One of my major critiques of a lot of battle rappers is they don’t know music as well as they know battle. Wait, wait, hear me out! I think that’s why so many of them sound so anchor-less outside of the battle arena when it’s time to make real music. This is not the case with Brooklyn resident Soul Khan who can deliver witty punchlines in a battle then turn around and ride a soul sample like the one on “Soul Like Khan” with skill.
Check the video for ‘Soul Like Khan’ with the teaser for ‘Black Hammer, White Lightning’ at the end and his EP Acknowledgement below.
Officially we have entered the British summer season. Summer means sunshine (we hope), long evenings and the festival season is upon us.
Hip Hoppers come hard this month. London plays host to everyones favourite bad kids on the block, Tyler, The Creator and the man dem at Camden Crawl on the first day of the month. Heavyweights Mos Def, Talib Kweli, De La Soul and Rakim merge together on the 10th May. Also Wiz Khalifia makes his UK debut and ol’ G Snoop touches down to show some UK love.
To balance out all the testerone, we have the British queen of soul, Sade undertaking her first tour in the UK in 17 years. Ms Sade will be holding it down at the O2. Scandinavian duo Quadron make their first UK appearance and label mate Szjerdene will be doing an intimate debut show this month too. Obviously there is plenty more to get involved in.
Get used to the longer listings over the next forthcoming months… the summer is officially here.
I always respect those cats who are genuine scholars of their shit & know their studied field. Opinions agreeable or not, you can’t eff with knowledge, wisdom…
9th Wonder, as forthright producer, professor of Hip-Hop for higher learning (at North Carolina Central University) and father/family-man is one of those cats. Looking forward to gaining a 74 minute insight into the mind via a year of his life when the final Kenneth Price directed doc drops. Trailer above.
Superstar Adele performed her new single ‘Set Fire to the Rain’ live on Graham Norton show last night. The single comes off her record breaking new album 21 – which still remains at the top of the album charts in the UK.
After the jump check the short (but hilarious) interview she did just before she took the stage. I love this woman.
Ok, so I say ‘new’ – truth be told, B. Bravo first dropped this back in ’10 but real talk, I missed it. He just re-upped it on Soundcloud and it caught my attention – glad it did too because while I’d normally snobbishly snub reworkings of such classics like KP & Envyi’s ’98 ‘Swing My Way’ – Bravo’s take is actually pretty impressive. Have a listen…
Hey, I’ll be the first one to tell you I’m not the president of the Uncle Murda fan club and I don’t know dude’s whole catalog but when I heard this I was about ready to act a fool. This beat by Tuneheadz goes HARD.
Murda spends the whole song handing out giant singsongy smacks in the face in every way imaginable over a pounding ‘A Milli’ style minimalist beat with repetitive babbling and air sirens in the background. Sounds like a lot right? Nah, it’s really well done and even has a peacenik like me looking forward to Uncle Murda’s new mixtape set to drop in the next couple weeks.
On May 17th, TOKiMONSTA will release a brand new EP entitled Creature Dreams via Brainfeeder. To get us in the mood before then, she’s leaked a track from it called ‘Bright Shadow’. This one fuses Jazz dispositions against a back drop of familiar TOKi tendencies – not a bad look.
Stones Throw have released their first ever 10-inch EP and it’s a cool cut for all my bachelor brothers by revivalist crooner Hawthorne.
While we’re still awaiting the follow-up to A Strange Arrangement, you’ll find Jazzy Jeff’s funkier, veteran-sounding Side B counterpart to the more polished Side A we dropped back in September.
It’s hard to fathom loving Jill Scott any more than I already do, but after watching this – I guess anything is possible.
Sitting down with Mo’Nique for an entire hour, Scott exclusively performs new tracks off her forthcoming album The Light of the Sun, including the first two singles ‘Shame’ and ‘So In Love’ (featuring Anthony Hamilton, who joins her) and new jams ‘Rolling Hills’ and ‘So Blessed’. Both sound incredible. She also performs ‘The Way’ – classic.
During the interview Jilly speaks on her life, her career, the new album and various other things – all the while looking and sounding (I even love her speaking voice) more beautiful than she ever has. She’s positively glowing.
My future wife, is back. I’m happy. The Light of the Sun drops in June.
Remember falling for this jam by peculiar Montreal producer/vocalist D’Eon when our resident contributor Tosin posted it earlier in the month. Original’s reminiscent of that fluffier breed of 80s R&B cuts, so Tom Krell (a.k.a. How To Dress Well) obviously had to come along and prod his necromantic touch.
With a warped inclination of Dirty South( 808 claps, intensive hi-hats) under a bed of jingly-jangly, retro synth forced to echo more and phantasm vocal layers typical of Krell’s work, this remix works really well and faintly reminds of Moments in Love by Art of Noise.
Star Slinger has been doing his damn thing recently.
He goes for the 140bpm flex on Gold Panda’s track ‘Marriage’ (our resident Danny originally posted up here) and here’s some gorgeous light-trail visuals that fit the track’s algorithms.
Glad these two settled their differences and decided to record material again together.
As an adolescent back in ’99 I remember thinking Em and Royce were a deadly combination first time I heard The Slim Shady LP. Haven’t felt like a Shady fan in a long time (excessive middle-age, male-menopause Marshall raps in that grating delivery on Recovery), but this displays their classic lyrical sparring – punches, wordplay, hunger and rash, scathing humour.
The EP is out June 14th via Interscope, and will feature production from Bangladesh, DJ Khalil, Havoc and Mr. Porter.
