Beats, Rhymes, Life

1. Freestyles are for mic holders. Rap songs are for just about anybody with a friend who can bear recording them. Mistah F.A.B. has impressed Bay Area hip hop heads for years with his ability to spit relevant rhymes straight off the dome top. Here he is at a recent sneaker head event in the Bay. Fancy word play with a plethora of sneaker references, yes please.

2. The darker the berry….So Kendrick Lamar specifically requested for Brittany Sky to star in his recent music video, Poetic Justice. As Kendrick put it recently, “We had another girl for the lead but I had an idea where I just wanted a little bit of a darker tone [girl] in the video, It’s almost like a color blind industry where there’s only one type of appeal to the camera,” he said. Yeah, and that’s one Eurocentric type, lighter is clearly better in the eyes of countless rappers and their production squads. It’s very apparent her skin wasn’t the only aesthetic feature that got her the gig, it’s not like Kendrick went out on a limb here! And is it just me, or is this a pretty loose definition of a “dark skinned girl”?

3. Fountain of youth. DJ Premier is the rap game’s equivalent of Michael Jordan. By that I mean, regardless of how much time passes, new generations of artists are aware and are very much in awe of the accomplishments of Premo. And just like new ballers still want to rock some fresh new Jordan’s, young cats in the know are looking to work with Premier. Here’s ZIF fave Joey Bada$$ being introduced to the producer extraordinaire, aptly showing the appropriate humility.

4. Ballers want to be rappers. Here’s the most recent example of sport imitating rap, this one brought to you by Kentucky basketball’s most alliterative player, Nerlens Noel. The star freshman who suffered a devastating injury that has sidelined him for the latter part of their season seemingly had some free time and released a song called “Number 9″ with a local rapper and Kentucky fan named Wes Grams. It’s as terrible as Kentucky’s chances at reaching the tourney this year.

5. Finally, it dropped. The album I’ve been hyping not so subtly for months from The Doppelgangaz was released two days ago. First listen impressions are usually the ones that count, and mine was pure enjoyment. This is rap music I’m going to proudly share with all of my non-rap listening friends, not that they’ll listen to it, said rap music is for hip hop fans, this album won’t turn you onto the genre. But if you’re yearning for more than what your favorite major is telling you that you like, start with HARK.

ZIF Video Of The Week: Quelle Chris – Rat Shit

Detroit bred, now Cali bound rapper Quelle Chris left some of us puzzled when he signed his deal with Mello Music Group. I can say that I was curious whether they would be able surround Quelle with the right mixture of quality and youthful exuberance. Needless to say that Quelle seems to be enjoying himself. Not sure where this track ends up or if it’s just a random release, however, I’m pleased that somebody went in on the concept of ratchet (nice word play Quelle), that word is getting utterly abused out there.

ZIF Video Of The Week: The Black Opera: “Fxckin Problem” [Video Dramatization]

I love this video, from concept to delivery, the conscious minded Black Opera put an ironic spin on what truly constitutes a “Fxckin Problem” in our society. It’s tracks like this that make me wonder how far sound minded rappers like these guys are from mainstream appreciation. Considering the disinterest in content, the beat’s certainly been embraced, and they sound damn good over it. Yes, better than A$AP & Co.

Here’s the message that accompanied the video, for the slower cats out there, the first message is laced with irony and insincere wit. They are both the from the same source.

MESSAGE FROM [T]HE [B]LACK [O]PPOSITES:
“Fxck what the title say tho…This aint that earthy ass conscious Black Opera shit cuh. This that ratchet ass swag shit cuh. This that Black Opposites shit my nig! Woo! Trill level just passed 3000 and rising. My nigga Andy MADD behind the camera and shiiiiit. We poppin pills and clockin mills. We trynna make that Illuminati money my nigga. WE DEM ILLUMINATI  MONEY NIGGAS!! HAA! Now that’s REALLY shining bruh!! Soon as we get rich enough to get away with lip syncing at the inauguration my nigga…SOON AS!! We gone deck the studio walls out wit all gold errything….nigga fxck yo MacBook, we gone have wallpaper made from real gold cuh. Woo! With blood diamond studs my nig!! Dead Ass. Real niggas only, no fxck boys allowed. We all got fxckin problems, but if you got a fxckin problem with us you can get handled just like the nigga in the video, Biiiiitch!!”

A MESSAGE FROM THE BLACK OPERA:
In times like these, Dark Comedy is no laughing matter. So with all jokes aside, we wanted to put a satirical spin on A$AP Rocky’s “Fuckin’ Problem” in order to address current events and issues. Events and issues that include the school shooting in Connecticut, gun control, mental health, and America’s prescription drug addition amongst others. RIP to everyone that lost their lives in the Newtown, CT school shooting and the innocent lives lost everyday in these streets and around the world.

Beats, Rhymes and Life

1. Major drop #1. Sean Price has finally released the highly anticipated Mic Tyson album via Duck Down of course. Cop the album here. I went ahead and streamed my favorite track to give you an incentive to buy. Yes, I am your pusher, man.

Sean Price – Battering Bars (feat. Pumpkin Head)

2. Major drop # 2. Hot Sugar pushes towards the industry finish line with his new EP, Midi Murder. It’s absolutely bananas. And free! Well, you’ll have to sell your firstborns soul to Toyota, but even still! (Click the image to cop).

3. Ludacris gets ludicrous with his Halloween Costume. Possibly the best admission of doppelganger status, Luda will be going as Anthony Davis this year, for those of you unaware, Davis was the first overall pick in this years NBA draft and is known for his uni-brow. I hope Luda reuses this look for a few parties, seems like a hell of a commitment to throw away on just one soiree. #FearTheBrow

4. Speaking of Halloween, Lil Boosie is sponsoring a kid friendly Halloween party tomorrow in Baton Rouge. Only problem, he’s currently doing an 8 year stint in Angola (the state prison, not the country) for drug charges. ”He won’t be there physically, but he’s giving it,” his cousin Porcha Webb tells 9News Neighborhoods.

5. Fans awaiting another Eminem album were pleasantly surprised with the announcement that he will be releasing one next year. Eminem showed off his new “tribute hat” playing off the Tigers logo with the side panel dedicated to the landmark Eminem solo albums ( it includes the year 2013). Smart eh? Needless to say the tribute would have been much more dramatic had the Tigers beat the Giants. Cop the hat here.

ZIF Video of The Week: Hot Sugar – Midi Murder

I’ve told our readers before, what makes NY sound baron Hot Sugar special is his ability to not only use various sounds creatively but actually gather those sounds himself. Often that leads to some pretty off the wall “harvest sessions”, like this one. This video does a definitive job of taking a quick snapshot of what Hot Sugar’s hustle looks like. There is not a producer out there that garners the level of intrigue that Hot Sugar does, and for good reason. At one point in this video he is filmed using some sort of plunger device on a window to record the sound of him banging on the glass with his fist, simply stupendous stuff!

Great visuals by Adam Newport Berra. Midi Murder out Halloween 2012.

ZIF Flick: Machine – Wow (I Can’t Believe…Demons)

When I was first approached by Machine to check out his new album Selfish Bastard, I balked at the depression rap. For christ sakes, I’ve had a plethora of dark patches, who wants to listen to music inspired by such disenchantment? Unless of course having an honest conversation about emotional distress could be an artistic journey worthy of merit. This is what I found to be true when it comes to Selfish Bastard, an album that encapsulates a moment in time for a man, a very raw picture of an artist. His unique flows and keen ear for beats (check that Denmark Vessey heat L.A.P.T.) make his album more than listenable, frankly if you’re on a treadmill you’ll forget he’s spewing about breakups and jumping off bridges (he doesn’t actually do that). That being said, when I shot the music video I found it eerily simple to jump into that “mode”, the dark cave. The video is a playful interpretation of what it truly means to conceptualize not only the overarching desire to commit the act but the actual logistics as well. There is a comedic element I was hoping to convey, death can be funny, tragically we all know this. As always, we’re queuing up goodness, artists looking for video production hit us up here.

Follow the cerebral vagrancy of Machine @TheMachineRaps

Read an unbiased review of Selfish Bastard over at Mishka & a somewhat biased one at Vice.

Friday Free Joints

Big Sean, Jay-Z, And Kanye West- Clique

Freddie Gibbs –  The Hard feat. Dana Williams

Mistah F.A.B. – All Slavery

ZIF Video Of The Week: A$AP Mob – “Bath Salt” (feat. Flatbush ZOMBiES)

Putting NY back on the map seems to be a perpetual mission for all rappers calling the Big Apple home. Of course there are those that say that the city never dropped off, those people would be liars. A$AP Rocky and his Mob mixtape have grabbed the attention of the nation, what better way to start repping the city than showing off the electricity of the eclectic minded group Flatbush Zombies. Hello New York, great to see you again.

Beats, Rhymes, Life [Labor Day Weekend Edition]

because you had better things to do over the weekend then surf the web

1. Gaslamp Killer’s album is quickly approaching it’s departure date. The third single released off the forthcoming album “Breakthrough” is a doosy and features the festival circuit favorite and fellow Angelino Daedelus. The album will be released on September 18th via FlyLo’s Brainfeeder outfit. Considering the hype and talent, the album title is more than apropos.

Impulse

2.  Azealia Banks dropped a video for her track “1991″, that was cool. Dropping it on Labor Day though? I am extremely critical about the timing of this release, I just do not see the advantage of releasing a video on a day where by definition people are not in front of their computers. Nevertheless it nabbed 320K views over the past 24 hours, so I’ll zip it. For the record, it’s her most straightforward aka vapid video yet.

3. Underground favorite and ZIF regular Quelle Chris finally got signed! This is a big score for Mello Music Group who announced they got his signature on a multi-album deal. The Los Angeles via Detroit based emcee has been making noise via his Crown Nation work with Denmark Vessey as well as random hodge-podge efforts on his own now that he’s in LA. Pairing up with MMG makes a lot of sense stylistically, he clearly would mesh well with fellow labelmates Gensu Dean and Apollo Brown. But was this deal selling himself short? In my opinion Quelle has big time commercial potential, whereas Mello Music Group is clearly indie country. Apart from Odissee is anyone on Mello actually paying bills? If Danny Brown had signed to MMG last year for a multi album deal, it’s clear that his reach would have been limited for a few years. Either way, we wish the best for Quelle. Here’s some work to wet the appetite (mind that spelling).

4. Nicki Minaj is a Mitt Romney supporter? No, of course not, but on a new track with Lil Wayne she does turn some heads with the following lyrics

“I’m a Republican voting for Mitt Romney / You lazy b—-es is f—ing up the economy.”

Now, everyone and their favorite political mama know that this is a gimicky way of getting mainstream exposure to what would have been just another Minaj mixtape verse. However, it does accentuate the tenuous relationship Obama has with hip hop artists and frankly black youth in general. Read more about that here. Peep the rhyme in question below.

5. House Shoes has finally dropped his video for his track “Sweet” with Danny Brown. Sweet.

Beats, Rhymes, Life

1. If you have a soul, you stopped listening to The Black Eyed Peas somewhere after Bridging The Gap and the release of Elephunk. Without a doubt, everyone at some point has had their fill of the global pop group. Needless to say that Will.I.Am is the braintrust and one true talent of the bunch, yet he’s been equally annoying in his existence, plus he produces for terrible acts. Well, apparently NASA disagrees with everything I just said. About half and hour ago they blasted Will.I.Am’s new single ” Reach for the Stars” via the Mars Rover to pretty much the whole galaxy I’m assuming. Here’s the official link to NASA’s press release about it all, plus some live streaming of the event. Galactic fail if you ask me. The picture, not so official.

2. Falside, a name we haven’t uttered on ZIF for a minute now. Well, that sure hasn’t stopped him from pumping out dope product quicker than your favorite burger chain. If there’s a beatsmith who has put out more quality beat tapes over the last 3 years, I have not stumbled across he/she. This track is off his “Strictly Streaming” series, nice concept, better beat.

  

3. Local dope: When you think of South LA rappers, you’re bound to get stuck on the TDE train (Ab-Soul, Schoolboy Q, Jay Rock and Kendrick Lamar). Skeme is a rapper from Inglewood that has been on my radar since I moved here half a decade ago, known for his knockabout rhymes with an equally smooth flow, could we looking at the next TDE addition? Perhaps, as for now, here’s a collab off his Alive & Living album out on October 16th with “LA Diddy”, Schoolboy Q. THC produced, light it up.

4.  When old music is new sounds. Sean Price is a sporadically minded artist, constantly putting out videos, interviews, and music that can be labelled random often. Needless to say when I saw that he had released a pack of “new sounds” via his SoundCloud, I had my suspicions. The music isn’t new, P explained on Twitter it’s actually old material that has been lying around. He also went on to say it has made him excited about the prospects of dropping a new LP. Sweet. After months of letting Duck Down release his music, he hooked up his own SoundCloud page, check it often for new and “new” music.

5. I’ve said this once, and I’ll say it again. The Doppelgangaz are the most underrated rap act out of NYC. Here is another video, the final one, promoting their project Beats for Brothels, Vol. 2. Stream the album, and pre-order below the video. Stop saying I don’t give you the what’s what, here it be.

Monday Free Joints [The TDE Edition]

TDE FAM Appreciation Week Wrap-Up from last week. I was a little irked that there was no Black Hippy track released, however he gave away tickets to Rock The Bells on Twitter, that was love. #PUREGOLD

Beats, Rhymes, Life

1. The first video off the Nas album will be “Bye Baby”, as you can see from the tweet from Tyler The Creator, lots of people considered this their favorite track off the Life Is Good album. Personally, I thought Nas let his feelings about Kelis shape that album way too much, this track included. Certainly listenable though, and the video is likely to be fire.

2. So it’s #TDEFanAppreciationWeek , as in Top Dawg Entertainment home of LA spitters (Schoolboy Q, Jay Rock, Kendrick Lamar and Ab-Soul). The plan has been to relase new music all week long from the Black Hippies, yesterday was Jay Rock’s turn, YOLA!

Be sure to keep that hashtag handy for new TDE material this week.

3. Azealia Banks recently had a photoshoot with UK magazine Dazed & Confused for their September cover. Apparently the pictures were too racy for some, six countries banned the cover. Click the cover to see more “racy” photos.

4. Toronto based rapper K’Naan is known for his global awareness and Somalian roots. His content is extrememly conscious and his poetic flow has been praised for its ability to penetrate mainstream sound, i.e. he gets radio love even though he’s more spoken word than trap rap. In true form, he will be putting out a 32-page, full-colour book, which also has a brief history of the Somalian conflict. K’Naan says “I wanted to write a children’s story that reflects the new immigrant’s sense of family and identity, which can sometimes be lost in translation. In this book, the main character is Wavin’ Flag, a song whose ownership has been long claimed by children all over the world”

5. Rumors finally became fact when Lady Gaga announced that her and Kendrick Lamar had cut a track together titled “Partynaseous”. Considering he just released “Swimming Pools” a track breaking down the dark side of heavy drinking, I am postulating that this will be something in that vein. MTV reported that the track is about “Jakarta”, whatever the hell that means, Indonesia? Gaga enticed Kendrick to talk a little about it on Twitter today. The track is due for release next month. (Good luck protecting that from a leak)

ZIF Video Of The Week: Open Mike Eagle: Your Backpack Past

This track is my personal favorite off the 4NMLHSPTL album, likely due to my appreciation of sardonic quips. Here are 5 thoughts about this video that I hope matter, a little.

1. Shoutout to the director of this video, this was not the direction I saw this video going, but there was plenty of candid footage to intermix with the wildly sarcastic scene with the honeys in the bikinis, dope.

2. Speaking of the bikinis, it makes me smile to think about how they must have showed up to the “rap video/pool scene” with all sorts of expectations, plenty of racks on racks references and some kush getting blown. Nah, you girls got some artists who used you effectively to prove a point about the lameness that aesthetics such as yours propagates.

3. What’s up with Has-Lo, can this dude put out a major project or something already? Streets are ready.

4. Watch the video muted. It looks like an extremely typical rap video.

5. Watch the video with the audio jacked. Shit’s dope isn’t it?

Friday Free Joints

A$AP Rocky – Pumped Up Kicks

Beedie – Robert Marley

Domo Genesis And Alchemist-No Idols (Feat. Tyler, The Creator)

Sir Michael Rocks-Great (Feat. Casey Veggies And Mac Miller)

Beats, Rhymes, Life

1.  UK based youth Charli XCX is following the Jai Paul formula, foregoing an album and releasing just a few singles a year and focusing on marketing them hard. This one gets remixed and features OFWGTA’s The Internet.

2. Ghanaian wonder duo the Fokn Bois have been pinching hearts and minds in Europe as well as their native Ghana. Hopefully the visa issues get resolved and they finally can touch down on US soil. If there are two harder working men in the scene then these two, I am yet to be introduced. The new video continues a rich tradition of shooting unique aesthetics while keeping things lighthearted.

3. Some dogmatic website released their list of The 20 Richest Rappers Alive Today, you may find the results (below) predictable for the most part. Surprises for me included Rick Ross only being worth a quarter, T-Pain being tied with T.I., and that Master P is ranked #3 with a net worth of 350 million, beating out the likes of Dr. Dre and 50 Cent. Ice cream sells!

#20 Rick Ross – Net Worth $25 Million
#19 Tie between T-Pain and T.I – Net Worth $30 Million
#18 Nelly – Net Worth $55 Million
#17 Busta Rhymes – Net Worth $60 Million
#16 Ludacris – Net Worth $65 Million
#15 Beastie Boys – Net Worth $75 Million Each
#14 Timbaland – Net Worth $75 Million
#13 Pharrell Williams – Net Worth $77.5 Million
#12 Tie between LL Cool J and Akon – Net Worth $80 Million
#11 Kanye West – Net Worth $90 Million
#10 Lil Wayne – Net Worth $95 Million
#9 Ice Cube – Net Worth $100 Million
#8 Snoop Dogg – Net Worth $110 Million
#7 Birdman – Net Worth $115 Million
#6 Eminem – Net Worth $120 Million
#5 50 Cent – Net Worth $250 Million
#4 Dr. Dre – Net Worth $260 Million
#3 Master P – Net Worth $350 Million
#2 Jay-Z – Net Worth $475 Million
#1 Diddy – Net Worth $500 Million

4. For those wondering how many ways we can connect the Olympic Games to hip hop, here’s a pretty legit bond. Everyone knows about Ryan Lochte right? Anyways, he’s an Olympic swimmer for the US that has already retrieved some gold. Upon being given the chance to show off his medal for photogs, he was sure to include his custom-made grill from hip hop artist and impresario Paul Wall. Wall is famous for his custom grill business and apparently laced Ryan with 4 of them, apparently the one he showed off with the gold medal is worth a cool 25k.

5. The contest that turned into a viral joke finally turned into Pitbull visiting and performing at a Walmart in Kodiak, Alaska. The campaign was originally designed to market an energy strip for Walmart but quickly turned into a wonderfully consolidated effort by “fans” to “exile” him to the farthest Walmart possible. Much to the chagrin of residents of Kodiak, Alaska. Unfortunately there were no messy bear spray incidents.