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Happy Birthday Nujabes!!

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February 8, 2012
New Music
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Along with J Dilla’s birthday being yesterday (Feb 7), it was also Jun Sebas (Nujabes) birthday as well. Nujabes was a japanese hip hop producer who helped to influence artists like Uyama Hiroto and Shing02. He has worked with CYNE, Cise Starr, Five Deez, Substantial, and CL Smooth. He also  was a founder of the independent label Hydeout Productions.  Nujabes has a very distinct sound that incorporates many different jazz samples into his tracks. This, combined with beautiful piano keys interspersed with some sampled vocals are what makes his beat to Another Reflection so mesmerizing.

Nujabes also has multiple rappers who grace his tracks with some bars. Namely Substantial and Cise Starr, who are on the most of his tracks. This next track is off of his phenomenal Modal Soul album which you must check out! This is Feather feat. Cise Starr and Akin from Cyne. 

http://youtu.be/P0ul5Sl02nw

Another one of my favorite tracks is Blessing it featuring Substantial and Pase Rock.

One last soothing beat from the great Nujabes featuring Uyama Hiroto called Spiritual State. This song is off his Spiritual State album which was actually just released last year and was his last album that he worked on.

RIP Nujabes

It’s Fantastic! Happy Birthday Dilla

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February 7, 2012
Album Reviews
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It’s February seventh and the birthday of the late and great James Dewitt Yancey, also known as J Dilla and Jay Dee. It is also the birthday of the late producer Nujabes, who I will post on sometime later today.  J dilla died at age 32 from the disease lupus and a rare disorder called thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP) which causes blood clots to form in your blood vessels.  In the summer of 2005 Dilla was hospitalized in LA, he could not walk and was barely able to talk. While hospitalized, and knowing that his time left was short, Dilla began to produce his last album Donuts. Donuts was released on Stones Throw on February 7, 2006, his 32nd birthday. Dilla died three days later. His mother, Maureen Yancey (Ma Dukes), said of his death “I rejoiced in the fact that he wasn’t sick anymore, and that he’d done what he came here to do. I believe that. His purpose on earth was to come here and give us the music that he had in his heart and soul.”

The first track that I heard produced by Dilla was Fantastic 3 off of the Slum Village classic album Fantastic, Vol. 1. Slum Village consisted of rappers Baatin, T3, and producer J Dilla. The three grew up together and the album was finished in 1996 but not officially released until 2005. The rapping throughout the album is consistent but what makes Fantastic stand out is Dilla’s production. If you haven’t heard of Dilla, this is the best place to start off your journey of listening to all the music that he has produced. It is certainly a wonderful challenge.

From the trance like melodies in Fantastic 3 to the heavy hitting snare in Look of Love to the soulful clap of Players, Dilla was a genius behind the beat. Dilla was a master at finding the most unique samples and creating something beautiful. One of my favorite samples that he uses is in a track with Erykah Badu called Didn’t Cha Know. Dilla sampled Tarika Blue’s Dreamflower off of her Best of LP. I’l put it at the bottom of this post along with a tribute medley for Dilla made by one of my favorites, Knxwledge.

http://youtu.be/duEy80T-wLg

http://youtu.be/yDBIvE9J4xk

Knxwledge tribute to Dilla. He says this in his typical cryptic writing

NoWrdsKnSay.

HowMuchYouv’eHelpdMe.

MakeMyWay.

Thnx.J

http://gloof.bandcamp.com/track/takeitbak-medli

Happy listening, and if you havent yet, I highly recommend that you start sifting through the massive collection of tracks produced by this man.

RIP J Dilla

New DOOM with Dave Sitek

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February 5, 2012
New Music
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Follow up to our sounds of the Astral Plane with MF DOOM and Dave Sitek. Tenth year anniversary for Lex Records means multiple collaborations with MF DOOM! For the anniversary, the label is set on releasing a compilation called Complex. DOOM is featured on two tracks, Retarded Fren and Rhymin Slang, the latter is my favorite. You may have already heard DOOMs track, Retarded Fren, with Thom Yorke of Radiohead and Jonny Greenwood. I wasn’t all to impressed by this combination of two stellar artists and it had a whole lot of potential. This is just my opinion on the track, I think DOOMs bars leave the listener asking for  more because of his slow delivery throughout the track.

I think both artists individually are phenomenal, Thom Yorkes production and sampling of Proven Lands by Jonny Greenwod is great but we dont see  the best that both of these artists can put out.

DOOM is also on another track  that was recently released, produced by Jneiro Jarel called Rhymin Slang. The song is remixed by TV On The Radio’s Dave Sitek to bring out a heavy hitting cut. The bass comes through hard and the British MC, DELS, is also featured.

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble-Heritage EP

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February 4, 2012
Live, New Music
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Now this may not be ‘new music’ per say. The EP was released in 2010…but it needs to be up on this blog. It ties in perfectly with my previous posts on BadBadNotGood and Robert Glasper.  If you liked either of those phenomenal bands be sure to check out this EP! The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble is a 8-piece Chicago based group. With Gabriel Hubert (trumpet), Saiph Graves (trombone), Tycho Cohran (sousaphone), Amal Baji Hubert (trumpet), Seba Graves (trombone), Tarik Graves (trumpet), Uttama Hubert (baritone, and Gabriel Wallace on the drums.  With the exception of Gabriel Wallace, the members of Hypnotic are all brothers.  The band has performed with Mos Def, Aquilla Sadalla, Phil Cohran (their dad), The Recipe, Nomadic Massive, and Tony Allen.

On the Heritage EP, the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble recorded 5 solid reworks of some classic cuts. They reworked tracks by Fela Kuti, Madlib, Jay-Z, Art Of Noise, Outkast and MF Doom. Mos Def scored the set for these amazing reinterpretations as well. I’m almost positive you wont be able to recognize what the original is for some of these tracks because of the way these guys build off of the original beat. Check out their rework of Outkasts Spottieottiedopaliscious below and this AMAZING live show at the Red Bull Music Academy.

Funky interpretation of Spottieottiedopaliscious. Along with this EP, they have released a slew of other material. Whats really cool about this band is that they started off playing around different subway stations in New York and worked up from there. All of their music can be bought on itunes or found on mediafire. Their first two albums, which they sold in 2004 and 2005, Flipside and Jupiter started off their musical conquest to, from one interaction with a bandmember,  “Support live music, people,” he called out, stepping in line with his bandmates. “Bring back real music before it’s too late.”  Their Self titled album Hypnotic Brass Ensemble is also quality.

New Big K.R.I.T

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February 2, 2012
New Music
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Finally! Some new Krit. Big K.R.I.T releases the first single off of his upcoming 4evaNaDay mixtape. With his last mixtape garnering wild amounts of appreciation with an 8.2 from the ridiculous rating system of pitchfork (I’m not a fan) and HipHopDx calling it the “rap album to beat of 2011”. K.R.I.T. not only brings his own lyricism to the plate but also produced the entirety of the mixtape. An impressive feat that not many rappers can do with the amount of quality and passion that K.R.I.T. put into every track. Needless to say, I’m very excited to see a new mixtape from K.R.I.T. This new track mimics his Another Naive Individual Glorifying Greed & Encouraging Racism track with its saxophone sample and KRITS smooth flow.

http://youtu.be/U-7xHgIZNM4

His new single, hilariously named Boobie Miles. 4evaNaDay is set to drop February 20th

Ta-Ku Dusty Instrumentals

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January 31, 2012
New Music, Uncategorizable
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oh man. survived the first exam of the semester. Time to toss on some headphones and listen to the extensive collection of beats from Ta-Ku. A recent graduate from the Redbull Music Academy (08), Ta-Ku has been releasing a massive amount of beat tapes along with some new EP’s. Influenced by the likes of Dilla, and Onra, the influence of these two come through in his recent Dusty Instrumentals release. With 19 solid beats from Ta-Ku I couldn’t be happier. The beat tape can be streamed here http://ta-ku.me/album/d-u-s-t-y.

A good taster off of his Day & Night EP which is a free download off of his bandcamp page at http://dayandnight.bandcamp.com/

Also, in tribute to Dilla, Ta-Ku made a beat a day for the late and great producer.  His new LP Scarlette is set to drop this february

Black Star + Aretha

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January 27, 2012
New Music
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Black Star,  composed of the prolific MCs Talib Kweli and Mos Def, comeback onto the scene with two solid releases Fix Up and You Already Knew (off the Top secret Aretha Franklin mixtape). Mos Def should now actually referred to as Yasiin Bey…the guy just got tired of Mos Def.  Black Star has been relatively dormant as both artists have been working on their own projects but hopefully this is the beginning to a long awaited reunion. The two performed Fix Up live on The Colbert Report and then released You Already Knew on their website. Fix Up is produced by Madlib and You Already  Knew is produced by Oh No.

Fresh Knxwledge

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January 25, 2012
New Music
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FRSH SLCTS Black Spade Knxwledge Spand Nate JamesKnxwledge is quickly becoming one of my favorite new producers. Black Spade spits over this Knxwledge beat from his Komposure EP http://gloof.bandcamp.com/album/komposure-ep. This is said to be the first of an exciting lineup of collaborations that Knxwledge has in store for us in 2012. I for one, can’t wait for these collabs after listening to this solid track.

Check the original and the new track. Be sure to check out my previous post on Knxwledge.

http://gloof.bandcamp.com/track/5-spand

http://youtu.be/75AbRNwlfJ0