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eve

[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/Eve-Me-n-My_Up_In_The_Club.mp3]

Eve – Me-n-My (Up In The Club) (Produced by Benga and Salaam Remi)

The original beat is “E Trips” from Benga‘s 2008 album Diary of An Afro Warrior. Salaam Remi is known as Nasir Jones’ beat supplier, essentially his main/most consistent producer for the better half of this decade. Salaam links Benga and Eve together, slightly altering and reworking Benga’s beat for Eve‘s voice.  It’s a perfect connection, and the result is great… but I remain a bit ambivalent for some reason. Anyway, this is the first leak (that’s what we call singles nowadays) from her long overdue album now titled Flirt.

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[vimeo width=”525″ height=”325″]http://vimeo.com/5898495[/vimeo]

Audio and video are not completely in sync, but who cares, really? Especially, when the sound, visual, and message are so soulful and sexy (and she’s trying not to spell it out, but she can’t help herself…) “Milk and Honey” is deliberately sweet, seductive, and celebratory.  I find the experimentation and lightheartedness here much more interesting. Props to Bedrock for the beat.  I haven’t heard or seen much from Goapele since her 2000/1 song “Closer” – positive, dreamy, a bit wistful now.

On a general note -  neo soul and alt contemporary R&B has been anemic, stale since 2001 (after D’Angelo’s Voodoo and Erykah Badu’s Mama Gun, what else is there?)  I’ve stayed away for the most part, but very now and then, there are impressive, surprisingly great albums and songs like Erykah Badu’s “The Healer” from her 2008 offering New Amerykah Part One (4th World War). For 2009, Sa-Ra’s album Nuclear Evolution: The Age of Love is amazing and has been very enjoyable.

vimeo spotted @ TSS

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beersummit

As I write, the beers are in the presidential fridge. After their drink, Gates will go back to Harvard, Crowley will return to the force, Obama will stay in the White House. Nothing about law or race, not even the national conversation, will have changed. And Troy Davis will remain on death row. For now the only beer he can expect will be with his last meal. And he will be drinking alone.
READ MORE of Beer and Sympathy by Gary Younge @ The Nation

*

The Gates arrest gave the president ample opportunity to stimulate a broad national discussion about police and community relations and the role of race and ethnicity when these relations become contentious. Such a conversation would have been a politically risky endeavor, no doubt. But discussion would have been far more valuable than a brewski photo-op, which is how the Gates case will likely be remembered.
READ MORE of Obama flunks his “teachable moment” by Mark Anthony Neal @ The Grio

Extra props to MAN and his particularly interesting and essential blog.

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This is probably the craziest rap video you’ll see all year. I saw the preview for it, but slept on the actual video. Thanks to The Times writer Caramanica for the reminder. You might remember Pill from my Recession Rap Jams.  Juvenile’s “Ha” immediately comes to mind, as a point of reference and, to a lesser extent, and so does Goodie Mob’s “Cell Therapy” to a certain extent – using the rap video purposefully, to unmask black poverty and show real human suffering that we rarely see in mainstream American media.  Also, look for the Amnesty International “JUSTICE FOR TROY DAVIS” poster.

[vimeo width=”500″ height=”400″]http://vimeo.com/5282853[/vimeo]

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[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/TIME2SHINE.mp3]

Double Jay – Time 2 Shine

Early on this year, Wayne (you already know – wayneandwax.com) introduced us to Skeat’s “Dumelang” – a jam which I think gets played at every New York Tropical, and I’ve heard Geko Jones and Uproot Andy played it several times at Que Bajo?! and other parties, and needless to say, it destroys the dance every time.  Big up Wayne & Botswana’s Ruff Riddims for unleashing that, and this “brand new dirrty south african hip-hop” by Double Jay.

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jj

[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/jj_ecstasy.mp3]

jj – Ecstasy

“Lollipop” has been sampled by David Banner, covered by rock and country musicians, and now versioned by a mysterious Swedish pop outfit, with a radical lyrical shift, a stretch, an expansion – bottles are replaced with pills, and shawty is getting high on her own supply.  The same aesthetics, but more drugs and less sex. Either way, Wayne, Jonsin, and Static will be/would be proud.

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mosdef

GETTIN’ BLACK AS I WANT!

[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/MosDef-Revelations.mp3]

Mos Def – Revelations

“Revelations,” a mellow and extraordinary post-Obama, ridiculously pro-black, one-verse track with shots directed at the CIA, the US Federal Reserve/bankers/money-grubbers, doubters and none-believers, the recession, race, violence, etc. New York has been very hot and sticky lately, and Mos Def‘s latest album The Ecstatic has been in heavy rotation, especially the tracks with themes that are seemingly nonsensical/irrational/unhelpful for the times we are in. Just yesterday, we played two cuts from it on WFMU’s Mudd Up! with DJ Rupture. While we’re talking Mudd Up! radio, here are two more joints Rupture played (on his first and in all likelihood last cumbia-free show)  – another Mos track titled “Wahid”, and a song by “the most unusual star on the planet” (at least, that’s what he, himself claims.) Please check out Dan Hancox 10 Essential Wiley tunes on Fact Magazine, timely reminder of why the tireless genius can’t be stopped.

[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/MosDef-Wahid.mp3]

Mos Def – Wahid

[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/Wiley-EyesoftheLord.mp3]

Wiley – Eyes of the Lord

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[youtube width=”525″ height=”455″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWEReAtGJf0[/youtube]

Jahdan on Dollar Van Demos, singing a track titled “Songs of Love,” Leaving Babylon and going to a place where “the birds dance in the trees, singing songs of love” and “the breeze blow so free.” Dollar vans in the outer-boroughs are basically a response to the lack of adequate public transportation in certain parts of Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, and other underserved NYC neighborhood.  I’ve been in the vans a few times, sometimes just keeping it extra-local like Jahdan, riding for only a few stops in Bed-Stuy, uptown in Harlem and BX, but they become extremely valuable during MTA/Transit worker strikes. Anyway, enjoy this one.

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[youtube width=”525″ height=”455″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q-gx7YGNcE[/youtube]

While Vamanos was busy shutting down Brooklyn with Radioclit/The Very Best, Matt Shadetek, Uproot Andy, etc. this past Saturday, Boima was holding down the other half of the Ghetto Bassquake sound system in Dakar. The video above shows the Chief preparing for a show… Big!

Update – D of Bigger Judgement pointed out the nice tune Boima is playing is by Laden.

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[youtube width=”525″ height=”455″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye5dVQ8H9VQ[/youtube]

Lyrical badman Jahdan Blakkamoore discusses his career thus far, how he linked up with Brooklyn’s Dutty Artz crew, started listening to dubstep, hip-hop, and grime, and his new album Buzzrock Warrior, out September 15th on Gold Dust. For more info, check out… BUZZROCK WARRIOR site.

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GangstaBabyCIA

[audio:http://negrophonic.com/mp3/3)%20URgencia%20by%20MANUSA%20and%20PRINCE%20ABRAHAM%20for%20CIAFRICA.mp3]

CIAfrica – URgencia

I am ripping this directly from Jace’s mudd up! post.  Get the blazing new mixtape CIA History Part 3 (zip). Listen to the new exclusive jam “Black Mama” which we played a little while ago on Mudd Up, and me getting their name wrong on air, calling them C-I-A-Africa, when it is C-I-Africa. Raw and heavy, politically hostile sounds from Abijan. Get familiar.

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sabbo

[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/Sabbo-FartoGoftLittleX.mp3]

Sabbo – Far To Go (feat. Little X)

The Chief put me on Sabbo while he was here a couple of weeks ago.  Sabbo is a producer and DJ based in Tel-Aviv,  making solid bass-heavy music and collaborating with actual Jamaican dancehall and reggae artists. “Far to Go” is from his new release It Is The Time, an EP which is out now digitally (vinyl coming next month.)  All 4 tracks on the EP are remarkable, but “Far to Go” is what I’ve kept on repeat for the past week or so. The other three tracks, include vocal contributions from Jah Earth, Jah Rightful, and Chicago’s Zulu, are fully written, realized songs with verses, choruses, etc., whereas “Far to Go” contains only five lines and some chants from the vocalist Little X.  Sabbo stretched and enhanced those five lines and adlibs with his programming, a wicked rhythm track and some sick synths and effects.

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Melodic Wonkster

Waer Rock dropped another excellent mix last week over at Culture System, Melodic Wonkster – a collection of euphonic wobble sickness for those tired of the standard wubstep “wub wub”. Waer moved away from the downbeat treaty (or what we called “noir noir”) to a sonically harsher territory; a relentless attack of wobble/wonk that is not only tolerable but very enjoyable, simply because of the constant change up of styles in the mix and the interesting “design forms”/wobble structures the selected producers invested in the tracks.

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DON’T CHAT TO MAN..

Grime fans appreciate good drama, but things have been incredibly dull lately. Watching the f@*kery between Jammer and Lethal B the last few weeks has been somewhat painful and entertaining at the same time. Their dispute, reignited recently, apparently goes back to around the time when Bizzle’s “Pow” came out. They’ve have been going back and forth, trading insults, making threats, doing a bunch of unsurprising ish MCs do these days via Grime Daily/youtube. Take a look at Jammer here, drunk and shirtless telling everybody to suck their mum –

[youtube width=”525″ height=”455″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADCQ5FfAPgM[/youtube]

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