There is an epidemic of “Behind the scenes” teasers for videos (especially rap visuals — they call them “B.T.S.”) that are all as useless and interchangeable as the next. The race for content in the blogosphere is getting ridiculous. This, on the other hand, is a true “Making of” feature that’s actually worth watching. It really makes me look forward to this upcoming video for Skream’s “Listenin’ to the Records on my Wall”. A biblical twist to the Amen drums… how appropriate.
Chromeo have a new album just around the corner, and having witnessed the brick-by-brick assembly of that beast, I can’t wait for the world to hear it. Dave always sings me his songs before he records them. Somewhere on one of my old MiniDV tapes I have footage of him doing Momma’s Boy on the air-Wurli and air-bells when it was just in his head… I need to dig that up. But I digress. They recorded the new album at a studio just a few blocks from my apartment, so I’d go visit them every evening and was the go-to “how does this sound?” guy. I even tracked their vocals on one of the songs. But truthfully, the way they work is extremely self-contained. If they do reach out to someone on the outside, it’ll be some random saxophonist, which has happened a few times already.
Now it’s all done, and it is my pleasure to present to you: “Don’t Turn The Lights On”. Buy it on iTunes! (That’s the US link but it’s also out in the UK.)
For those of you who checked out Drake’s album you may have noticed I’m scratching on song #5, “Show Me A Good Time”. Here’s the story of how that came about.
You could think that there was some sort of Canadian connection, or even a Kanye connection for that matter. But there wasn’t. When So Far Gone came out last year and Drizzy’s buzz went through the roof of the stratosphere of the ceiling of the galaxy, I remember thinking “wow, this is interesting, this is the first time there’s a Canadian rapper that I know absolutely nothing about.” Canada, while being a huge country on the atlas, has a very small music biz. Having been active in it for over a decade, I can tell you that usually everyone knows everyone. But the truth is, I left Montreal 4 years ago and Drake is pretty young, so in my view he just came out of nowhere.
Canada:
Off The Hook (Montreal)
Empire Skate and Snowboard (Boucherville/Montreal)
Norml Clothing (Ottawa)
The Urban Bakery (Winnipeg)
Foosh (Edmonton)
Australia: (Coming soon)
Japan:
12 Entertainment (Yokohama)
Invisible Store (Osaka)
Philippines:
Ronac Gallery / Bunker PH (Manila)
Indonesia:
Blue Panic (Bali)
Italy:
High Time (Bologna)
Green Store (Verona)
Settimo Cielo (Conegliano)
Superfly Deluxe (Pavia)
New School Progress (Bergamo)
For all you die-hard collectors, or for anyone who thinks that mp3’s are Satan’s medium of choice, it is with great pleasure that I announce the arrival of the Dirty South Dance 2 deluxe pack. The pack consists of a fancy Digipak CD, a t-shirt and a beautiful poster, numbered and signed by both Shepard Fairey and myself. It all drops today (June 22nd) and will be available at obeyclothing.com, obeygiant.com, 80spurple.com (where the images above appeared), turntablelab and a small selection of boutiques around the world. There are only 500 units, I suspect these will go fast.
I’ll post direct purchase links as soon as they’re live.
In the meantime, enjoy this interview after the jump, conducted by DJ Roam.
This is crazy. Nashiem! One of the most mysterious, silent, unseen heroes of hip hop production. This dude made so many classics in his heyday and we’ve never really heard him speak. Props to my mans Sean C. & LV for tracking him down. I know there are more clips from the interview coming and I can’t wait to see the rest.
1. Ramadanman - Work Them - Swamp
2. Kanye West - Power - Def Jam
3. Ratatat - Neckbrace - XL
4. Subskrpt - We’ll Be Fine - Dubsided
5. Flying Lotus - Do The Astral Plane - Warp
6. Greenmoney feat. Lady Chann - Political Hype - Fool’s Gold
7. Big Boi feat. Andre 3000 & Sleepy Brown - Lookin For Ya - Def Jam
8. Vado - Large On The Streets - N/A
9. Jesse Rose - You Know It - Made To Play
10. Donae’o - I’m Fly - N/A
Last fall I went to Australia and visited a juvenile jail with the Heaps Decent organization to encourage the kids to make music. You can read my full blog post about it here. We actually came up with a song that day, which I produced with them, and it’s just been released.
Here’s what the Heaps Decent blog had to say:
In September last year, A-Trak came to Australia with the Parklife tour. While he was here he joined Heaps Decent in Wagga Wagga, NSW where we took him to Riverina Juvenile Justice Centre for a day of music making with the young artists inside the centre.
Nina and Levins had spent the week beforehand running workshops at the centre, writing lyrics and practising flow and mic control. When A-Trak arrived at Shepherd’s Park, the school within Riverina Juvenile Justice Centre, everyone was ready to make something awesome.
‘Anywhere But Here’ is the product of our day spent recording with A-Trak. The four boys you can hear on the track wrote their own raps, as did MC Huz, a volunteer from Riverina Community College who joined us on the day. Some of the other boys played didgeridoo and made wild noises, which A-Trak sampled and used as the base for the beat.
While we are offering this for free and encourage you to spread the word by sharing the song, we please ask that you consider making a donation to Heaps Decent so that we can continue running great workshops like this one. Click here to make a donation, it’s really easy and we really appreciate any amount you can afford!
People of North America! Some of you might not have noticed but technically Duck Sauce’s “aNYway” was never released in our fair continent, only in the rest of the world. Sometimes labels and contracts go through wormholes in the space-time continuum, it’s some advanced quantum physics. Anyway (aNYway), this week it was finally unleashed, courtesy of the good folks at Thrive Records / Island Def Jam.
Furthermore, next week Fool’s Gold is releasing the long-awaited “Greatest Hits” vinyl-only EP, available at your local record shops and wherever quality wax is sold. It features “aNYway”, “You’re Nasty”, “The Motion” and “Grand Steppin”.
All this is leading up to the SUMMER release of the highly anticipated / bootlegged / youtubed / blogged follow-up, “Barbra Streisand”. Stay tuned for that release date… Oh and don’t worry, we’ve got some more new joints in the can for the fall.
