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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhiHZB9sRkI&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Once again Lil B has left me wordless. Has there ever been harder swag than this? #BASED_4EVER

Lamin and Matt kicked it with Lil B the last night of SXSW. I took the night off to make cognac and rootbeer float cocktails over 3 A.M. Nachos Supreme. I think B freestyled over Andy’s MacGyver Guacharaca. I’m starting to feel like I made the wrong decision.

I’m sure B is making some backstage moves as well- but as far as the public eye can see- he’s taken the over-saturation of digital media and marketing to the extreme. The man has no shame – he’s the Tila Tequila of indie rap- but underneath it all is a startling vision and undeniably powerful sentiment -he’s the open source Rammellzee. Eshun wrote, “In HipHop, science breaks it down in order to complexify not to clarify.” B just signed to Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em’s label Stacks on Deck. I rest my case.

Is it wrong that I cant wait to play this out? The 320 hunt begins.

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Normally I get a lot of stupid shit in the form of press releases but today I actually got one with something cool in it. Publicists, just because I’m blogging about something I got in a release doesn’t mean you should send more! I hate them! What does this say about how we should all be promoting our music? I don’t know.

Anyway, Pursuit Grooves is a female producer/singer/rapper from BK who I’ve never heard of but has a new record out on dubstep label Tectonic although it’s not dubstep. I like what I’ve heard. Also, dubstep labels take note: you need more female energy. You are all turning (have turned) your genre into a big macho dick grabbing testosterone fest and it’s turning me off. As rising dancehall artist Professor says in one of my recent favorite songs:

“Nuff Bwaaaaaay / a gwan like dem nuh wan roll wit de gyal dem… Some bwaaaaay would rather roll out wit one bagga man fren… my yout it no look good.”
 – Professor, Roll With The Gal Dem

Pursuit Grooves “Fox Trot Mannerisms” Tectonic TECCD008 by Multiverse

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

And here’s the Professor tune I was quoting. Big tune on Don Corleon’s new Gala Riddim.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBkq9VGD_DA[/youtube]

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Dutty Artz extended family tree and recent Trouble and Bass artist 77Klash has a new leak for us via RCRDLBL with the stream and free download below. Check it out, Klash is heading off in an interesting, deadpan-dance direction. Produced by Sando Khan from Fort Green. BK Bashment let’s get it!

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

Erykah Badu – Love

Alright, Spring is here & Miss Badu has blessed us with yet another extremely good album.  I’ve returned to it already a few times this week — New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh). At first, I was unsatisfied (I had that same feeling when I heard Worldwide Underground, as if the project was unfinished/not completely realized) but for New Amerykah Part Two, with each listen, something magnificent is revealed –subtle, satiric undertones buried in samples, live instrumentation, and that voice – raw emotional honesty (+ sometimes turbulence.) I’ve said it before, if you think Erykah Badu’s music is only serious/militant/political/etc. — which it obviously is — you’re missing the point.  She’s more playful, more humorous than she’s often credited for, and this album has some of the most amusing moments in R&B you’ll hear this year.

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[youtube width=”525″ height=”393″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mG1vIeETHc&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Kenyan superhero/first viral internet sensation from Kenya – with a massive following on Facebook and Twitter

“After platinum, albums go Makmende”

“They once made a makmende toilet paper, but there was a problem: It wouldn’t take shit from anybody!!!”

“Makmende hangs his clothes on a safaricom line and when they dry he stores them in a flashdisk!”

(via …My heart’s in Accra)

(props to Chief Boima for the heads up)

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Cool Dutty Artz interview/mini-doc featuring Shadetek and Jahdan over at XLR8R – part of their Labels We Love Series. Check iTunes for XLR8R Presents Labels We Love, Vol. 1 featuring a new tune from Chief Boima titled “Techno Rumba” (an official release will be out soon) and the Jahdan Blakkamoore banger “Buss It Pon Dem” (produced by Chancha Via Circuito.)

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[youtube width=”524″ height=”393″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsBjvjqjCwA&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

New video from Erykah Badu featuring Lil Wayne “Jump Up In The Air (Stay There)” from her upcoming album New Amerykah Part II: Return Of The Ankh – You already know this is a great song, but pay close attention to the lyrics and you’ll appreciate it even more; plenty memorable lines – (hip-hop) “church never felt this good before,” “my level, far from the devil/have some manners, and say hello to the angels,” “I am on the ceiling stuck like a fan full of dust, like a fist full of bucks…” etc.  As for the video, it has stunning moments; Wayne clearing a cloud of purple smoke to “elevate” with Ms. Badu is one of those.

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Masala got got, then restored, but the whole affair simply served to remind us that we need to communicate – to share sound & ideas – in spaces we control. Places where years of content community-building won’t be deleted by corporate whim.

Think globally, upload locally, tunnel downwards. Rig the submarines. Sink deep. In a post-search mediascape whose senses will we rely on?

YOU. Your content. Your grandma’s chain. Cycling off into the darkness… check it:

“web 3.0: the grand retreat back to our own servers”

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I imagine I like Afrikan Boy, he seems like a fairly relaxed and pleasant person.  This new video, shot in the imaginary offices of ‘Afrikan Airlines’ is quite enjoyable.   Ever since he did a grime influenced tune a few years back about getting caught shoplifting in Lidl (a very very cheap European supermarket chain where I used to buy groceries in Berlin) I’ve been rooting for him.  Also I think it’s cool that he raps in a Nigerian accent, which up til now has been (and still is?) considered uncool, giving rise to a bunch of Africans in grime who try to sound yardie and end up completely unintelligible.  via Ghetto Bassquake.

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One of our favorite mad scientists transmitting out of this here NYShitty High Priest of Anti-Pop Consortium, aka HPrizm aka Digital P has started a blog!  It’s about music technology and it’s called Bangout Sessions.  Priest is a great rapper, and has been for a long time but he’s perhaps less well known (if you haven’t seen him live) for his on-stage mad MPC bashing keyboard mutiliating beat performances.  I’ve had the privilege of seeing him do this a few times and always enjoy it.  Fearless and crazy.  I look forward very much to hear how all this translates into blogging, and there’s a few posts up there already to get you started.

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Cross-posted to Mudd Up!

So. By now we should all know that MLK is beautiful and Auto-Tune is culturally complicated. A lot can be said about this video, from the elemental power of oratory to the ways in which technology can amplify or disperse political potential to the notion that rewiring history is an act aimed at future change.

But what keeps running through my head is a paraphrase from Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. here: I’m trying to tell America about a dream that I had.

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image by jean-fabien

[display_podcast]

MOSHOLU PARK – AT THE FIRE

“At The Fire Is NOT a MIX

it is an EMOTION”—or rather a series of emotions

Lucky Dragons – Mirror Friends

Mosholu Park – Interlude (At The Fire)

Matt Shadetek – Shield Dub

Vybz Kartel – Yuh Love

Terror Danjah – Splash

Shlohmo – Hot Boxing The Cockpit

Muhsinah – Lose My Fuse

2/5 BZ – Etnik Market, Etnik Paranoia

CIAfrica/Manusa – Dans Mon Pays

Movado – Gyal Bend Ova

Big Boi – Fo Yo Sorrows

Goro Yamaguchi – The Cranes Crashing In Their Nests

Friend – Doki