Monthly Archives: September 2008

Music Underreported News

The Manifesto is Toronto’s dopest festival

September 21, 2008 – 5:43 am

For those of you who live in Toronto, or know anyone who does, tell them to get their asses up this morning to check out The Manifesto.  Billed as Toronto’s “Urban Arts Festival”, it is secretly a giant pile of dopeness wrapped up in a blanket of amazing hip hop.  If that’s not enough of an absurd description for you, let me just tell you that tonight (the last night of the festival, so sorry for the late word) features a free show from some of Canada’s best talent.

The Rascalz, K’Naan and k-os all take the stage, as well as a huge pile of local talent.  Kamau, D-Sisive, and plenty of others.  There’s a fresh foods market, a huge mural, workshops on breakdancing and graf, even tons of non-hip hop related stuff like capoeira and rumba.  

The whole day event is totally free, so get yourself down to Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto anytime between noon and 10 pm today (Sunday) and have yourself a good ol’ time.

The after party?  Good question, Steve.  The after party, at a huge club (Circa), features two of hip hop’s greatest producers/deejays.  DJ Premier AND Pete Rock.  

Man, I can’t even tell you how jazzed I am, so I better see you out there.  Check The Manifesto website for more details.

 

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Music

Kanye arrested for assault

September 21, 2008 – 5:31 am

Apparently, Kanye West was just arrested for assaulting a photographer. He and his assistant were in the LA airport and I guess Kanye got into a little beef with a random camera dude. He seemed upset, and smashed the camera to the ground.

The annoying celebrity gossip website TMZ was there taping the whole confrontation, so Kanye’s assistant confronted him. The whole thing seemed to go out of control real fast. He’s out on $20,000 bail for “felony vandalism”. It sounds like a serious charge, but since it’s a super-famous celeb versus the paparazzi, I have a distinct feeling he’ll get off just fine.

Pitchfork, the source of this wonderful little article, actually has a link to the video of the incident. So click here if you’re in the mood for some violent voyeurism.

Frankly, I’m not really surprised about this whole thing. Kanye’s got a pretty big ego, and he doesn’t quite seem to understand that the same rules apply to him. So keep an eye on this one, Kanye’s always good for a hyperbole-filled rant (“George Bush doesn’t care about black people”), so you know this one will be good too.

[Source: Pitchfork]

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Geek

Best Buy now owns Napster

September 19, 2008 – 10:07 am

Apparently Best Buy, the megastore electronics retailer has decided to spend a little bit of money and buy Napster. Now if you’re like most of the world, you probably don’t remember Napster still exists, but it does!  It went from poster-boy of the downloading movement to one of the first subscription-based legal models.

Now it hasn’t been insanely successful, but I know at least a few people who owned it and loved it while they did so.

So keep your eyes peeled for some new fancy downloading system coming to you from Best Buy.  I’m hoping it makes music cheaper, but who really knows?  At any rate, we may see something to fight the giant that is iTunes.  Not that it’s that bad or anything, but it sure would be nice to have something with a little less DRM in it.

[Source: Gizmodo]

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Music

Tribe put out a homophobic track? Say it ain’t so, Tip.

September 18, 2008 – 3:15 pm

[Update: It appears that It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold this Sac, broke this story well before Crawford did, so credit goes to them]

Byron Crawford, a extremely controversial (and quite unloved in some circles) writer, has really publicized the existence of a tragic track by A Tribe Called Quest.  It was never released, but the fact that they ever recorded it has me shaking my head and staring longingly at my Low End Theory album sleeve.

According to Crawford (god knows where he gets his facts), this was what the track Show Business was meant to sound like.  But the label made them scrap the track (titled Georgie Porgie) and that’s when Tribe went back and re-recorded it as Show Business.

This is definitely one of those, “dear god I wish it wasn’t true” stories.  I have a really hard time believing (even for a moment) that Tribe could do this.  I do understand that at the time of the track, society was a much different place.  Attitudes (and ignorance) about LGBT movement were much different, and the types of stuff Tribe talks about seemed to be much more commonplace.  But that doesn’t make it right.

It hurts the soul, especially when you check out part of Q-Tip‘s verse “You can call me homophobic but I know it and you know it/ you’re filthy and funny to the utmost, never will I do that/ disrespect my mommy/so run and hide the salami”

What kind of wackness is that?

Head over to http://www.tinyurl.com/62wmnc to check out the track.

[Source: It Takes a Nation via Grand Good via ByronCrawford.com]

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Cool

Hip Hop Grannies? Only in China.

September 15, 2008 – 2:13 pm

BlackVoices, a blog I’ve recently come across, has a pretty fascinating look at a group of senior citizens in China who’ve developed a taste for hip hop dance.

Here’s what they have to say:

“Wu then had a vision that she and a bunch of other older ladies would get together and form a hip-hop dance troupe. Wu not only taught the moves, but encouraged all the participants to get down with the freeing attitude at the heart of all the best of hip-hop. Now, with the youngest member aged 45, these 30-odd rap-dancing retirees have performed all over China and collected dozens of awards shaking their booties to the beats and baselines of hip-hop.“  Check out the rest of the article here for a solid look at the whole scene.

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Videos

DJ Shadow – This Time

September 15, 2008 – 1:53 pm

Not the official video, but it’ll do.

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Geek

F*** Guitar Hero, here comes DJ Hero

September 15, 2008 – 5:05 am

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Those of you who’ve been with us over the past year or so will hopefully notice how far we’ve come.  4080Records has officially passed 500 posts.  That’s a major blogging milestone (one that many sites don’t reach), so we’re understandably proud of it!

And, at the same time, the creators of Guitar Hero have announced what will probably be the dopest game to come out in ages.  DJ Hero.

Here’s what Kotaku, the blog that broke the story, has to report:

“In the latest form, the device looks a lot like a simplified DJ Deck. There is a platter for scratching which will act like the strum toggle on a Guitar Hero guitar. Above the platter are three buttons for sampling. The controller also includes a cross fader and a sound effects dial which will act like the whammy bar in Guitar Hero.

Instead of flowing the musical notes down a guitar neck, DJ Hero will flow the music down and around a virtual record in a half arc. Either left top to middle bottom if you are left handed, or right top to middle bottom if you are right handed.”

Sounds pretty awesome to me.  But we’ll have to wait and see how the game looks when it comes out.

The video below has nothing to do with it, but it sounds like this guy really wanted it to happen.  And his controller prototype may actually end up looking like the real controller being used.

[Source: Kotaku via Gizmodo]

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Music

U2 album leaks in amazing display of hubris

September 13, 2008 – 12:06 pm

Apparently, part of U2′s newest album has been leaked online thanks to some ridiculous and ingenious sleuthing.  Well, sleuthing may be too strong a word for this. 

Basically, Bono was checking out the album at his villa, and since he’s richer than 2/3rds of the world’s economies, he was obviously using a disgusting sound system. 

He was playing the songs so insanely loud, in fact, that a fan was able to sit outside and record the songs and leak them that way.  Now it seems like an honest mistake, because I’m sure Bono just wanted to hear how it sounded before it went public.  But you’d have to be pumping something pretty damn loud (or the “fan” had to be creeping far closer to the house than they want to admit) for something like this to happen.  And it hasn’t stopped the internet peeps from ranting about Bono’s arrogance.

[Source: The Sun via Gizmodo via TorrentFreak]

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Art Cool

B.C. hip-hop artists lend a helping hand

September 12, 2008 – 7:13 pm

It may not be groundbreaking news, but we have a policy here at 4080 that any time the CBC uses the phrase “fresh rhymes, beats” in an article title, we have have to blog about it. And if you don’t believe this could ever happen, head over to the CBC’s website and prepare to be amazed.

The story itself is actually a pretty positive one.  Thanks to a large government grant the Inuvik Youth Centre in Inuvik, Northwest Territories, brought in four “hip-hop artists” from British Columbia to teach the kids about the creative process.  The grant also allowed them to purchase some fairly heavy duty recording equipment.  

So now kids near the Arctic are learning about making beats and writing rhymes.  Even better, they’re gaining an appreciation of the beauty of art: 

“At first reluctant, students in the English class were reciting their own rhymes by the end of the 80-minute session.

“I heard at the beginning of the class, a few of the girls were like, ‘Aww, I don’t really like poetry. I don’t want to be here.’ And then by the end of that class, watching their performance was really beautiful,” said Emma Tius, another artist and facilitator.”

 

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Music

Hip-hop is jump around music

September 11, 2008 – 9:29 pm

If you think punk music has the monopoly on jumpin’-up-and-down-like-a-fool-in-a-mosh-pit craziness, you’d better think again.  Hip-hop, especially its hardcore, East Coast variant, has a long tradition of songs that make people just wanna wyle out and push each other around.  If you don’t believe me, check out the remix of M.O.P.’s “Ante Up,” below:

MOP feat Busta Rhymes- Ante up (Remix)

 
To stay on the Busta Rhymes theme, have a listen to one of his newer tracks, “Don’t Touch Me.” With an irresistible, up-tempo beat that seems to be perpetually building to a climax that never arrives, this track will have you gettin’ down on it fo sho’.  if you’re not at least tapping your toes to this tune, I’d visit a medical professional.

Busta Rhymes – Don’t Touch Me

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Next up is some absolutely classic Canadian content: DL Incognito’s “Spit Forever II”.  Off his excellent album A Sample And A Drum Machine, this track is one of my all time favourites.  I’m not even sure what the instrument is in the sample (chimes or something?); all I know is that I want to get crazy whenever I hear DL rap about “the new school of hip-hop, northern.”

DL Incognito – Spit Forever II ft. Tara Chase

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To return to New York, here’s Onyx’s “Slam Harder.” It’s not as hard as the M.O.P. remix, but it’s still got that head-noddin’, go nuts vibe to it:

Onyx – Slam Harder

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And finally, to keep things on the Busta tip, have a look at this tribute to A Tribe Called Quest.  Wait until about two-thirds of the way in, when the entire place just erupts when Busta Rhymes makes his appearance:

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