So we haven’t reported on any kind of hip hop art in a little while, and I’m beginning to feel like we’re a little overdue.
The project, on display now at New York’s The Museum of Arts and Design, is titled Sound Wave and is by
has a pretty good (and brief) biography on her. Shin was born in South Korea and has spent most of the last 20 years studying and working in Brooklyn. Her focus is on collecting a lot of old objects and repurposing them in a way that’s unexpected. I do have to say that I quite like her piece below. As long as she used bad records.
Colin Powell gave a resounding endorsement to Barack Obama recently, and this is a pretty huge development.
He is one of the mot eloquent statesmen to come out of the Republican party in the last few years, and one of the few from the Bush administration that is still looked on with serious amounts of respect. There was some controversy over his speeches to the UN about going to war in Iraq. He essentially fed everyone misinformation about Iraqi WMDs, but in his defence he himself was likely misled.
There is quite a lot of thought that having such a major military figure and a former Secretary of State (and a Republican, no less) wil dramatically help Obama’s numbers in the next little while. Watch the endorsement:
Now there is a bit of an uproar. There are plenty of right wing commentators who are claiming it’s all about race, that Powell’s only endorsing Obama because they’re both black. Frankly, I think that’s absurd and offensive. You can attack Powell for being an opportunist, or being a bandwagon jumper, but I think it’s quite wrong to denigrate the decision of a respected politician in this manner.
Please forgive me, I’ve been slacking on my MySpace Monday posts over the last little while, so here I am making it up to you. Here’s four MySpace Monday posts at the same time!
– New Beginning
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A neat little track produced by Velotz. It’s got a nice little synth sample in the background (correct me if I’m wrong), and a solid handclap. The vibe is a little more confrontational than I first expected, but he manages to pull it off. Little Vic calls out some of the current hip hop stars, dropping the line that “I don’t need T-Pain for a street anthem, I don’t call T-Pain I call Pete Frampton.”
– The Sag ft. Aloe Blacc
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Dela is a Parisian producer. Much like any other producer, he loves him some ancient hip hop samples. In this case, he uses an old Pharcyde sample to make a fresh new track featuring an unknown emcee called Aloe Blacc. Aloe doesn’t dissapoint. His best verse:
“Just like hip hop culture is much more than rap, it was
definition of self and membership to the clan,
men of a certain cloth, but clothing don’t make the man,
status was who was baddest, not being superficial
a situational issue,
humiliators try to affiliate us with thugs,
even though we show love with a pound and a hug.”
I gotta give some love to for being one of the very few Indian-American hip hop artists around. In fact, he’s quickly becoming one of the most prominent ones, with backing from Afrika Bambaataa (who has granted this kid the right to call himself India Bambaataa) and is signed to Rawkus Records.
Now, Rawkus ain’t what it used to be, but it still has some credibility.
Here’s Inner Voice:
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Lastly, here’s .
This cat has been working with all kinds of big names (well, sort of). He’s hit the lab with Pigeon John, luckyiam.PSC, Eligh, and half the Living Legends crew. He’s definitely an up-and-comer in that little zone of hip hop.
Based in LA, Kruse has been working at this for a little while. Now that he’s hooked up with the Living Legends, I’d keep my eye out for him. Especially since Grouch seems to be blowing up these days.
Check out True Story, my favourite track by Kruse.
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is an up-and-coming dj and producer from Saskatoon, that hotbed of Canadian hip-hop (although, to be fair, the Canadian Praries have been lighting up the northern rap scene recently – consider Cadence Weapon). Although not yet a household name, Factor’s latest effort, , has people talking. Featuring the likes of Sadat X, Myka 9, Moka Only, and Josh Martinez, the album mixes the electronic-tinged sensibilities of indie-rock with straight-up dope hip-hop. Check out a couple of his tracks below, courtesty of with Wired. And, after the jump, the video for “Good Old Smokey.”
This was a refreshing change from the increasingly dark and mean presidential campaign. John McCain and Barack Obama managed to sit down together at the 63rd annual . It’s become somewhat of a tradition for the presidential contenders to appear at this white-tie event to raise money for the charitable foundation, and actually seems to lighten the mood.
The candidates basically roast each other, and spare no expense mocking themselves either. You can check out all the videos below.
Quite honestly, I think that McCain was a better tonight, but Obama definitely scored some big points with a few of his jokes. Both quickly addressed the ‘That one’ comment from the debate (Obama explains that his name is actually swahili for ‘that one’. McCain says it’s a nickname, and Obama’s nickname for him was ‘George Bush’). Perhaps my favourite moment from Obama’s side was his mockery at his own perceived arrogance. When asked for his greatest strength, he said his humility, and for his greateset weakness he said he was a little too awesome. Also, keep an eye out for the middle name jokes and Obama’s wicked jab at Giuliani. I’ll stop spoiling things now, and let you enjoy it.
We’ve done our best here at 4080 to keep our Canadian readers informed about the big federal election that just happened.
So here is a quick summary of the election results, comparing the 2006 election to the 2008 election.
Party
2006 Seats
2008 Seats
% of public vote
Conservative
124
143
37.63%
103/102
76
26.24%
51
50
9.97%
29
37
18.20%
0/1
0
6.80%
Independent
1
2
0.65%
As you can see, things have shifted, but not by crazy amounts. The Conservative government under Stephen Harper was strengthened, but stopped 12 seats short of a majority. This should be enough to force the Conservatives to take a more moderate approach to government than they would have.
Frankly, another minority may mean an impossible situation yet again. Minority governments rarely function well, and often don’t accomplish much. And with voter turnout the lowest in Canadian history, I have a feeling voters are entirely sick of going to the polls.
Take it for what you will. You may be happy, you may be sad. This election did have a of women candidates were elected to the House of Commons, and I was pleasantly suprised by the number of visible minority candidates.
Seriously, it’s a phenomena I didn’t even really see coming unti this post by . All of a sudden I could see it everywhere. Honestly, M.I.A’s supposedly social-commentary-laced track Paper Planes has been really getting a lot of attention lately.
First up there’s a Lil Wayne remix, which is just awful.
Then there’s Rihanna:
There’s even a bunch of acoustic versions released by no-name Youtube comedians. Here’s one such example:
Oh, and there’s more.
is even less impressive than the ones above. []
And for you indie kids out there, I haven’t forgotten about you. Indie darlings Holy Fuck have also managed to record a little remix, and you can listen to that one here
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I’ll be the first to say that I do like this song a lot. The original’s catchy, makes some interesting comments and really as a whole is not bad to listen to. The gunshots and ka-chings are not really my style, but looking beyond that reveals a decent piece of music. So I guess it’s no surprise everyone wants to try and cover her track. Give ‘em a listen and let us know what you think.
, the venerable public broadcaster, appears to have a bit of a thing for T.I. The article is a bit of a joke, though it does contain a couple of good nuggets.
Andrew Noz, the author, makes the following claim:
When Jay-Z speaks, the rap world listens. So when, around the turn of the decade, he began publicizing that neither he nor his late friend The Notorious B.I.G. wrote their rhymes on paper, many rappers followed suit. Tattered notepads turned obsolete, as many artists instead began committing raps to memory or constructing them off the cuff in the studio, one line at a time.
This is something I’ve never even thought of, let alone heard of. I had no idea that that many rappers didn’t actually write their rhymes down. Then again, a bunch of today’s stars don’t write their own rhymes to begin with, so maybe this is a non-issue.
I’m not entirely sure why they think T.I is so amazing, especially considering how many crazy lyracists inhabit this realm, but I think he’s well regarded because he’s one of a few popular emcees who does take the time to write their own rhymes. Lil Wayne, for example, does not. Jay-Z, also loves having ghostwriters.
Colin Powell gave a resounding endorsement to Barack Obama recently, and this is a pretty huge development.
– New Beginning
I gotta give some love to for being one of the very few Indian-American hip hop artists around. In fact, he’s quickly becoming one of the most prominent ones, with backing from Afrika Bambaataa (who has granted this kid the right to call himself India Bambaataa) and is signed to Rawkus Records.
Lastly, here’s .
This was a refreshing change from the increasingly dark and mean presidential campaign. John McCain and Barack Obama managed to sit down together at the 63rd annual . It’s become somewhat of a tradition for the presidential contenders to appear at this white-tie event to raise money for the charitable foundation, and actually seems to lighten the mood.
