In what has to be one of the better things I heard over this Christmas break, Introducing is a 9-piece live band that goes around and performs the entire Endtroducing album.
I’m assuming most of you are familiar with Endtroducing, which just so happens to be one of the greatest albums of the last 20 years.  You’ll hear deejays and emcees talking about this album all over the place, saying it’s one of their biggest inspirations or just that they feel it’s dope.  And I must agree.  That album is part …

This isn’t nearly as snarky as that headline comes off.  This guy is actually pretty talented.  He does impressions of LL Cool J, Snoop Dogg, DMX, and Jay-Z.
Just a little something to distract you for a few minutes.

Here he is doing it on a radio show.  A little bit different, but still entertaining.

What do you get when you combine Black Element, djBC, and Big D and the Kids Table? A hip hop video for a Wicked Hardcore Christmas.
You’re welcome.

Props to BoingBoing.

You read that headline correctly.  Terry Urban has gone ahead and made his own kind of Grey Album.  Urban has mashed up Jay-Z and Coldplay into an album he has titled Viva La Hova.
I was totally taken aback because I never would have thought of matching those two artists, but I guess that actually might be why this idea sort of works.
I’ve got something of a weak spot for mashups,  more for the idea than the result.  In general, I sort of like the idea of putting two incongruous artists …

In a recent interview with MTV, Timbaland announced he is leaving hip-hop.  Apparently, he’s switching genres to satisfy his fans, most of whom are more likely to listen to Madonna or John Mayer than Nas or Jay-Z.  As he explained to MTV:
“After my last album, I know where my bread and butter is at.  I know 75 percent [of the people who buy my album] are women who love Timbaland and most are the women who watch ‘Desperate Housewives’ and all those others. I did this research. It’s the women …

The BlakRoc project is getting mad press these days, so we thought we’d update our last post and bring it back to all you loyal readers.  As you know, the concept is that the Black Keys (a rock band) have collaborated with 11 hip hop/R&B artists.  They’ve done stuff with the RZA, Mos Def, Ludacris, Pharoahe Monche, and Q-Tip.
Now, I haven’t been a big fan of these type of collaborations before.  I mean, quite honestly, Mos Def’s affinity for this (remember The New Danger?) style has been the most to …

Big ups to the HVW8 project (heavyweight, get it?) for doing something dope and classy at the same time.  From the sounds of it, the guys over at HVW8 had a homeless guy beatboxing in the parking lot behind their gallery, and he was pretty talented.  This guy, named Red, had originally come to LA as an aspiring hip hop artist back in the 1990s.  Things hadn’t worked out the way he wanted them to, and he was out struggling to make ends meet.
From the HVW8 blog:
Encouraged by his raw …

Not too many people remember all of 2Pac’s acting endeavours.  Those that do focus mainly on Juice and Poetic Justice.  The lesser known movies are pretty numerous, but one of my favourites is Gridlock’d.  A quick little tidbit is that the Gridlock’d soundtrack was actually one of the first CDs I purchased.
The movie itself was…mediocre, but the soundtrack is actually really pretty good.  It had actually completely slipped my mind until the track below popped up on shuffle the other day. 
Something about it just appeals to me, and I …

Holy dopeness.  This is one new hip hop album I’m truly excited about.  Souls of Mischief have just dropped their newest album titled Montezuma’s Revenge.
The album is shaping up to be great Tour Stories is one of the best tracks I’ve heard.  Not even just this year.  It’s an unbelievable effort from some aging hip hop legends.  I’m not even going to bother giving you a hip hop history lesson for the Souls of Mischief, because if you don’t know who they are then you and I may just …