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Me and Jahdan are heading down to South by Southwest in Austin, Texas this year to do a few showcases and gigs.  We’ll be there hanging out for a few days as well so if you want to meet up get in touch!  I definitely recommend Tormenta Tropical as practically the whole Dutty Artz fam including Me, JD, Geko Jones, Uproot Andy, Chief Boima and Taliesin will be performing across the two nights along with a lot of other great people.  I’ll be at the Dubspot booth all day Thursday helping out there if you want to come check me and I’ll be at the Warper party playing at 7PM on Friday.

COUCH SESSIONS
JAHDAN BLAKKAMOORE & MATT SHADETEK

Wed Mar. 17 we play @ 9PM
Speakeasy 412 Congress Ave, Austin TX
RSVP: www.tinyurl.com/sxswwed

TORMENTA TROPICAL
Part 1: JAHDAN BLAKKAMOORE & MATT SHADETEK
Wednesday Mar. 17th from 12:30AM-1:00AM
Part 2: MATT SHADETEK
Thursday Mar. 18th 10PM – 11PM
Venue: Iron Gate 1111 EAST 6th St. Austin, TX

WARPER
MATT SHADETEK
Friday Mar. 19th 7PM
Venue: Rabbits Lounge 1816 E. 6th Street Austin, TX

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[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/Sparklehorse-GettingItWrong.mp3]

Sparklehorse – Getting It Wrong
Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain (Astralwerks, 2006)

set your woods on fire
hide up in the spires
the flames kept dancing higher

they’re playing our song
they’re playing our song
they’re getting it wrong

ophelia in the creek
caught up in the sticks
somethings can’t be fixed

(3x) they’re playing our song

R.I.P. Sparklehorse’s Mark Linkous

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[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/01OnComingFromABrokenHome1.mp3]

Gil Scott-Heron – On Coming From a Broken Home (Part 1)
I’m New Here (XL Recordings, 2010)

I’m New Here, Gil Scott-Heron’s first album in sixteen years was released last week on XL Recordings. The album was recorded between 2007-09 and produced by Richard Russell. On the opening and closing tracks “On Coming From a Broken Home (Part 1 & Part 2) – Scott-Heron offers a tribute to the women of his family, not so much an explanation but a reflections, giving us a portrait of the women who raised him.  Producer Richard Russell provided the perfect backdrop, a sampling the intro (just a few seconds on loop) to Kanye West’s “Flashing Light.”

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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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Jay Electronica

[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/01_Jay_Electronica-Exhibit_C.mp3]

Jay Electronica – Exhibit C

I have been waiting for a CDQ/NODJ version of this track for months! Jay Electronica (f*ck that! Call me Jay ElecHannukah, Jay ElecYalmulke…) and The Megatron Don answered the request/prayers of rap nerds and fans of great music the world over when they released Exhibit C this week. While the eyes of the world were on Copenhagen (I hope the eyes of the world were on Copenhagen! All the f*ckery, wrangling, and argument going on there matters to every single one of us on the planet. You might wake up one morning and find there is no Freetown, Monrovia, Conakry, no Dakar, no Lagos, no Accra, no Durban… they’re all cities under sea/saltwater! ahem, Solar Life Raft anyone?) one of my favorite tracks of 2009 was dropped in my mailbox! Finest holiday gift thus far, thanks Mo!

Now, let’s hope we get a full/CDQ version of “Dear Moleskine” by mid-Winter, and I’m quite certain an album in 2010 will set the globe on fire!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cA010JeecE[/youtube]

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jay electronica

[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/jayelectronica-swaggerjacksonsrevenge.mp3]

Jay Electronica – Swagger Jackson’s Revenge

Regardless who you vote for
If the mind don’t grow, and the poverty lines don’t go
But the dope keep coming, and the TV keeps flashing images of a sports car
Then you’re bound for a coke war
The meek get clowned by the coke law
The sheep get drown in the folklore
Then lured to sleep by Tom Brokaw
What a pity?
The hope on the politician’s tongue never ever trickles down to the city.

This track is from a compilation/mixtape floating around titled ElectroChemicals, containing exclusive songs and rare materials previously available only as radio-rips or web/myspace-rips from Jay Electronica – a brilliant voice in hip hop (in music and poetry in general) who is going to set drop an album in 2010. This cut has a great Michael Jackson speech in the intro— from an interview in which The King sounded defiant, and saying there’s a conspiracy in the US; it is suspicious that his album is number one all around the world, except in America where he is facing all kinds of legal and financial woes.

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Rupture is off-the-grid tonight, still in Mexico, where this weekend he performed alongside Adrian Sherwood, Mungo’s Hi-Fi, and various local DJs and bands at the Mictlan Dub Festival. I’m holding things down tonight 7-8PM on Mudd Up! radio on WFMU 91.1 fm in NYC. It’s cold and rainy (just miserable weather here) in NYC, tune in, throw in comments, questions, get involved, heat up. Again, tonight @ 7PM.

Subscribe to the Mudd Up! podcast if you want downloadable versions: , Mudd Up! RSS.

For those outside our FM broadcast range, WFMU offers live streaming and even has its own free iPhone app!

Here’s something I’ll be dropping at some point tonight –

[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/Clipse_Ft_Yo Gotti-Showin_ Out _Prod_ .mp3]

Clipse – Showing Out feat. Yo Gotti

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hope is fading fast
[Freshjive Hope Is Fading Fast t shirt | The World’s Got Problems]

[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/G-Side-So_Wonderful.mp3]

G-Side – So Wonderful feat. Chrystal Carr, G-Mane, and SupaKing

[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/G-Side-Whos_Hood.mp3]

G-Side – Who’s Hood feat. Yelawolf

G-Side‘s latest effort the Huntsville International project was liberated last week, leaked in its entirety and contained some extremely solid moments for those of us who are still into rap music! Slowmotion Soundz, ST 2 Lettaz and Clova, Block Beattaz, and the various producers and guest artists offer strong, and even exceptional performances.  ST 2 Lettaz and Clova delivered moving verses on “So Wonderful,” “In The Rain,” and “This Is Life.” On “So Wonderful,” ST raps about difficult times, not just the current recession– more specifically, the lack of assistance, the extra huddle, and debt young folks incurred while making their way through college, the double-digit unemployment figures and lack of opportunity in black and brown communities, which predates the current financial crisis. ST also echoes the words of Young Jeezy and P. Dukes (my president is black, but we’re still in the same mess– Obama administration maintaining continuity.  By the way, P. Dukes made my favorite recession rap jam with “Make Me A Way,” and I regret not including it on the podcast.)  Clova is on-point also, with an interesting mix of low-key, sharp darts grounded in realism, at times interrupted with “next-level”-swag-so-advance raps (and oftentimes, he’s incredible with those lines.)

Yelawolf offered a crucial performance on “Who’s Hood,” delivering a dense, rapid-fire verse about Cadillacs, pit-fights, and nightlife in the Bible Belt (he sounds like a young Big Boi or something! last week we heard him channeling Bob Dylan for Juelz Santana.) Other highlights here include the solo track by ST “This Is Life,” which I heard in August when Traps N Trunks unleashed the Huntsville Alabama: Rochet City mixtape/compilation and the defiant and unforgettable “In The Rain” featuring Bentley. “This Is Life” and “In The Rain” are those outstanding rap songs you hear every now and again, and they stay with you– emotionally raw and honest lyrics delivered by a smart, ambitious/hungry rappers.  In the era of free music —sounds now move faster than the speed of contex– we are bombarded with ephemeral songs and disposable mixtapes. G-Side is offering music with lasting quality. The majority of tracks on their previous two album, Starshipz and Rocketz and Sumthin 2 Hate have held up well, withstanding countless listens and every now and then certain sounds warranting repeated listening.  The Huntsville International project has that– freshness, durability, rap music for 2010 and beyond.

g-side

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juelz

[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/JuelzSantana_ft_Yelawolf-MixingUpTheMedicine_prod_by_Kane_Beatz.mp3]

Juelz Santana f/ Yelawolf – Mixing Up The Medicine

Juelz Santana and Yelawolf echoing/channeling Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues”. If the rest of Born To Lose, Built To Win (his much-delayed third album– push-backs and title-changes) sound anything like “Mixing Up The Medicine” then it’ll be a decent album, but I doubt that after hearing that awful radio single/standard club number featuring Chris Brown.

pill

[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/Pill_ft_FreddieGibbs-RunUpToMe.mp3]

Pill f/ Freddie Gibbs – Run Up To Me

Pill continues leaking out great materials from 4175:The Refill which drops sometime this week — check The Educated Villains. He once again link up with Freddie Gibbs, and each time these two get together, the result is great.

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prewar

[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/GeeshieWiley-LastKindWordBlues.mp3]

Geeshie Wiley – Last Kind Words Blues
American Primitive, Vol. II: Pre-War Revenants (1897 – 1939)

I discovered Geeshie Wiley’s “Last Kind Words Blues” while reading a piece from Best Music Writing 2009 anthology – John Jerimiah Sullivan’s Unknown Bards (the blues becomes transparent about itself.)  Sullivan detailed the rigorous, painstaking process of seeking, restoring, and analyzing forgotten American treasures/some of the oldest/rarest (country-blues) recordings on earth. Sullivan dedicated a great amount of time and attention to Geeshie Wiley’s “Last Kind Words Blues,” giving a deep and thoughtful analysis of the lyrics and singing with help from Pre-War Revenants curator/’American fingerstyle guitarist’ John Fahey.

“Last Kind Words Blues” is about a ghost-lover. When Wiley says “kind” -as in, “The last kind words I heard my daddy say” – she doesn’t mean it like we do; she doesn’t mean nice; she means the word in its older sense of natural (with the implication that everything her “daddy” says afterward is unnatural, is preternatural.) Southern idiom has retained that usage, in phrases involving the world “kindly,” as in “I thank you kindly,” which – and the OED bears this out – represent a clinging vestige of the primary, archaic meaning:[…]

Not many ciphers have left as large and beguiling a presence as Geeshie Wiley. Three of the six songs she and Elvie Thomas recorded are among the greatest contry-blue performances ever etched into shellac,, and one of them, “Last Kind Words Blues” is an essential work of American art, sans qualifiers, a blues that isn’t a blues, that is something other, but is at the same time a perfect blues, a pinnacle.

***
What you do to me, baby, it never gets out of me.
I believe I’ll see ya,
After I cross the deep blue sea.

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UNITED STATES OF AYOBANESS

[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/UNITED%20STATES%20OF%20AYOBANESS.mp3]

SPOEK MATHAMBO  – H.I.V.I.P: UNITED STATES OF AYOBANESS MIX

Spoek Mathambo returns with another miraculous (dark and surreal) mix of dance music from ’round the whirled. Words are a waste of time– do yourself a favor, download and enjoy the mix, baby—like the delirious African in the intro suggests.

TRACKLIST
FEVER – SPOEK & SO CALLED FRIEND (HOSTAGE REMIX)
BONGO JAM – CRAZY COUZINZ (BOKBOK & L-VIS1990 REFIX)
AKUSE – ALCAPOEM
ALMIGHTY FATHER – SUNSHIP FT WARRIOR QUEEN (SOLID GROOVE REMIX)
WONTON GARDEN – MATT SHADETEK
DEM NAH LIKE IT – SPOEK MATHAMBO & JAHDAN BLACKAMORE & 77KLASH
BULLETPROOF – LA ROUX (FOAMO REMIX)
WARDANCE – FOAMO
DANCE, DANCE, DANCE – LYKI LI (BURAKA SOM SISTEMA)
BITCH MADE – KASI HOUSE MAFIAS
DREAMS – DJ WHAT WHAT
I’MA TELL YOUR MAMA ON YOU – RED THE HOMELESS GFUNK BEATBOX

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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]