciated! And you might have caught her little “You Hear It First”-slash-”My Block Chicago extra” piece on MTV2 and the MTV Overdrive website this weekend. There’s more collabos coming, rest assured.

Now to end off this little novel, I’d like to point out that I actually DON’T have to go catch a plane tomorrow, or ride a ferry the day after. I’m not in a strange hotel in the Amazon. I’m at my apartment. I’ve been working on some tracks for my album. Coming up with new routines. Thinking about taking up yoga. Eventually. Anyways, stay tuned, there’s gonna be more news and announcements sooner than you think. Oh and I posted up my MTV Diary on my MySpace page. Check it out, with a date preferably.