hip hop music

Pete Rock and Smif & Wessun Speak On How The NYPD Scuffle Began, Vow "Enough Is Enough"
hiphopdx

"What happened was, she was trying to protect her mother from the police hitting her, hitting her mom. So they were hitting her on her leg, and she was like, 'Don't hit my mother.' My wife was saying, 'Don't hit my daughter.' That's what happened. No one assaulted cops. The cops were the ones that assaulted people, period. It's just enough is enough. I've had enough. I've had enough of seeing it on the news, I've had enough of seeing it in the street. Now, I'm in the middle of it and I've really had enough. We're just going to support and keep this thing going until we get justice."

See more details, and official statements from Smif & Wessun and Pete Rock's wife here.

When I saw there was a new Kanye speech circulating I immediately played out a script in my mind, with Ye saying "Even after everything I've been through, bearing the cross of being The Person Inside The TV, people still have the nerve to say that my video full of dead women used as decoration could be taken as dehumanizing women a bit. How can they not understand that I am an ARTIST, and that means everything I do is sacred and must never be questioned??"

And sure enough that's pretty much all we've got here. The worst crime of all is being predictable, Kanye, step your navel-gazing game up!

Common - Ghetto Dreams feat NAS by Nasir Jones

Common's new track with Nas, produced by longtime associate No ID. Not the most enlightened musings I've ever heard on being a single man, but I guess that's no surprise. My best stab at the yrics below.

"Game - Ain't No Doubt About It (Ft. Justin Timberlake & Pharrell) Official Video"

The video they apparently filmed a long time ago, for Game's track with Skateboard P and JT. Is it just me or is this video basically every cliche the Lonely Island guys made fun of in the "I'm On A Boat" video? Also Game's verses sound to me like they were ghostwritten by Fabo (which I guess is a compliment). Full lyrics below.

A different flavor musically than we usually get from Wise Intelligent. Interesting back and forth between him and the female vocalist in between verses. Via Grandgood

Whatever you may think of Armond White's contrarian hustle as a movie critic I'll always respect him for being one of the very first to do regular & serious writing about hip-hop, back in the 80's at the City Sun (alongside Harry Allen). So I'm glad to see him writing about rap again, even if--as usual--I'm not quite sure how to take his review.

Armond White on the ATCQ Movie

Remember the movie Brown Sugar? Of course you don't. That's because its premise--the culturally unifying love of hip-hop--is not, in itself, sufficient to sustain a movie. The same problem occurs with Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest. Director Michael Rapaport (lead actor of the interracial jungle fever movie Zebrahead) professes his generational love of hip-hop without the doc-making "skills" to explain why hip-hop transformed global attitudes toward black youth or why ATCQ personified universal hipsterism during the same era that mainstream media was lionizing grunge...

...Unable to explore psychology, personality or aesthetics, Rapaport has no story to tell. Anvil: The Story of Anvil is the great document about the unifying love of pop music, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster had moments of stark, clear conflict. But Beats, Rhymes & Life is hardly more than a video scrapbook--one with uneven lighting and amateurishly blurry camerawork. Fatally, no unifying structure means it lacks a beat, rhyme and life. Best to revisit ATCQ's several inventive music videos (especially Scenario and Electric Relaxation), the finest documents of a movement... [full review here]

The text of this legislation should read "have you ever tasted this crap?"

Milwaukee Youth Group Aims to Limit Sales of Snoop's "Blast"

A Milwaukee, Wisconsin Alderman is seeking to limit the sales of a controversial alcoholic beverage being marketed by Pabst Brewing Company and rapper Snoop Dogg. Alderman Joe Davis, Sr. and the city of Milwaukee Youth Council are sponsoring legislation that goes to Council's Judiciary and Legislation Committee on Monday (July 18th), seeking to limit the sales and marketing of the drink in the city of Milwaukee...

"...National studies show that young people are much more likely to engage in risky and potentially harmful behaviors such as driving while intoxicated and unprotected sex when they're engaged in binge drinking," Alderman Davis said...

The 7th annual Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival culminates tomorrow with another all-day show in DUMBO. This year's concert was co-curated by Q-Tip who will perform alongside a bunch of his friends including MOP, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, Diamond District, J-Live, Eternia and many many more. For more info see below:

BK Hip-Hop Festival, Saturday Jul 16th

Brooklyn Bodega supports positive hip-hop--music that builds community and works as a force for social change. The organization declares on its website that it "demand[s] a higher level of hip-hop programming and [is] willing to go to great lengths to back it," in large part by organizing The Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival, now in its seventh year...

I like the "I'm in Brooklyn, better dress humbly and just spit" vibe Kanye is rocking here.

Kanye West Joins Q-Tip at Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival
birthplacemag

Q-Tip rocked the stage for a while solo, delivering a bit of his signature hybrid style, a little hip hop, a little singing, a litte rock star swag, before unleashing his friends to the thousands in attendance under the steel and cable canopy of the Brooklyn Bridge. Monie Love joined The Abstract for a bit of nostalgia. Black Thought and Q-Tip traded verses for a while. Busta Rhymes utterly electrified the crowd, furiously rocking his verses from "Scenario" and "Look At Me Now ." And then, Mr. Kanye West was in the building... [full article here]

African Underground: Democracy in Dakar - Episode 1 from Nomadic Wax on Vimeo.

Part of a documentary on Hip-Hop's political clout in Senegal, produced by the Nomadic Wax crew. Senegalese hip-hop has been in the news this week as the hip-hop inspired Y'en A Marre movement leads protest against the current President there.