Joey Bada$$

Mannnn this just gives me hope.  That supa ill, supa chill, 90s hiphop.  I love it, but wait Batman!  That’s not from the 90s!  That’s Joey Bada$$!  Lol I don’t know…

But in all seriousness this guy’s music is has that 90s level groove that is so hard to find now.  In my opinion the 90s was the best decade for hip hop and anything that respects and even harkens back to those days, well they’ve got a fan in me.

My dude has a flow like young Nas; hungry, lyrical, and damn witty.  He flows so well to the beats he chose for his mixtape 1999.  He kills two MF Doom beats for godsake.  Lol I’ll hop off his johnson in a moment, but if anyone ever reads this ever…give this guy a listen.  The mixtape is for the low low low price of free.99 so download it and listen from front to back.

Back to the lab again

Whats up everyone, I want to brush it off and say nonchalantly that I was bored and just decided to post because that’s what kool people do, but actually I’ve been wanting to start writing for a (black people) minute.  In a few days I’ll be talking about Lupe’s LASERS once I get around to analyzing it, but till then I’ll leave ya with a little something.

A friend of mine put me on to this song, nay ballad of the main priorities in life, last week and everytime I give it a listen it just fills me with total and complete optimism.  The name of this magical tune is P&P or as Kendrick Lamar puts it “Pussy and Patron”.  The hook is catchy, the beat is solid and right up my alley (kool jazz-hop), and the man’s flow is pretty ill.

The song also features a dude by the name of Ab-Soul.  I really don’t know much about him and I probably won’t do any research on the guy…ever, but I can definitely say that his verse was pretty solid.  It wasn’t critically acclaimed, but it does feel like he belongs on that track.

Pussy and Patron, this song has something for everyone in here.

Why don’t they call it a warm?

That's kinda rude

Besides the fact that your body gets hotter than hellfire, I just don’t get why its a cold.  Its like the parkway-driveway situation but I’m not going into that (they might).  Anyways I have one, but what’s this?!  He’s still writing?!  Inspiration is running through my veins, and like Mr. Wale says, “No days off…We some workaholics.”

The song I want to talk about right now is J. Cole’s Good Game.  I believe this track has been on repeat for at least four times now.  The beat is awesome and on top of that, Cole delivers in the lyrical dept.  The rapping is less solid, and more on the “my words could cut diamonds” level.

I brushed aside Cole’s album Cole World for a rainy day and I’m wishing I didn’t.  He’s up there with the new artists trying to resurrect the late Hip Hop genre along with Cudi, Wale, Blu, etc.

Right now this is my favorite track because its easy to listen to and everything flows just right.  But that’s subject to change, once I hit this shuffle button its a whole different album  =]

Good Game by J. Cole

Passion Pit – Manners

In their relatively short career as a band(they were formed in 07′) they’ve managed to release some pretty kool music and their lone studio album Manners is no different.  I’d just like to be the one to say that Manners is f***ing awesome.

According to their wiki, “Passion Pit was originally formed as a solo project in late 2007 by Michael Angelakos in his Emerson dorm room. The songs, which would later become the Chunk of Change EP, were written as a Valentine’s Day gift to his then girlfriend.”  The EP released a year later and started to gain a lot of momentum.  One track in particular, Sleepyhead, got a lot of popularity and began showing up in a bunch of commercials.  The track has most recently been used in the trailer for LittleBigPlanet 2 for the PS3.

Their sound is reminiscent of most upbeat synth pop but it’s a little more toned down than that.  They are heavy on the synthesizer sounds and effects, but they make it mesh together in perfect harmony.  At no point in time are you feeling bombarded with effects; they do their thing with style…even if its with a little autotune.  What you end up with are some really catchy songs to bump your head to; not too bubblegum princess happy stuff, but not like nauseating pop music either haha.  Whenever I listen to them I start thinking of MGMT…

My favorite tracks would have to be Sleepyhead, The Reeling, and Little Secrets.

Its ELECTRIC!

Now I KNOW you’ve never heard of these guys before and my blog is gonna be the first to break them ;D

If you happen to enjoy:

1. Music
2. Good Music
3. Misspelling of a word to give it points for creativity (see AwesumMusik)

…then you’ll love General Elektriks.  Now I have to admit I don’t know if it is just one guy or a band he is working with but I know the lead pian…uh keyboardist goes by the name Herve “RV” Salters.  The tunes this frenchman kicks out is like candy for the ears and he kind of reminds me of MGMT so he must be doing something right.

I’ve listened to a good chunk of his album Good City for Dreamers and its the diversity in the songs that pulls you in.  You’ll have a chilled out song like Engine Kickin’ In, to something grungy like Down, to something like Raid The Radio which sounds like it should be on VH1’s You Oughta’ Know.  And the message is pretty good too.  Some stuff on that album is also REALLY obscure/weird s*** but then again that just means there should be something for everyone…who’s into obscure/weird indie artists.

I’ll leave you with this music video but its up to you to find the rest of his stuff.  Happy hunting =]

Its A Summer Anthem

What’s going on my fellow music connoisseurs (makes you guys seem all sophisticated and whatnot–its because I care =).

This mixtape has been stuck on my itunes for awhile, in fact I’m playing it right now.  Brought to you by two very famous DJs, DJ Jazzy Jeff & Mick Boogie (I told you they were kind of a big deal), is Summertime The Mixtape.

Remixing 49 different types of classic summer jams, this collection puts your JayZs, your LL Cool Js, and your Biggies all in one and from there you don’t really have a choice: you’re gonna love it.  If you don’t it’s no big deal, you were probably born without a soul or something.

All I have to say is give it a playthru front to back and try to tell me you don’t feel relaxed or [insert good feeling]

Summertime — The Mixtape

Next on the agenda: The Roots’ most recent album How I Got Over

Now in my defense, I never followed The Roots (and I’ll be turning in my grave for that mistake) so I have no real comparison to their previous work.  That being said, this is an incredibly well made album.  The first track didn’t hook me, which is what I suppose an intro track is supposed to do, but the next one “All Alone” really got me into it and pretty much set the tone for the rest of the album: from there I figured this was going to be a somber affair.  And I was right, this wasn’t made for the clubs, it was hip hop with a message.

What’s also pretty cool is that you can just chillax to the rhythms too.  It just plain old sounds good.  Soooo if you need your fix of real hip hop, look no further.

The Good ol’ Days When Toys Could Talk

Holy balls this guy’s music is awesome.  Awhile back I used to listen to this guy who goes by the name Pogo.  His style was taking hundreds of different sound bytes from very popular movies (or in the case of his recent stuff, any sound) and mixing them into this awesome and hypnotic tune.  Then he edited a video with scenes from that movie and posted it on youtube.  Its seriously an engrossing experience.

He hadn’t come out with anything in awhile and he didn’t have an album that I could get my hands on which made heading over to Youtube to listen to em’ pretty tedious and I eventually stopped.  Though I have to say, I was probably singlehandedly responsible for a couple million hits for Youtube during that time.

WELL, he came out with something new =D

These two awesome videos are based on Pixar’s small indie film that goes by the name of Toy Story.  My personal favorite is Buzzwing because you can, in sense, get mad crunk to it lol.  Its also way catchy.

I haven’t heard anything like this guy and all of his musical genius sounds like a beautiful mosaic of sound.  Its pretty great.  So givem a listen.

Buzzwing

Toys Noize

Back in business

I started a music blog awhile ago (its still up if you wanna give it a look) and it was alright.  I had a few followers (who were mostly there to send me spam….f**k them) and it was geared towards all the new stuff that hasn’t been looked at–so most of the stuff on The Hype Machine lol.

Well I’ve decided to kick it back into high gear but instead, I’ll just be recommending stuff I’m listening to, new or old.  Inspiration hit when I was recommending music to a friend of mine and she and I were bouncing viewpoints off of each other (she liked a Big Boi song but not this awesome Cudi song.  This altercation naturally ended in fisticuffs).

So lets get it started shall we.  The band that I’m currently ADDICTED to are these french guys called Phoenix.  The album is called Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, which is a play on words if you can find it…lol.  Mostly the tracks Armistice, Lisztomania, and 1901.  If you like those tracks you’ll LOVE  this album.  I personally haven’t heard many things like it in a long time so if anyone wants to recommend some guys along the same category, be my guest.

This is an acoustic version of their song Armistice (the way he says octagon–hilarious)

Not a new song or anything but Spaz from NERD is my JAM lol.  Me singing this one on the train is damn near side-splitting funny cuz the song gets me hyped and makes me wanna get up and break stuff or just go nuts but I’m on a friggen train.  Suffice to say, there’s a lot of arm twitching and speaking to the air.  I can’t be lookin crazy on the train ya know…