Iller Than Theirs - Razor Bumps

This is pretty dope

Old People & Rap Music

Old Hip Hoppers love to name drop Public Enemy.
They go: "When we were coming up we had groups like....PUBLIC ENEMY"
and they put all this emphasis on the shit when they say it like: "PUBLIC ENEMY"

But a lot of these old hip hoppers now hold high paying jobs in television, radio, magazines, etc. and I call bullshit on all of them.
They are complicit in creating an environment where ignorance is chic and intelligence is old hat. They are like most old people they get old and they get cynical and selfish and they're like: "I gotta pay bills. I gotta live in the real world. I gotta do what I gotta go to get paid."

Then they sit around and talk about the "good ole days" an how these kids today don't understand.
I'm like: "motherfucker, you killed the good old days. Straight murdered the good old days. You help sell little kids snowman tee-shirts and franchise boys ringtones"

Well P.E. is still around. and this new shit they got is undeniably hot. and Chuck is going hard on it. and fuck all you VH-1 working ex-hip hop generation aging cynics.

Their new album is out now and is called: "HOW YOU SELL SOUL TO A SOULLESS PEOPLE WHO SOLD THEIR SOUL???"

good question
I don't know

Public Enemy: Harder Than You Think

Film Class

Today's artist is Jay Electronica. He's from New Orleans. He's the first artist signed to Erykah Badu's new label. And he's got a really healthy Buzz floating around.

And while I don't know how I feel about starting off a piece of music with celebrity endorsements, (he's got Just Blaze & Erykah on the intro talking him up for like 10 minutes at the beginning), I got to say: When he finally starts rapping - he caught my attention immediately. and the verses keep getting more and more interesting.

It leaves you with a sense that this is a person who could really make something really new and dope.

Peep it for yourself and let me know what ya'll think:



Jay Electronica: Act one: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

it's 15 minutes long. But it's worth it

HEY!

Good Morning ya'll.
I got some new Junk Science.

From their new album "Gran'dad's Nerve Tonic" due out in October on Embedded/Def Jux.

At first, this song is seemingly a dance song about sitting around your crib in your underwear. But then the second verse is about some kind of weird scientist pushing buttons on a unidentified machine.

All this has me extremely amped for the full new full length.
According to their press release they will also be producing a beer with Six Point Craft Ales in conjunction with the albums release. Which is a very dope little marketing thing.

Please send me free beer.

Check it out

Junk Science: Hey! (feat. Scott Thorough)

Get The Light Feet Going

The Project get the light feet going. Their album "The Truth Today" is set to drop at the end of September on Glow in the Dark Records.

This is the first single "The Light Feet"
This proves what New York has always known. You can make the people dance and be a real MC at the same time.
and It's dope.
enjoy.

Uptown baby!


-Grunt

Big hand, little man

Today's act is a young man from queens by the name of Despot
He recently signed to alt-rap powerhouse Definitive Jux
His tumbling fluid poetics remind me slightly of a young Breeze Bruin
His bio lists him as "a loyal and upstanding member of the infamous Lo-Lifes crew" and explains that he was raised in a kitchen.
"Crap Artists" has a big stomp like Godzilla Feet. "Substance D" is more subtle and beautiful.
Blockhead is handling most of his production but I can't be sure he did both of these and I'm too lazy to check.
Both is dope.
Check it.

"Exclusive !!!"

"Clue, Clue, Clue"

Despot: Crap Artists
Despot: Substance D

Tough Week

I've been having a tough week.

This Saturday @ Southpaw blow off some steam with some of TONYR's favorites.

Word of The Day

...Gentrification.

That's the word of the day.

It also happens to be the word of the last decade and a half of New York City history.

On the one hand you have displacement, rising rents, and loss of flavor. On the other hand you have less crime, more money floating around, and lots of single white women.

But one thing I know for sure is that true New Yorkers will find a way. I'm still here doing my thing. I am an adaptable urban animal and the city is a living ever-changing jungle.

This foliage can be a sunumabitch sometimes. I just break out the machete and chop my way through.

Andrew Ricketts from The Smoking Section wrote me an email about todays group The Super Chron Flight Brothers

Apparently the group is two guys from that Reavers record I never got around to listening to.

Turns out they've been making this really interesting, eccentric rap music (the kind I have a soft spot for).

Their album, Emergency Powers, is dope and should be checked out. It is dense and unpredictable, beautiful and sloppy.

This song just happens to be about today's word of the day.

quite apt.

check it.

Super Chron Flight Brothers: Rent Control

Party Joint Of The Week

Scott Thorough from Nuk Fam sent me this party joint of the week.

I am a Junkie.

I'm still strung out on this Hip Hop shit. Even after it died (R.I.P).
I'm still fiending.

P.S. I went to school with a girl named Anazette. And she was totally a teacher's pet. She didn't know Smooth B or Greg Nice though.

Also I'm not at Begonia.




Nice & Smooth & Scott Thorough: Hip Hop Junkies (Scott Thorough Remix)

When the Getting Gets Good

The name of the group is Lu...Rreals

That's with three periods and two, count em, TWO R's one of which is capitalised (of course).

Besides having an absurdly odd name this quick-tounged duo also possesses an equally eccentric pair of flows.

"GotGetGood" has a beautiful beat and it swirls and dances like a ballroom full of twirling formal-wear. It has a jazzy, well-dressed smoothness that is completely infectious.
I haven't been able to stop listening to it since I received it last week.

My music-journalist type reference: It sounds like if Camp-Lo was played by Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. in a Hollywood remake of Uptown Saturday Night.

Check it out:




Lu...Rreals: GotGetGood



:also one of the MC's is an albino which I wasn't even gonna mention cause I feel it's like, a non-issue now, since cats like Brother Ali and Krondon already paved the way for pigmentless rappers.

But then I mentioned it anyway.

I got your whole weekend planned

Tonight you can go and see Clarence Reid do his first show in 35 years.

The reason for Clarence's absence from the performance circuit is he's been busy performing as his more successful x-rated alter ego Blowfly

Blowfly's been making dirty rap records since the early 70's - before there were rap records at all. When Luke was in short pants and Too Short was tiny.

Clarence Reid found that he couldn't make as good a living singing sweet soul as he could making dirty raps so he threw on the mask like some superfly-era MF Doom and got busy.

But thanks to crate diggers, vinyl revivalists, and cats like Wax Poetics Clarence Reid's old forgotten records have been enjoying a resurgence of late.

Here's how he described the gig on his myspace page:

"It's my first clean gig in 35 years! And it's your fault! All these samples, reissues,
so-called "edits" and compilations have brought the maestro of Miami soul out of retirement!"

Then on Sunday you can go and see Blowfly himself, in all his sparkling bawdiness, at Club Europa in Greenpoint.
With Blueprint & the newest Def Jukie Despot




Blowfly: Rapp Dirty

The Human Element

"The other day I was walking past NYU on the way to meet my pops.
And this white boy stops me talking 'bout he in the national socialist something or other
trying to sell me a paper and give me some free Mumia pamphlets.
So, you know, I'm in a hurry right and I told him.
And he tried to check me.
Like: "have you ever even heard of the black panthers?" and "Mumia was fighting so you could go to college" and all this.
I'm Like: "Dude, you don't even know me man. I don't even fucking go here man."
I know who the fuck Mumia is. Innocent niggas get locked up every day.
That ain't nothing new.

But yo,
on the other hand

You tell some brothers Mumia's on death row and they think he's making records with Suge Knight.
I don't know man. I guess it's really where you're at.

Bust it:"


Talib Kweli: The Human Element



...

Album Not In Stores

More from Cavalier today.

If you are unfamiliar you can check my post on the gorgeous "Ink" right here

This shit is not in stores. It's just sitting up on Mp3.com to be downloaded for free. It's manna from heaven.

His freestyles on the radio are more full and rewarding than whole 6-disc cd changers full of todays Hip-Hop-Pop-music garbage-doo-doo-stink.

and if you don't know now you know, Nuh.....(ahem) Brother.

Cavalier: CaViat
Cavalier: Get It In
Cavalier: WBAR Freestyle 4/07

To Be or Not To Be

I'm not saying I'm a better blogger than most of these Blog cats.
I'm not better than anybody.
I'm just iller.

Some post more often.
Some got flashy sites.
some got advertisements and sponsorship.
But me. Every time out the gate. You know I'm gonna be ill with it.

The debut album from Iller Than Theirs is due in September. Iller than Theirs is another mutant limb on the Nuclear Family Tree along with Junk Science.

This music is so unpretentiously smart and understatedly dope that it wafts in like a breath of fresh air in the middle of a hot stinky day.

Life sucks sometimes? yeah, tell me about it. It is what it is.
This one features Embedded label mate Cool Calm Pete

Iller Than Theirs: It Is What It Is (feat. Cool Calm Pete)

Nina Simone Sundays

It's weird, even with all this gentrification there are still drug dealers on my corner. And now some of these new white people wave hello to them in the morning walking their tiny little weird inbred dogs on their way to the new Internet cafe they opened up.

Good Morning Local neighborhood Crack Man!

It's old New York meets new New York and it's a beautiful thing to behold




Nina Simone: The Pusher

I got your whole day planned

Don't worry your pretty little heads my sons and daughters.
I got you.

There is an episode of "the Family Guy" where Peter asks a genie to grant his wish of having his own theme music.

It is very funny.

Today I am granting all of you a similar wish.
This is your own personal saturday soundtrack.


In the morning:

The Specials: Friday Night, Saturday Morning


In the Afternoon:

The Roots: Lazy Afternoon
Chicago: Saturday In The Park
The Juggaknots: A Rainy Saturday
Mercury: Saturday
The Grouch: Every Day Is Saturday


In the evening. Getting ready for a night on the town:

De La Soul: A Roller Skating Jam Named Saturdays
Lordz Of Brooklyn: Saturday Night Fever
Schooly D: Saturday Night
Ghostface: Saturday Nite
Masta Ace Incorporated: Saturday Night Live (LA Jay Remix)
The Mighty Sparrow: Saturday Night
Camp Lo: Luchini (a.k.a This Is It)

The Late Great

Late for work again.
They are going to fire me.
I can see them in Stephen's office.
I can see them through the venetian blinds.
They're talking about me.
I know it.
Using words like: "Lazy" & "unmotivated" & "attitude"
They don't give a fuck about me.


My whole life I've been late for everything.
I was late for my own wedding (for real. I actually was.)

I've tried the whole set my watch ahead business but it doesn't work.
It doesn't work because then I know my watch is an hour fast and I say things to myself like "ah, I've got plenty of time. My watch is an hour fast" and then I'm late.
I'd have to set my watch fast without my knowing. Like If I were also Tyler Durden but didn't know it.
I could trick myself.

I also thought of tattooing the words "You're Late" on my arm where my wrist watch should be.
That way every time I look to see what time it is - I'll know.
But then I remember I haven't worn a wrist watch since 1994.
After that I kept time strictly by Beepers and now Cell Phones.

Please God If you let me keep my Job today I swear I will start going to church again and I will give up masturbating to asian fetish porn for one week.



The Cenobites: You're Late (feat. Percee P)

The Uninterviewable Pete

Cool Calm Pete - Interview (Live At A3C - Atlanta, GA - 4/12/07) (Video)

Two interviews and all I learned is that Pete's new album is going to be called "Leonard Z"
And for the record it's cooler to be calm and soft-spoken than loud and obnoxious.

Here are two Babbletron tracks. "Space Tech Banana Clip" is Produced by MF Doom and is commendably thorough in it's encyclopedic referencing of sci-fi movies.

Babbletron: Birds

Babbletron: Space Tech Banana Clip

More From The Dugout

If you've been visiting the site for a while now, you know I write a lot about The Dugout
That's because they're good and I like their music.
You may have seen my posts on Dugout members Cavalier and Starpower but today we're going to focus on Mercury

Here's what I'm going to ask of my Hip Hop from now on: Truth.

The role of the artist in society is to be a truth-teller. To speak truth to power. To say things other members of society cannot. Even if it means, at times, to approach taboo. Even, no, ESPECIALLY, if that truth is dangerous to speak.

But no matter what, truth. At all times, truth. Even the simple humble truth of being a regular human being.

check it:

Mercury: Draft Day
from HIGHER LEARNING LP

Mercury: Natural Black

Mercury: 3 O'clock High

Mercury: Genius Minds




you can Purchase Mercury's Higher Learning LP on iTunes Here

Bushwhacked

Bushwhackas: Caught Up In The Game

Back on the Road again

"She always cry when I tell her that I'll be going back on the road again"

That's the song I sing to wifey when It's time to lace up my (perforated) Rod Levers and hit the highway.
She is inevitably going to miss my tonnage.
But I assure her that I will eventually return to her with my Jimmy intact.
Sorry baby, but sometimes a man must venture out into the great wide open.

But there's something in the nature of men that makes us need to journey.
Yes, I am leaving town to make money.
That's part of it.
I have a instinctual need to provide for my family.
But also I must satisfy my wanderlust and put some space between me and my nest.
To feel a little freedom.

To swing my balls around in the open air.

Jungle Brothers: My Jimmy Weighs A Ton

Jungle Brothers: Back On The Road

Old School Wednesday

I'm the motherfucker that rode zig zag lightning down the middle of the panama canal.

1. Baptised in a barrel of knives

2. Might as well get shitty right on down to the bone

3. Been known to eat a wild gorilla from asshole to appetite?

4. A bitch with a head shaped like a four-way cold tablet liable to say anything

5. Cobra snake for a necktie

6. Favorite drink: hydrochloric acid


and some other things I'll let you discover on your own


Snatch & The Poontangs: Two Time Slim

Nina Simone Sundays

Nina Simone covering Hall & Oats




Nina Simone: Rich Girl

A snitch in time

1. Ok. For the record: In my opinion, "snitching" is if you do something wrong, get caught, and then rat your friend out in order to save your own ass.

Call me a square.

That's how I always understood it.

If you live next door to the Son of Sam. You really need to be calling somebody, I don't care if it's the cops or Morgan Freeman or motherfucking Anderson Cooper.

2. Larry Wilmore is killing it as "senior black correspondent" on the usually pale-faced daily show (shouts to Aasif Mandiv!)

3. I hate how the mainstream media is all poised to jump all over this as another example of how the problem with poor inner city kids is they listen to too much Rap Music (and not that they're poor). Cam'ron is probably the worst spokesperson for Hip-Hop I could think of. I used to love watching KRS, The RZA, or Chuck D show CNN motherfuckas what's up.

4. Cam is like a 6 year old with the whole Stop Telling, No-Homo, School yard philosophies. You almost feel like he's gonna start yapping about girls having Cooties and Jay-Z picking his nose (and eating it).

5. Why is Tyson Beckford telling me to stop snitching?

Is he worried I'm gonna call the cops and tell them what a huge cornball he is?

6. After much deliberation, I have decided this is my favorite Hip-Hop song about Rat Bastards & Snitches, of all time.

It's Funky, Funny, & Fresh all at once.

MF Grimm: Watch Out
from his magnum opus, the first triple album in Hip-Hop history, AMERICAN HUNGER (Day by Day Ent. 2006)

Birds of a Feather

I'm not even gonna talk shit about chickenhead girls in this post.
Everything that needs to be said about no good, money grubbing, shameful ass females has already been said more eloquently than I'll ever be able to.

I don't even use words like Bitch or Ho or whatever.
There's no need.

I feel like it's even played out to talk shit about women. I hear that shit every five fucking minutes nowadays.

misogyny is officially played out.

Sally and Jackie were homegirls. They grew up together. Played hop-scotch and jump-rope.
They was thick as thieves until they started getting older and began to attract the gaze of the neighborhood boys.
They ended up competing for the same neighborhood derelicts. Their friendship couldn't survive in that heavy atmosphere of loneliness and desperation.

I just feel sorry for them both.

AZ: Ho Happy Jackie

Diamond D & the Psychotic Neurotics:
Sally Got A One Track Mind (Showbiz Remix)