Not a household name, except among hip hop heads, Ski Beatz did a bunch of production for Jay-Z's Reasonable Doubt. Yeah, it's like that. He's been busy lately. This project, Endless Summer, with Tabi Bonney is slick, and there's an EP with Camp Lo he just did. I'm really feeling the opening tune, "On Jupiter."
A bunch of random heat just in case you need some new jams for spring time riding. Turn the system up loud.
On the topic of rolling around in cars (with a particular penchant for talking about fellatio), this track "Let's Ride" by left coaster Shane Eli is pretty hot. Features verses from durrty southerners Playboy Tre and Rittz (one of my two fav white rappers out right now). The beat is a flip of a Marlena Shaw jam. The content won't enrich your mind, but it with summer time around the corner it's time to lighten up a little. Download a copy of the single here.
Fresh from ATL is this new mixtape from Aleon Craft called Mothership Decatur. Tracks like "Yoga Flame" and "Donkey Kong" have been floating around the internet for a good minute now, but there's some nice new stuff too. Definitely got a little bit of everything on here stylistically too, from the hazed-out southern space funk to club bangers and some straight spitting for the old school heads. I'm particularly feeling this joint.
If you prefer your hip hop to originate north of Mason Dixon line and to get a little more abstract than pleasures of the flesh, you might be happy to learn that Stones Throw is re-releasing DOOM's first album, which has been out of print for too long. The original album, plus some lost footage and instrumentals...finally...If you never heard this, you better go back to school.
So Curren$y and Alchemist have been working together for the Spitta's new album Covert Coup. The results are pretty serious. Drop by 2DopeBoyz to check out the first leak "Ventilation" (there's been another since this one dropped, but I think this one is better).
The final installment in the series of things you need to jam...closing on the mellow tip...is this 80 Blocks from Tiffany's (the collab between Pete Rock and Camp Lo) remix featuring Planet Asia. Go check it out, along with the original 80 Blocks mixtape release over at the Smoking Section. Download the track here.
Spent the weekend in Atlanta for A3C. Good times. Camp Lo performed Saturday night and killed it. They also announced that they're working on a project together with Pete Rock that's going to be called 80 Blocks from Tiffany's. Not sure whether that's directly related to the release of the documentary or not...Rhymefest closed out Saturday night with an inspired performance. Besides pulling a kid out of the crowd to do Kanye's verse on "Brand New", he kicked a super tight freestyle that played off some crowd interaction (camera poses and kissing somebody's aunt in the first row) and a great punchline about Eddie Long. The most interesting part of his set came when he stopped and talked for a few minutes about how he's running for city council in the district where he grew up and why people need to become directly involved in improving their communities (a theme near and dear to my own heart.) Homeboy Sandman and Tanya Morgan also killed sets. Brittany Bosco was amazing. Reks was dope.
I'm also happy to report that there are a lot of interesting young artists out there who bringing some really fresh things in the next couple years.
I came home with a gang of CDs, videos, pics and web links, so as I get a chance to sift through it all, I'll post some of the best finds.
I love it when good music previously unknown to me appears in my inbox.
The most recent example is collection of remixes called Frootloops assembled by Ritchcraft along with collaborators Qwest and Jansport J.
This project is the epitome of why the internet is doing amazing things for artists open to collaboration. These three producers live in different corners of North America, and may or may not have ever even met in person before, but they met via Twitter and got things popping. Remix albums from dudes you've never heard before are a dime a dozen these days though, practically clogging the intricate series of tubes that make up the internet, but these three are no joke. What's particularly nice is that while all are dope, each has his own little flavor, which means the tracks don't get mired down in a stylistic rut and what would have been 3 nice EPs is actually more like a dope mixtape.
To give you an idea, here's a taste of each.
Ritchcraft, who masterminded the collection, is from Canada, and he drops a nice mashup of the immenently remixable Hov with a Led Zeppelin backdrop that gives this a nice Grey Album feel to it.
Finally, enter Jansport J stage left, the west coaster who's starting to build a real solid rep, adding a metal finger-esque Rhymefest remix on top of the Transformer's theme.
