In the midst of all this ghostwriting drama, the hype machine continues surrounding the first video off the Life Is Good album. Bye Baby better knock our socks off or at least all this drama off the discussion table. For the record, he denounced the idea of Jay Electronica having written anything for him. Duh.
Big Shug – For The Real (feat. Termanology, Slaine, Singapore Kane & Reks)
Dark Time Sunshine – Take My Hand featuring Swamburger of Solillaquists of Sound & Aesop Rock
Kendrick Lamar - A1-Everything (Feat. Meek Mill)
Nipsey Hussle featuring YG – All Birds [Freestyle]
Rick Ross - Triple Beam Dreams Ft Nas
Smokey Robotic – Unlike Anyone
As if most of us needed extra cheese on this most awaited pizza, AKA the new Nas album, Life Is Good which drops on July 17th. British trip hop OG’s Massive Attack have been spending a lot of time recently cashing in on licensing, specifically television. They’ve recently had tracks licensed by the following shows: Luther, House and Luck. This dubby remix of this Nas track shows me that they still know what street heat feels like, and you can bet Nas appreciates the exposure, C.R.E.A.M.
Yes, everyone is excited about the album. But this is the most self-absorbed share I’ve seen in a while. Just reveal the cover art, and make videos, don’t combine those things bruh.
Been thinking about kids a lot recently. I guess Mistah F.A.B. and Nas have been equally inspired. Daughters seem so delicate, I want one, then again they must come with their own unique set of problems…
Nas – Daughters (Produced by No I.D)
Second Nas post this week, I guess Life is Good (drops July 17th). If you look at the word “daughter” for long enough it turns into one of those words that appears like it’s not a word. Just me? Don’t forget, you’ll hear his music on ESPN starting tonight, he was drafted by ESPN.
Mr Nasir Jones and Gary Clark Jr have been tapped to provide a portion of the soundtrack for ESPN’s coverage of the 2012 NFL draft this upcoming week (April 26th-28th). I knew Nas was an NFL fan, you can catch him rocking that Giants hat on the regular, however, he must be getting laced with some special pigskins, considering he seemed overly emboldened about the corporate deal , quote: “It’s why we never miss a game, even a play. Props to the NFL and ESPN for keeping us hooked on professional football all year round.” Somebody’s been sipping the Madden juice. As for Gary Clark Jr, I can’t get past the fact that he reminds me of Cody Chestnutt, who by the way is making moves again. But all in all, it’s a typical selection for a conservative corporation, you choose a stalwart with a massive fan base (Nas) and one artist with an obvious trajectory to soon-to-be stardom (Gary Clark Jr), that’s called covering your bases, well done Mothership.
The following tracks (along with an upcoming Nas track called “Train) will be featured during highlight packages on draft days:
Gary Clark Jr. – Bright Lights Remix featuring Nas
ZIF mock draft (top 10 picks) after the jump.
New Nas will make it onto the Serengeti everytime. This is the lead single off the upcoming Life Is Good LP. If the rest of the album is en par with this track, life in my Infiniti will be good when I’m bumping the living hell out of this living legend’s new album. Kids, don’t let the Wiz Khalifa’s of this rap game fool you, the legends are still very much relevant, ask your ears, son.
One of last years breakthrough albums was Fashawn’s debut album with Exile, Boy Meets World. The album is explicity content rich, laced with some of Exile’s best beats in the past few years, it contended for album of the year in many hip hop minds. It will be a hard pressed effort for Fashawn to avoid the sophomore jinx syndrome that plagues so many new acts, which is why this Ode To Illmatic mixtape is genius. No matter what you think of this mixtape, you can’t judge an homage, it’s not civilized. Peep the first few tracks…
Lifes A Bitch Feat Talib Kweli
Alas, no means a meaningful reinterpretation of fine art, but it is risk free and historically important.The rest of the mixtape/album is worth the bitrate and megabytes. Download it at XXL, respect to dem and Orisue for the sponsorship.
Remember when Nas was famous a few years ago, not for dropping his umpteenth album, but for his desire to proclaim the genre of hip hop as proverbially “dead”? Of course, it was also the title of his album, and he marketed the living shit out of the whole statement, it was a bit of a fiasco really. I recall a plethora of rappers across the country coming out and either ridiculing or empathizing with Nas, “hip hop ain’t dead, it’s just NYC rap is dead”, bla bla bla…
Well, he has since come off of his pedestal, dropped another album, and is about to drop and then tour for the album Distant Relatives with Jr. Gong, aka Damian Marley. And guess what, he has another announcement to couple his new project, wait for it….
It died several times, but I do believe in the heartbeat of it right now. There are a lot of new artists, and artists that have been around, who are kicking a– right now. I just wanted to give a boost to people and to myself, to push people to go harder. It’s a different world now. – Nas, recently speaking with the Wall Street Journal
Well of course it is Nasir, that was a whole FOUR YEARS ago! So much has changed, you are so right! I am so sardonic and sick. Fuck it, peep Nas and Damian at this year’s UCLA Jazz Reggae Festival at the end of the month, regardless if you like cornflakes, the show will be bomb.
This is a 7 track advance of the upcoming Damian Marley and Nas album, Distant Relatives. The LP drops May 18th, which is 20 days too far away. I’ll be sure to review the album, and hopefully get an interview when they perform at UCLA Jazz Reggae Festival this year. But for now, sit back, get acquainted with some distant relatives.
As We Enter
Strong Will Continue
Promised Land featuring Dennis Brown
Angola (Friends)
My Generation (feat. Lil Wayne and Joss Stone)
Africa Must Wake Up (feat. KÆNAAN)
Strong Will Continue (Nas Version)
As most of you know, we’re in the business of hitting up music festivals out here in Cali. One of my personal favorites is right up the street from me, the infamous UCLA Jazz Reggae Festival! We’ve been fortunate to have been given access these past few years to get the money shots and do the right interviews. Press passes have been secured once again this year, many thanks to our connects at UCLA. Right now, they’ve only announced the headliners, and boy are they big. Nas and Damian Marley will headline Reggae Day, whilst, Raphael Saadiq will be holding the torch on Jam Day. Discounted pre-sale tickets are available for another 48 hours, and then it’s full price. Cop your grassy spot here.
Naturally, a mash-up of any hip hop material with reggae is going to pique my interest. Let alone the fact that this mash-up is of legends within their respective genres; Nas and the great Bob Marley. I’m not going to front, this isn’t the cleanest music fusion I’ve come across, but the fused renditions of Ether and Made You Look are worth the acoustic investment. Plus it’s Nas and Bob Marley, and free, download it, duh.
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know I dig the never-ending argument as to which rapper is the greatest. Souls of Mischief recently sounded off on their opinion. While I am a Souls fan, I disagree with almost everything they say in this piece. I have absolutely no gripe with them excluding Jay-Z, Nas and Lil Wayne from their personal lists but I just don’t think their claim that these guys have unequivocally failed to contribute anything original to the genre is not all that valid. Nevertheless, the video is definitely worth a scope.
And, as in any argument about the G.O.A.T., Soulja Boy gets his obligatory fulmination. He also, supposedly, went onto Youtube and ripped the Souls’ remarks on the comments board. However, those comments had been removed last time I checked.
Excuse the lateness if you’ve been all over this, but Alex Goose has made Jay-Z look a bit foolish. While we all recover from how disappointing Blueprint 3 ended up being, we can take some consolation in Goose’s Blueprint 3 Outtakes. According to TheBlueprint3Outtakes.com, he submitted a bunch of instrumentals for Blueprint 3 through “an A&R affiliated with the Roc”— none of which ultimately made the final cut.
For the most part, Goose’s joints, filled with live drums and sharp, soulful brass, wouldn’t have fit in sonically with the rest of Blueprint 3, but Hova also missed out on what could have easily been the best song(s) on the album. Considering how Blueprint 3 turned out, Jay’s allegedly acute ear for beats has been called into question. Frankly, I was feeling Nas’ Untitled album a whole lot more, but that’s just me…
Peep a couple of the joints below, and head over to the Blueprint 3 Outtakes site to cop the collection in its entirety.
