They say that drugs make you dumb, but if that’s the case then what the fuck are these police taking? They must be in and out of the evidence room all day. I just saw this piece by ABC News and actually laughed out loud.

“Savvy criminals are using some of the country’s most credible logos, including FedEx, Wal-Mart, DirecTV and the U.S. Border Patrol, to create fake trucks to smuggle drugs, money and illegal aliens across the border, according to a report by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.”

In my mind this just goes to show that when people are hungry and committed enough, they can do almost anything. US Drug Warriors: you’re losing, you losers, think up another plan. I recommend some kind of controlled legalization. At least then we could have quality controls, cheap clean needles and people would not be killing each other over this stuff quite so often. You don’t see the executives of the Altria group going and shooting up the corporate offices of Anheuser Busch do you? I know in an election cycle this will be an unpopular idea due to the huge number of American jobs that would be lost (hustlers, smugglers, prison guards) but still, from my soapbox over here it all seems very clear. In the meantime, if the ganja pays your rent, keep on hustling!

UK low-end bredren Sinden started off his (highly influential & generally awesome) Kiss FM radio show last night with the Cauto stormer from Dutty Remix Zero, Bona Vida! Tracklist. Seems like you can stream it back here for a week, although are my computer & I am not smart enough to make it work for us.

cauto

[Cauto]

Across the Atlantic, on my radio show last nite we aired an exclusive set by another Londoner, bassline/grime producer Dexplicit. Listen back. This will be available as a podcast soon.

Real badman ting. The dancehall arena is a harsh place, and the stakes are high. Some artists can make great records. And some can stand up in the arena and kill. Some can do both. There’s been a big resurgence in interest in Ninjaman lately, with a lot of LDN artists bigging him up and shouting him out. As Skepta, who’s Nigerian, said: “I think a lot of my caribbean friends didn’t want me to know about Ninjaman.”

Not gonna do a lot of long talking, for those who don’t understand patois just watch who gets a forward and during who’s song the bottles start flying. Peep Ninja throwing Supercats style back in his face at 1:20. Big clash.

NINJAMAN VS. SUPERCAT AT STING 1991:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0t-ANfbVyg[/youtube]

And Ninja was still a threat twelve years later in 2003, to such an extent that one of dancehall’s contemporary warlords felt the need to go beyond lyrics to lock off what he clearly saw as a serious lyrical threat to his then-new status.

NINJAMAN VS VYBZ KARTEL AT STING 2003: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP-6uTtm00g&feature=related[/youtube]

To my mind as soon as someone has to pick up a bottle in a lyrical war, they’ve lost the clash.

Finally, Ninja discusses the contemporary dancehall scene, and says some very pointed things. He’s cut his dreads, and looks like he’s been through a lot, and has a lot to say.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PmIPcxnWmI&feature=related[/youtube]

At night, when the big advertisers go away, NYC-area radio gets really good.

The stations that are satured with depressing, attention-grabbing ads for the army, “debt relief” usury, and McDonalds during the daytime… well, at night those ads dont go away, they widen to include Viagra-type ads. But they happen less frequently.

And between them unfolds incredible, alive radio. Some moments are great because of the music they play and others are great because of how live they make it all. The best combine both of these with technically virtuoso hiphop DJing. I’m convinced they edit it in advance because i’ve never once heard a mistake or an off-beat blend, it’s that good. We didn’t get any of that perfectionist Manhattan turntablism tonite, but it was bumpin nonetheless. Here’s what i heard:

radio 05aradio 05aradio 05aradio 05aradio 05a

nYc aIrwAves – dUTtY rAdIo RiP (30 min., 28 MB)

This is EXACTLY what New York City sounds like right now. Midnite to 3AMish? I’m skipping around stations, but La Kalle and Hot 97 are well-represented, and the weird stuff at the end is WFMU. Recorded onto a flagging harddrive from one of those cd-cassette units that resemble the head of a praying mantis or ant.

clean music rubs right off – the dutty stuff stains

Dutty Artz –> Dutty Wine, bassline time, seen?

DJ Q – Dutty Wine

big up Q & his large version of Tony Matterhorn’s avalanche of a riddim. buy it here. this riddim wont be up here for long, WE ALL GOTTA EAT.

Dutty Wine also happens to be one of our fav youtube searches. for example this brave Colombian boy!?!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtIiA6rMMFo&feature=related[/youtube]

dexplicit

It is very, very rare that you will see me posting anyone else’s fliers on here besides DA family. Trouble + Bass is extended family tree though and I am just personally excited about this event. I am a big big fan of Dexplicit‘s Bassline/Niche House output in the past few years, bringing the energy and colors of grime into a 4×4 format.  If you are in NYC you are a FOOL to miss this.  I also have no qualms promoting this because Dex himself is such a nice friendly dude.  We’ve only spoken over the internet but his niceness comes through.  I like people like that and want them to win.  The world is so full of assholes, the people who aren’t deserve singling out.

Also check /Ruptures WFMU radio show Jan. 23rd for an exclusive mix by Dexplicit full up with unreleased dubs, as well as (I think) an interview.

77klash
A big shout out to Diplo for showing my riddim “Mad Again” a lot of love on his Mad Decent blog. The tune is with 77Klash spitting and dancehall legend Johnny Osbourne on the chorus. For those of you who’ve heard it on myspace now’s your chance to grab it on an exclusive preview download.

Move quickly because I’m not sure how long it’ll be up there for DL. Wierdly he’s got a different tune called Mad Again coming out on his label with among others a remix from my boy Drop The Lime, great minds think alike I guess.

Watch out for the tune coming soon on the Iron Shirt mixtape as well as on 77Klash’s Code Fi Di Streets EP.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqoFwZUp5vc[/youtube]

In a change from our semi-usual editorial policy of hyping our music, attacking other people and posting things that are stupid yet funny, I’ve decided to put on my amateur-political-analyst fake New Era fitted hat and take a look at this years upcoming presidential election.

The event that’s inspired me to do so is Barack Obama’s shocking and very public political beat down of Hilary Clinton. For those who don’t watch politics, you may not have noticed that last night not only did he win, but beat her embarassingly into not second but third place, behind John Edwards. Obama took just under 38% to Hilary’s just over 29%, for a nine point difference. For someone who’s only been a senator for three years going up against one of the beloved political dynasties of our age, this is a big deal. The fact that he did so in a state that’s 95.9% white pretty much blows out of the water a lot of people’s claims that Amerika would never elect a black man for president as well as evaporating all the talk about Clinton’s “Inevitability”. Personally, I think it’s great.

And for those who will say “But America is still racist, he can never win!” I will point you to one of my new favorite subjects, the Republican candidates. Basically, you could run a one-legged chicken against ALL of these people and beat them. Let’s take a look.

In the lead, we’ve got Mike Huckabee (20%), former baptist minister and governor of Arkansas. With much less money and Republican establishment support he blew a big hole in the candidacy of the Republican directly behind him, Mitt Romney(18%). Basically coming from nowhere he leapt to the front of the race primarily based on the fact that, in the eyes of the Evangelical Christians who make up 60% of Republicans in Iowa, there is no other “socially conservative” Republican in the race that they can stomach.

Romney, as a Mormon, has ZERO chance winning over these people. They’ve all seen Big Love, they’re not convinced. Behind him is John McCain (13%). I actually have some sympathy for this guy out of all of them because as strongly as I disagree with him and think he’s basically insane, he seems like he believes in his insanity and is willing to stick up for it. Fair play. Still, his sticking to his convictions, including his recent statement that he wouldn’t mind if the Iraq war went on for another 100 years, is not going to win him the general election. Even Republicans are embarassed about the war by now, there were no weapons, we didn’t get to steal any oil and worst of all we can’t even win the damn thing. Whoops.

Next we’ve got Fred Thompson (13%), that actor guy. Nope, you’re not the governator, it’s not gonna work. Ron Paul (2%), who seems crazy in a good way, is great on the Iraq war and came in fifth. I’d say he’s probably too good for any serious number of republican’s to vote for, not bad-crazy enough at all.

Which gives me great GREAT satisfaction to announce, that bringing up the rear in sixth place is my personal least favorite person on earth, Rudy Giuliani. Let me just take a moment to say, you thought you were going to win Rudy? Nyeah nyeah! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. You 9/11-exploiting, adultering, police-murder-endorsing fascist, you FAIL! I can’t tell you how happy that makes me. Having lived through 8 years of Giuliani time personally in NYC I have many many reasons to hate this guy, not the least of which is that he is a giant asshole. What he will be good for, in true form, is attacking and taking the air out of the other hopeless Republican candidates.

I tell you, Tuesday night I will be sitting watching the NH primaries with a big bowl of popcorn and laughing my head off as the Republicans step on each others faces trying to climb to the top of the mountain of loserdom that they are swiftly becoming. It just goes to show, that there is a limited amount of evil insanity that ANYONE, even the pathologically misleadable American people, will put up with and vote for. I think for the first time in my life I may actually enjoy a presidential election.

All statistics are loosey-goosey and un-fact checked. It’s a music blog, if you don’t like it go read someone else.

edit: fixed McCain and Thompson percentages, thanks Lamin (we are fact checked after all, though not by ourselves). And in response to your question about disinformation, I wouldn’t be too sure about that.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrVmEQIsWmw[/youtube]Boom! The first episode of Dutty Artz Television (aka DATV#001) lands with a bang and crash.

Check out the DA family repping at NYC’s original and best dubstep night Dub War. DJ /Rupture, Geko Jones and Jahdan pon mic. It was a wicked night, the sound was booming, the vibes were strong and Rupture dropped a whole bunch of exxxclusive Dutty material including a bunch of tunes by myself. Check the video and watch my Can’t Breathe Remix fuck up the place when it drops. Starting the episode is new producer Cauto from Barcelona’s Bona Vida another BIG tune that will be out very soon, along with the Can’t Breathe Remix on our first release DA00 DUTTY REMIX ZERO 12″.

Shout out to Dave Q from Dub War, we did a great interview but the sound didn’t come thru, we’ll get you next time fam. Shouts to everyone who was in the building: Elliel and 3rd Rayl from Funkworthy Sound, Human, DJ Child from PGM, Twin Sounds, Star Eyes from T&B, Secret Agent Gel, NRON, Lamin, First City Crew and all the ravers raving!

Watch this space and our new YouTube channel for further episodes and updates, upcoming features include our own NYC Street Fashion coverage and Cooking with the Family, a segment where we watch our musician friends cook their favorite dishes.

Available in both downloadable Podcast and YouTube formats. iTunes compatibility coming soon (fuck apple).

Podcast:

[display_podcast]

The RIAA has done gone lost their minds.

RIAA LINER NOTES

Not really, actually I got this from Boing Boing. Still, you believed me for a sec didn’t you?

The music industry is flopping, gasping, dying. I will be loudly drunk wearing a party hat at and stained hawaiian shirt at the funeral.

David Byrne has some smart things to say about it at Wired. Yes, I know, another post of content boosting, but substantive blogging is hard work. More real content, for those of you who like that, very soon.

Also, we got a mailing list! Sign up and we will send you tasty spam, that you want to read, I swear.