by on

Terius Nash aka The Dream in the studio.  This guy is a BEAST.  His past two albums are crazy, pretty much all I’ve been listening to for a while.  The fact that he’s making shit this fast should just make everyone else quake in fear.  He deserves his hype. Shouts to Kingdom via Twitter for the link. I’m on there too. Tweet tweet tweet.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uXe6Y9wv0k[/youtube]

by on

Midrange wobble hooligan Rusko breaks down some of his dubstep production methods on YouTube.  He goes through in a pretty detailed way talking about how to program the shuffled beats in dubstep, how to make wobble bass, how to mix beats and general production process stuff.  I like his music although I imagine there are a lot of dubstep people who will think he’s bastardizing the scene since the stuff he makes is very main-floor friday night mass appeal dubstep.  I like it although I think there will be a lot of people coming behind him trying to make ‘banging dubstep’ and making a lot of horrible music, like what happened with d’n’b after Ed Rush & Optical introduced the whole No U Turn techstep sound.  Regardless though, whatever style you’re making, if you’re trying to make powerful beat based music he is giving away a lot of good knowledge here.  Respect to him for pulling back the curtain.  Real producers who are confident in themselves don’t need to keep ‘production secrets’.

Part one:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4rDC1kuHtc[/youtube]

Part two:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eLFb6CecXA[/youtube]

Part three:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGJMhYv5fqA[/youtube]

Part four:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AZ1RL8jI9c [/youtube]

by on

[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/AmandaDiva-Rebels.mp3]

Amanda Diva – Rebels

This is from Diva‘s recent, excellent FreEP titled Spandex, Rhymes, & Soul, and the zShare link is still live.  I saw Diva perform a few months back, and she ripped it.  She’s also a brilliant poet/lyricist, and her wordplay and spirit on “Rebels” effectively conjures images of people tired of living in oppressive situations and marching up “to the Capitol, front lawns, and gardens” and rebelling against the political and social system.
I can actually picture her (in all her loveliness) standing on the steps of the Capitol screaming at the top of her lungs to other protesters “…I’m tired of them thinking I’m less than! Well, it’s time to stand up! Come on, get up! Gather ’round! —repeat after me.  We gon take this thing and take it over!”

Lookout for the Dutty Artz Recession Rap Jams Podcast, coming sooner than you think!

If you can’t get enough of Amanda Diva, like me -here she is in “ManWomanBoogie” from Q-Tip’s The Renaissance –

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWHDoP5uwh8[/youtube]

by on

Certainly, after “I Used To Get It In Ohio” Cam’ron was official back. He had everyone scratching their heads with the recession rap banger “I Hate My Job”–seriously, rapping from the perspective of the everyday workingwoman–long way from the pink chinchillas and lamborghinis. Check the video below.

Yesterday, this completely absurd track with Soulja Boy-style hook leaked. Welcome back, Killa!

[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/Camron-CookiesAppleJuice.mp3]

Cam’ron – Cookies & Apple Juice

$$$

Recession Rap Jams,  follow protocol…

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

.

by on

Just yesterday Shadetek & I were wondering about the sample Conquest uses in “Forever”. Veiled Gazette points out this post, which locates the source sample for that, as well as a few other dubsteppey tunes from Burial (Sizzla!), etc.

The roaring crowd noise made it obvious that Conquest sampled a live show — Jamaican soundclash/gig footage has provided a notorious wealth of samples and entire acappellas for the last 15 years or more. Turns out that it was Barrington Levy, riffing slack on the ‘Here I Come’ riddim!

clip

and Conquest’s version

by on

This Serani song is really great, love the combination of reggae/dancehall vibes.   Daseca strikes again on the riddim.  Serani is actually a producer in the Daseca crew who has recently broken out as an artist.  The vocal tone on the hook is beautiful.  This song has already broken into the hiphop/r+b mix on Hot97 in NYC (where I heard Funk Flex playing it while I was washing the dishes) which suggest that you’ll all be hearing a lot more of it.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiuCqZuhu4o[/youtube]

by on

archie!

I’ve gone quiet for a minute because I just had a son.  This is a photo of little Archie a few minutes after being born 4:37 AM 02/06/09, looking at the world.  He shares a birthday with Robert Nesta Marley and is an Aquarius.  One of the interesting new questions of being a parent is trying to get a full nights sleep (impossible, but one tries).  Being a musician, I’ve been doing some research on the internet about lullabys.  My lady Karla has been reporting Archie’s reaction to my different songs as I work on them while he was still in utero (mainly punching and kicking when the bass would come on) and this got me thinking about trying to compose some music for baby.  So I started by doing some research.  Google threw up some interesting stuff, I had no idea that you could buy washing machine, vacuum cleaner and hair drier sounds on CD.  I settled on this one, free via babysleepnoise.com.

Baby Sleep Noise Combined Mix (15 min version, also available in 60 minute mix)

[audio:http://babysleepnoise.com/7gpNKMGR/audio/babysleepmix15.mp3]

To me it sounds like Rhythm and Sound, and yes, it is pretty peaceful to listen to.  It sounds like it’s composed of a fetal heartbeat mixed with several different kinds of noise, including hair drier, car on freeway, and white noise.  All of these can be found separately in files of different lengths, here.  It seems to work, although not when he’s hungry.  I wonder, is this why we like Rhythm and Sound so much?  Because it sounds like a heartbeat with a hair drier or an electric fan mixed with some nice reggae chord stabs?  Because it reminds us of our first 9 months breathing water and listening to our mother’s muffled heartbeat?  I know that Moritz has kids so perhaps this is the secret to their success.  Actually I am gonna go find my R+S CD to try on Archie tonight.  More research is definitely needed.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RskJZOoY34[/youtube]

update:  I tried it with this youtube clip, he likes it.  I need to get him some little speakers that play bass for his crib.

by on

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwGFPgQIQ9E[/youtube]Even when the music is terrible, the dancers are always incredible.  You can always bet on dancers from the DRC.

African music/video lovers rejoice, and thank idamawatu for putting up thousands of African music videos and categorized by country.

by on

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzvabAFEEJw[/youtube]Hard House Banton – Sirens vs. Busy Signal – Step Out

Because it’s got Busy Signal mashed up on it. I think this is a blend by DJ Spliffman, the riddim is BAD on it’s own too. Check out Spliffman’s YouTube page, a bunch of wicked Funky on there.

Riddim: Hard House Banton – Sirens

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-uY5Sw25Mc[/youtube]

This shit reminds me of old grime, in the best possible way and has the added bonus that normal people actually could probably dance to this. I am excited about slowing down.