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[youtube]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=vdTl2zOrqPI[/youtube]

This is a video, by Bashy, from a couple years ago of him just talking to Wiley on road in London. They’re basically just chatting about this and that, grime, the war they had, etc. The content is not actually what’s interesting. More it’s a view into Wiley as a person, which is what makes him so compelling as an artist. I met him once and he was polite and friendly, but I definitely wouldn’t say that I know him like that. That said, from listening to his avalanche of mixtapes I feel like I know him, his struggles, happinesses, scars. He seems like a genuinely likeable person and this makes me want to spend time with him through his music. Few people can do this. This video is a little window into that. Here his new “spirit in the beat” over at Rupture’s blog.

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DATV is very proud to present DATV#003: Dexplicit at Trouble & Bass. T&B brought Dexplicit to play at Love in NYC and we were there to film the mayhem. It was a great party. Dex ripped it up with a banging set of bassline/niche tunes, the T&B crew dropped their own blend of 4×4, dubstep, club hotness whatever (not quite sure what to call what they’re playing nowadays) and the ravers LOVED IT UP. A couple days later me and Rupture met up with Dex and Star Eyes for some shopping and an interview. Check it:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4BAqqv0Tp0[/youtube]

Dex is a great guy and was very cool to talk to, he had a lot of interesting stuff to say. We had to cut it way down to keep the piece moving but for the hardcore heads who want to hear EVERYTHING he had to say you will be able to catch the full version on the DATV DVD later this year. The video starts with a killer Dexplicit remix of DTL alter ego Curses! “What I Need” that will be out soon on Trouble & Bass. Check their website for more info on releases, parties etc.

Big shouts to the whole Trouble and Bass crew, Drop The Lime, Star Eyes, Math Head, The Captain and my boy Zack Shadetek, Dexplicit, the photographer who goes by Madaes on flickr (wicked pictures bro) and all the ravers who were there raving. More DATV episodes coming soon, we’ve been having fun making ’em, keep watching.

AND if you’ve been listening to Rupture’s radio show you may heard the excellent “Language Removal Services” piece played by his guest, poet Caroline Bergvall, in which they take people reading or speaking and remove everything but the silences between words, umm, uhh, ehhs, etc. Inspired, DJ Empirical went and made one out of the show where Rupture broadcast a longer version of our Dexplicit interview as audio. Want to listen to Jace and Dex umm and ehh and wow for a bit? Here, now you can. It’s pretty funny, and wierd. The show is now podcasting here, and you can also check out the WICKED mix that Dex did for the show, broadcast the week before he appeared.

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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.

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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.

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mobb deep purple vision

I remember the first time I heard slowed down, or screwed music. I
was in an old lincoln towncar, driving through Orlando, FL with a dude
named Cleon. It was hot as hell, and me and some guys from NY were
down there shooting a no budget gangster flick. We shot in the hotel
we were sleeping two to a bed in and used real guns for ‘props’.
Driving around during the day in the heat Cleon would play these
slowed down CDs that this dude Pookie Duke (who was also acting in the
film) would make using a cassette machine and a CD burner. Anything
was fair game, erika badu (sounding like a man talking about tyrone
slowed down, yikes), michael jackson, and lots and lots of southern
rap that I had never heard of. Usually just bare drum machine beats
and people saying violence. Slowed down, high out of my mind as I was
most of that week, in that heat, it sounded absolutely satanic. I
asked Cleon about it and he explained: “Well, during the day, when
you’re driving, you listen to the slowed down one. Then at night at
the club you listen to the fast one. But boy, if that DJ in the club
played the slowed down, he would have a riot. People would just get
TOO crunk.” I went to that club (still cant remember the name) and I
could see what he meant. Certain songs couldn’t get played halfway
through, even at regular speed. People would get too hype and start
fighting. Sort of like grime raves in the UK, and why they banned
“Pow”. But after hearing that stuff, and how demonic it was, I
couldn’t get the slowed down idea out of my head. Afterwards I
learned about DJ Screw and the whole codeinated Houston slowed down
scene, and got pretty into that. My two favorite from that style if
you’re looking for something to check are the S.L.A.B. – The Anthem
album slowed down, and David Banner’s first album slowed down by Michael 5000 Watts (jpeg on link is wrong but tracklist is right).

The slowed down hook has now become a staple of American commercial
rap, and lately some American Dubstep producers have started using
slowed down voices in their tracks too. I was out at Dub War and
heard some of these played and decided to make one of my own. I
picked one of my most favorite songs of all time, Mobb Deep’s “Shook
Ones”. I originally just wanted to use the acapella phrase that my track starts with.

“I’m only 19 but my mind is old and when things get for real my warm
heart turns cold”

I was gonna take that, make that a hook and give it to one of my 19
year old grime mc friends in London. But then I got bored with that
idea and felt that the drop wasn’t quite hard or deep enough and just
decided to sample the whole chorus, slowed down, with the beat in
there, and give the track a bit more of a opiated houston vibe. The results
are here, in 320 mp3 format.

Download it, play it, voice on it, do whatever you want with it.

It’s a big bait illegal sample so you’ll have a hard time making money with it, plus I just don’t care that much.

Lately I’ve been pretty down on the whole music industry, and
especially making money inside it. It’s kind of pathetic. Some
people I know fight and struggle so hard to make a living from music,
and I did that for a few years too. Now that I’m back in NYC though I
make non-music money, and it’s so easy compared to music it’s like a
bad joke. And because I’m not putting economic pressure on my music,
I’ve been enjoying making music again. It’s kind of a fucked up. The
most fucked up part about it is, considering the amount of money most
people I know make selling copies of their music (cd, vinyl, mp3,
whatever), it’s basically not even worth it. The only money worth
making is performance money, and the occasional license to TV or a
video game, and for those reasons it may actually turn out that giving
away all your music for free on the internet will actually make you
MORE money. Hopefully the whole industry will collapse in one final
fit of coked up executive self-defeatery very soon and we, the
artists, will be able to figure out some new way that actually works
for us economically. My best idea so far is something like the TV
tax in the UK. Everything is free on the internet (like it already
is) and iff you own a computer or mp3 player you pay a yearly tax to
the government and they pay publishing money to the artists. Either
that or build that tax into mp3 players and internet service charges.
iPods for example, have been making Apple a SHITLOAD of money based on
the non-advertised idea that the player is expensive, but the music is
free. I want some of that money Steve Jobbs.

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Straight out of the gate I have to send a big shoutout to Prancehall for running one of the funniest and most informational blogs going. This week he’s got up two new videos of Skepta (who you may remember from my collabo with him on Pale Fire, “Reign”), his brother JME and their friend Frisco spitting on Tim Westwood’s show on 1Xtra (bbc digital urban radio). Westwood is quite a big deal in the UK despite the fact that he looks and talks like a cartoon character on some very strange drugs (drugs which make you think you’re american and say ‘dawg’ and ‘baby’ all the time in a CRAZY sounding UK/US hybrid accent). Boy Better Know wisely did not make fun of him on his show this time, although they have been known to do it before, he must have a pretty good sense of humor about himself. Still, big up to him for finally figuring out that Grime actually is the REAL UK hiphop and that he as a big UK hiphop DJ ought to support it.

There are some absolutely sick new lyrics from all three but especially JME in which he addresses the rise of the horrible “Girl Better Blow” T-Shirts which are an imitation of his brilliant “Boy Better Know” branding which basically single handedly started the Grime T-Shirt industry and gave everyone in the hood in London a crash course in marketing and branding. Why anyone male or female would wear one of those GBB shirts I have absolutely no idea. If you’re a dude it’s basically vagina kryptonite and if you’re a chick… Yeesh. Don’t even know where to start with that one. JME sets the record straight that he is NOT going to take a picture with you if you are wearing one.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MI_bkFaByk[/youtube]
I’ve just ruthlessly copied and pasted the videos here, but you really should click over and see what Prancehall thinks about it all, along with his hilarious guest post commentary on Ruff Sqwads fashions at a recent show of theirs.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WgRORrtjd4[/youtube]
Another Youtube thing I’m feeling is fellow Dutty Artizt /Rupture‘s recent video with Andy Moor of the Ex, promoting their tour and collabo together (which is currently going on in Europe). The music in the video is them doing turntable and guitar improv over a Nokea and Baby Kites riddim called Hot Pink (watch out for our remix). Hot Pink is gonna come out soon on a new project which is code named Solar Life Raft. The video is a slideshow of photos accompanying a live recording of Rupture and Andy. Some of the images are really great and add a really interesting vibe to the whole thing. After the addition of the guitar, noises and photos I feel like the thing takes on a whole new life and tone, which is pretty interesting. This is another merciless rip and repost but at least I wrote something about it and didn’t just copy and paste. Check out /Rupture’s blog for his thoughts about it and notes from the tour.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A0Ju7ahf40[/youtube]