Grandmaster ... Cut Faster

Rest in peace to Whodini's DJ Drew "Grandmaster Dee" Carter father.

*Live performance filmed at the Apollo

**Grandmaster ... cut faster

Loso's Sport

Fabolous: Make Me Better Ft. Ne-Yo (Prod. by Timbaland)

From: From Nothin' To Somethin' (Def Jam, June 12, 2007)

May 25 - 29, 2007 I was home, Harlem - Sugar Hill subdivision, vacationing. The monocromatic theme music of all passing cars, barbershops and the like was the above feature. Most audioblogs proffer the video. Instead, my soothsayer voice(s) have reserved me second behind the Tinman Has It to furnish audio.

Loso's been dumb-nice get a late pass...step!

Shiftlessly paraphrased from Wikipedia (though I am truly inundated here at the plantation):

John David Jackson (born November 18, 1977), better known as Fabolous, is a Grammy-nominated rapper of African-American and Dominican descent from Brooklyn who became a mainstream star after his debut single "Can't Deny It" (a remake of Tupac Shakur's "Ambitionz Az a Ridah" from All Eyez on Me) from 2001 (see 2001 in music). Since then, he has had several additional successful releases.
Before receiving mainstream popularity, Fabolous released a single entitled, "If They Want It" in 1998 under his old moniker, Fabolous Sport. This song was released by Def Jam Recordings on the album DJ Clue? The Professional. It is also available on the DJ Kool Kid Mixtape entitled "Pound For Pound" featuring Fabolous and Jadakiss. In the year 2000, he released a second single through Elektra Records entitled, "Gotta Be a Thug". This track can be found on DJ Clue Presents Backstage Mixtape (Soundtrack).
Fabolous' first popular single, "Can't Deny It", was released in late summer 2001. He would later be nominated for a Grammy for his collaboration on the remix of Dip It Low by Christina Milian in 2004. His popularity later grew when he remade one of Tamia's hits called "Into You" in 2003 along with Tamia - this has been one of his most popular singles to date.
After his discovery, DJ Clue in 1998 hired a handful of producers, rappers, and vocalists for Fab's debut album Ghetto Fabolous. Fabolous was teamed with Nate Dogg to produce his first single. The song was charted in the Billboard Top 100, and the subsequent album, Ghetto Fabolous, achieved platinum certification. The Street Dreams (album) followed in 2003 with another platinum certification, and Real Talk was released in 2004, which went gold. His fourth studio album, From Nothin' to Somethin', was initially scheduled for release in December 26, 2006, but was moved back following the rapper's shooting, first to March 27 2007 , then even further back to April 17, 2007, and then even further back, to May 1, 2007, and more recently to Def Jam’s officially announced June 12, 2007.
Fabolous has made guest appearances on tracks by many different artists including Mary J. Blige, Tamia, Usher, Jennifer Lopez, Don Omar, Christina Milian, Cassidy, Amerie, Mariah Carey, Bow Wow, Lil Mo, Lloyd Banks, Benzino, B2K, P. Diddy, Young Jeezy, E-40, Joe Budden, Nate Dogg, The Game, Lil' Skeeter, Xzibit, Steve Kerr, JoJo Pellegrino, Busta Rhymes, The Clipse, Rah Digga, Danny Saber, Hot Karl, Philly's Most Wanted, Sheek Louch, Miri Ben-Ari, Trina, Mobb Deep, Missy Elliott, Ras Kass, M.O.P., Red Cafe, Nature and Janet Jackson, as well as an upcoming collaboration with Korean singer Se7en. As of 2006, his latest release is the mixtape Loso's Way. The lead single is "Smokin' and Sippin'" featuring Paul Cain and Magno which was produced by CHOPS.
Along with fellow rapper Jay Z, Fabolous was challenged by John Cena to a battle rap on WWE Heat prior to WrestleMania XIX. Both rappers declined, so John Cena came up and further "dissed" the two rappers with phony cardboard cutouts of the two (with Jay Z featured as Austin Powers and Fabolous as Mini Me).
Fabolous is currently planning a clothing line released through the Rich Yung Society.

Scratchily Warm

Adult Swim, the nation's leading purveyors of Strattera - supressing animated comedy programs, has dipped a toe or two into the indie talent pool of late, what with the Danger Doom project, indie-heavy Aqua Teen Hunger Force flick soundtrack, and partnerships with the likes of Stones Throw and Chocolate Industries.
Adult Swim is offering Warm & Scratchy, a downloadable album of new and/or exclusive and/or rare and, best of all, FREE tracks from some of indie's biggest artists. The Rapture, TV on the Radio, Les Fav Fav, Liars, Broken Social Scene, Jesu, Fennesz, and the Good, the Bad, and the Queen all contribute.
Could this generosity be a ploy to stir up promotion for a new show teeming with geometrically-shaped characters, odd voices, and non sequiturs? If so, note to Adult Swim: the "____ & Scratchy" name is, in a meta sort of way, already taken.

Warm & Scratchy:

01 TV on the Radio - Me-I
02 The Raveonettes - Dead Sound
03 Les Savy Fav - The Equestrian
04 The Rapture - Crimson Red
05 120 Days - Justine
06 Broken Social Scene - Canada Vs. America
07 SOUND Team - Color of the Love You Have
08 The Good, The Bad and The Queen - The Bunting Song (acoustic)
09 The Brother Kite - Half Century
10 Jesu - Silver (original beats)
11 Amusement Parks on Fire - Back to Flash
12 Asobi Seksu - Stay Awake
13 Fennesz - Winter
14 Liars - Sunset Rodeo

Insecurely in Comfort

Leon Ware: Comfort (aka Come Live With Me Angel) Ft. Minnie Riperton
From: Musical Massage (Gordy/Motown, 1976)

Paraphrased from Dusty Groove:

Leon Ware’s Musical Massage is arguably:

• LW's paramount record and
• One of the foremost Motown records of the 70's.

The record is a beautiful interlacement of balmy soul, recorded right on the heels of Marvin Gaye's I Want You album, which was conceived and written by LW, yet assumed by MG.
For this set, LW creates a auditory impression reminiscent of I Want You forging smooth keyboards with artful inferring of electro-funk, the amalgamation converges with LW’s sweetly warming (sounds like a job for Cam'ron's, "No Homo" verifier) vocals.
This original version of Comfort was also performed by MG on I Want You.

Delaylib

Jaylib: The Mission (Stringed Out Remix)
Champion Sound (2 - CD Deluxe Reissue) (Stones Throw, June 19, 2007)

In 2003, J Dilla was better known as Jay Dee, a Detroit producer who shunned publicity but was widely respected in hip-hop; Madlib was an up-and-coming L.A. producer making a name for himself with his wild diversity, from rap (Quasimoto) to electronic jazz (Yesterdays New Quintet) to remixes (Shades of Blue (Blue Note, 2003)).
At the time of Champion Sound's original release in late 2003, J Dilla and Madlib had never been photographed together or appeared as a group in public. In the years that followed, this changed drastically – after Dilla's move to Los Angeles, the two worked together, communicated through hip-hop beat tapes, and toured together as Jaylib. Madlib's profile rose with his MF DOOM-collab Madvillain (soundscan 93k). J Dilla, though dealing with a serious illness, continued crafting material for artists such as Common and Busta Rhymes while working on a wealth of solo material. Dilla's final albums – Donuts (Stones Throw, 2006), The Shining (BBE, 2006) – along with the re-issue of Ruff Draft (Stones Throw, 2007) have introduced his name and music to countless new fans while publications from The Source to Rolling Stone paid respect to his musical genius.
Many felt that Champion Sound wasn't given the attention it deserved when it was originally released. In preparing the album for reissue with b-sides, instrumentals, and later photos of the group, Madlib quietly presented the label with a collection of new Jaylib remixes. These 9 remixes, together with b-sides and the instrumentals - 43 tracks in all - are collected in this deluxe 2-CD set, selling for the same price as the original Champion Sound CD, delayed in the pressing, slated for June 12, 2007, are collected here together for the first time in this deluxe 2-CD set.

Pre-order at Amazon

Track List:
Disc 1:
1. L.A. to Detroit
2. McNasty Filth, feat. Frank-n-Dank
3. Nowadayz
4. Champion Sound
5. The Red
6. Heavy
7. Raw Shit, feat. Talib Kweli
8. The Official
9. The Heist
10. The Mission
11. React, feat. Quasimoto
12. Strapped, feat. Guilty Simpson
13. Strip Club
14. The Exclusive, feat. Percee P
15. Survival Test
16. Starz
17. No Games
18. Raw Addict - Prev. Unreleased on CD
19. Pillz - Bonus Track

Disc 2:
1-9 Prev. Unreleased
10-24 Prev. Unreleased on CD
1. Da Rawkus (Sir Bang Version)
2. The Official (Rap Circle Mix)
3. Heavy (Chronic Mix)
4. Optimos for Dilla (Interlude)
5. Survival Test (Rasta Dub Remix)
6. Champion Sound (Remix)
7. The Mission (Stringed Out Mix)
8. One for Dilla (Interlude)
9. Strapped (Four-4 Mix)
10. McNasty Filth (Instrumental)
11. Nowadayz (Instrumental)
12. Champion Sound (Instrumental)
13. The Red (Instrumental)
14. Heavy (Instrumental)
15. Raw Shit (Instrumental)
16. The Official (Instrumental)
17. The Heist (Instrumental)
18. The Mission (Instrumental)
19. React (Instrumental)
20. Strapped (Instrumental)
21. Strip Club (Instrumental)
22. The Exclusive (Instrumental)
23. Survival Test (Instrumental)
24. Starz (Instrumental)

Play “The Message” courtesy of the Analog Giant and unbosom where you can still get a copy of the original 2003 release (sans remixes).

A-Ha!!!

Phonte Ft. Carlitta Durand: Take On Me (A-Ha Cover)
From: ? (?, ?)

Little Brother the duo (rappers only), a refashioned version of Little Brother the trio (rappers + 9th Wonder = rapper’s delight) is not “evolution” as Phonte Coleman asserted. I suggest that the duo is delving into a hurried lollipop (radio-ready) banality. I salute to their group death that their trio catalog is invaluable and their dissolution has not been idle.

Below are excerpts from an interview with A&E’s, Campus Echo Online Rashaun Rucker of North Carolina Central University, Remainder of One, February 10, 2000, Vol. 91, Issue 5, asked, Chapel Hill, Cat's Cradle, rap duel winner, Phonte Coleman:

Why did you deem it necessary to return to the duel this year?
Honestly man, I wasn’t even gonna enter this Duel. But on the day of the contest, Financial Aid fronted on my refund check and it pissed me off. So I entered at the last minute out of anger, you know. I guess it helped (laughs).

During the rap battle with MC Keyshawn the topic switches to: "If I Was a Penis" and
Phonte delivers:
"You don’t understand my onomatopoeia/ If I was a dick/ I’d squirt in your face/ and give you gonorrhea."
…Phonte got his money.

Relative Phonte’s A-Ha's pop classic Take On Me with help from Carlitta Durand courtesy of Spine Magazine when asked: “Who influences your music?” Mr. Coleman answered:
Back in the day it was artists like Run D.M.C. and Big Daddy Kane, but now it’s cats like Pharoahe Monch, Mos Def and The Roots ... and a lot of rock and alternative groups like Radiohead, Dave Matthews and Portishead.

The Drama Builds

Rice eating Bush gaffes:
“You helped our nation celebrate its bicentennial in 17 – –”

Team America’s climatic monologue comes as an apropos parodistic proffering relative Bush's geopolitical rationale:
“There’s a difference between di<%s and a$$holes. Because there are terrorists – a$$holes – you’ve got to have di<%s, people who hunt down terrorists. Di<%s are bad, and it sucks to be a di<%, but it’s way worse to be an a$$hole, and because there are a$$holes, we need di<%s. So shut the fu<% up, all you pu$$ies!”

Mull over that with a can of Diet Coke Plus...

Materialness

Erykah Badu: Real Thing (Music Is Everything) (Prod. by Madlib)
From: ? (?, ?)

Cam'ron: Freestyle
From: DJ Envy and Dipset: Bad Guys, Vol. 17 (?, 2007)

Cam'ron: Curtis (Prod. by The MG'z) (Inst.)
From: J. Armz: How To Be An MC, Vol. 42 (Vinyl, 2007)

Erykah Badu & Madlib have been in the studio recently; however, this track wasn't made for a particular album.
Erykah doesn't know how it got out and Madlib can't revive when it was made.

Jim told Miss Info, “on the record,” that he and the whole rest of the Diplomats crew, or the Dipset 300 as he put it….that they are collectively “putting Cam’ron on punishment.”

Updates:
Miss Info 1 & 2/ Illseed 1, 2 & 3

News Flash: YNQ Broke Up
CD/LP July 17

Malik, Joe, Ahmad, Monk & Otis have called it quits. The last YNQ record, Otis Jackson's solo joint "Jewelz EP" will drop on vinyl in June.
In July, the Yesterdays Universe album will feature the next phase in the YNQ universe: 10 new groups produced by Madlib, all of whom will have records released in the next 12 months.
Check out "Free Son" from the Yesterdays Universe album at Stones Throw's page on Uber.

*Cam'ron songs and 50 Cent's rumored cover: "Courtesy Curtis" to Get Right Music

Bored Forked

Grupo Afro Cuba Havana: En Iloro Mi Nankwe
From: Afro Cuban Jazz (Plane, 1979)

Milton Nascimento: Tres Pontas
From: Courage (A&M, 1969)

Jorge Ben: Oba, La Vem Ela
From: Forca Bruta (Philips, 1970)

Airto Moreira Ft. Flora Purim & Joe Farrell: Treme Terra (Comp. by Airto Moreira, Tião Neto & Flora Purim)
From: Three-Way Mirror (Reference, 1987)

I first discovered Milton Nascimento at Central Library, 1015 N. Quincy St., Arlington Va. 22201 back in the mid-90’s. I was working part-time as a teacher’s-assistant at the YMCA Child Care Development Center, a preschool, and Central Library was within walking distance.
I prosaically borrowed albums, CD formatted, by unbeknownst artist and serendipitously checked-out one of Milton’s albums. My first listen through my last, spanning at least 12 years, have always been with delectation.

Shiftlessly paraphrased from allmusic:

Milton Nascimento was born in Rio. Nascimento’s White adoptive parents brought him to Tres Pontas, a small town in the state of Minas Gerais, when he was two. His mother sang in a choir and at local music festivals, often accompanied by Milton. Nascimento's father was an electronics tinkerer, math teacher, and tersely ran a local radio station where a young Milton sporadically worked as a DJ. He later began singing as a teenager. When he was 19, Nascimento moved to the capital Belo Horizonte and began singing wherever and whenever the occasion afforded. MN finally caught a break when the pop singer Elis Regina recorded one of his songs, "Canção do Sal," in 1966. Regina got him a showcase on a popular Brazilian TV program, and after performing at Brazil's International Song Festival the following year, his career was launched.
Courage is Milton Nascimento's first album for North American ears, recorded at Van Gelder Studios in New Jersey under the watchful eye and discerning ear of Creed Taylor, is a masterpiece, a gorgeously executed tour through his early songs. Backed beautifully by Eumir Deodato's lush orchestrations and a clutch of sidemen from the Taylor stable (including Herbie Hancock, Airto Moreira, and Hubert Laws).
Courage finds Nascimento at a time before tropicalismo, when he latched onto the tail end of the bossa nova movement and quickly became one of its most inspired performers and songwriters.

Out of respect for Reynaldo Ojeda* pull up a prosthetic fork-shaped abutment and let the music galvanize you to enthrallment.

*According to Shades of Blue the artists featured in the latter YouTube video are Reynaldo Ojeda and Claudia Lopez of Bogotá, Colombia

*In honor of Reynaldo Ojeda: Amputee Art

Magic Negro: Brackish Curative Black Benevolence

Whodini: It's All In Mr. Magic's Wand (Prod. by Thomas Dolby)
From: Whodini (Jive, 1983)

Cold off the presses comes excerpts from LA Times, March 19, 2007, article: Obama the 'Magic Negro' by David Ehrenstein:
…it's clear that Obama also is running for an equally important unelected office, in the province of the popular imagination — the "Magic Negro."
The Magic Negro is a figure of postmodern folk culture, coined by snarky 20th century sociologists, to explain a cultural figure who emerged in the wake of Brown vs. Board of Education. "He has no past, he simply appears one day to help the white protagonist," reads the description on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Negro.
He's there to assuage white "guilt" (i.e., the minimal discomfort they feel) over the role of slavery and racial segregation in American history, while replacing stereotypes of a dangerous, highly sexualized black man with a benign figure for whom interracial sexual congress holds no interest.
As might be expected, this figure is chiefly cinematic — embodied by such noted performers as Sidney Poitier, Morgan Freeman, Scatman Crothers, Michael Clarke Duncan, Will Smith and, most recently, Don Cheadle. And that's not to mention a certain basketball player whose very nickname is "Magic."
…most white Americans, whose desire for a noble, healing Negro hasn't faded. That's where Obama comes in...
Like a comic-book superhero, Obama is there to help, out of the sheer goodness of a heart we need not know or understand. For as with all Magic Negroes, the less real he seems, the more desirable he becomes. If he were real, white America couldn't project all its fantasies of curative black benevolence on him.

If you haven't yet read the An Open Letter to Oprah Winfrey by Saul Williams go get a late pass.

The Word of the Day for May 02, 2007 is:

brackish • \BRACK-ish\ • adjective
*1: somewhat salty
2a: not appealing to the taste b: repulsive

Example Sentence:
Water is often brackish and undrinkable at points where freshwater rivers flow into the sea.

Did you know?
When the word "brackish" first appeared in English in the 1500s, it simply meant "salty," as did its Dutch ancestor "brak." Then, as now, brackish water could simply be a mixture of saltwater and freshwater. Since that time, however, "brackish" has developed the additional meanings of "unpalatable" or "distasteful" - presumably because of the undrinkable quality of saltwater. "The brackish water that we drink / Creeps with a loathsome slime, / And the bitter bread they weigh in scales / Is full of chalk and lime." As this use from Oscar Wilde's "Ballad of Reading Gaol" illustrates, brackish water can also include things other than salt that make it unpleasant to drink.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

*I met John "Ecstasy" Fletcher of Whodini in Harlem years ago (~1998) at a 106 and Park outdoor concert a week after they performed at Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in Washington DC, which I also attended. While talking with Ecstasy I mentioned that I attended their last performance as mentioned in the latter. Additionally, I praised Whodini's past work and lauded Larry Smith their producer for their Back In Black (Jive, 1986) album which featured: "Funky Beat"(co-produced by Whodini & Carter, D.Hutchins - whom I know nothing about), "One Love", "I'm A Ho" (co-produced by Jalil Hutchins of Whodini) and "Echo Scratch", (my favorite Whodini non-commercial release!)", who learned to play bass by listening to the late James Brown.
During my diatribe Ecstacy eyes dilated, his head nodded and he articulated, "ok, Ok, OK!" repeatedly - paralanguage profferring expositional respect relative my Whodini-based factualness.