Saturday, December 15, 2012

Mike Posner - "Heaven"

Mike Posner dedicates this one to those affected by the Sandy Hook Elementary tradegy. I wanted to do SOMETHING for the families and I didn’t know what else to do. Ed Sheeran’s guitar played at the exact moment I heard about the tragedy. The song came out of me faster than any before. It felt wrong not to share it. I hope this finds its way to the proper ears at the proper time. God Bless you. I’m so grateful to be alive. Maybe this terrible day will make sense in Heaven.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Freeway's Manbeard Lotion Infomercial (funny)


Freddie Gibbs tells the breakfast club he is no longer CTE.



Young Jeezy later responeded...

"Freddie is a talented artist and I decided that it’s time to press reset on my career and business ventures. I have no doubt that Freddie will go on to be everything I believe he can be, and I wish him the best in his career. This is a fresh start for the CTE brand as we re-launch it. This is why I chose to wipe the slate clean and create an outlet to support and nurture new artists to the best of my ability."

Sunday, December 9, 2012

50 Things You Did'nt Know About Nas

He was offered and declined an audition for the lead in Save The Last Dance. He did Illmatic's "N.Y. State of Mind" in one take. His daughter Destiny is listed as an Executive Producer on Stillmatic so she can always receive royalty checks from the album. He sold a painting he had just completed for $14,000 at Art Basel Miami. The profits went to charity. Large Professor would bring Nas to studio sessions during the making of Eric B. & Rakim's Let the Rhythm Hit 'Em. Russell Simmons thought Illmatic would be a commercial flop, and that Nas sounded too much like Kool G Rap. He wrote a screenplay called Scared and put up his own money to hire a cast and crew to shoot the film. He claims to have a copy of it on VHS but never intends to release it. His advance was worth $17,000 after signing with Columbia Records He used to call himself Kid Wave. "Live Nigga Rap" was originally Mobb Deep's record for Hell on Earth, but Nas bought it from them so he could use it on It Was Written. Columbia Records had to redesign Nas' website in 1996 after the bulletin board section became overrun with racist messages. It Was Written was supposed to be produced entirely by Marley Marl, but the idea fell through when Nas heard unfinished songs on the radio. 50 Cent was briefly in Nas' Firm crew, but left after it didn't work out. The original version of "Ether" was produced by Swizz Beatz. God's Son originally was an all-out battle record with Nas dissing nearly every popular rapper at the time, but he reconsidered and scrapped all of the songs. He admits he messed up a lyric on "The Set Up" because he was too high. To get the stars amped up, Hype Williams would have Nas, DMX, and others run around a building during the filming of Belly. Ill Will introduced Nas to Chinese food by telling him to stick a plate out his window and dropping the food from the apartment above him. He was supposed to be on The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill but couldn't make the studio sessions. Illmatic was so heavily bootlegged that MC Serch claims they found a garage with 60,000 copies of bootleg Illmatic albums before the album's release. He got rid of his Lexus because he wanted to get a better car than Jay-Z's. He recorded "Ghetto Dreams" on a handheld mic rather with a traditional studio booth set-up. Mobb Deep formally introduced Nas to Raekwon and Ghostface Killah. "Nas Is Like" almost didn't happen because DJ Premier had planned on throwing out the record with the sample on it. He meet Kelis at Cipriani in 2002 during Diddy's MTV VMAs afterparty. During the height of his feud with Jay-Z, Nas called the Roots "sambos," "hypocrites," and "porch monkeys" on Hot 97 for performing with Jay on MTV's Unplugged. I Am was supposed to have skits, but before Nas could record them someone walked into the studio with a bootleg copy of the album. He had to talk Pete Rock into singing the chorus on "The World Is Yours" after Rock initially refused. He lived in Crown Heights, Brooklyn before he lived in Queensbridge. The original version of "Ether" featured the line, "It should've been you in that plane crash"—referring to the plane crash Aaliyah died in. Kelis' father was also a jazz musician who played in the same bands as Nas' father. According to Carmen Bryant, Nas would disappear: She once found him in his "secret" Long Island apartment with pages of rhymes everywhere. He recorded a different verse for Fat Joe's "John Blaze" that's never been heard. When Steve Stoute first went to Queensbridge looking for Nas, Jungle pulled a gun on him. According to Prodigy, Mike Delorean from Bars-N-Hooks once had a physical fight with Nas at Sony Studios. After having nothing decent to wear to the 1995 Source Awards and then watching Biggie win all of the major awards, he was convinced that he had to make a change. Raekwon helped Nas formulate his verse for "Verbal Intercourse." Acccording to Carmen Bryant, one of the reasons Nas didn't sign to Bad Boy was because Craig Mack was creating problems. Salaami Remi got Nas and Funk Master Flex on the phone to squash the beef between him and Hot 97. He played the trumpet when he was six but his father took it away for fear it would disfigure his lips. He's recorded several sequels to his most popular records, but never released them because he thought they weren't as good as the originals. He had to convince his daughter to avoid getting involved when Kelis started taking shots at him during their marital problems. He originally wanted his favorite singer Denise Williams to do the hook on "Street Dreams (Remix)." Nas originally didn't want the Trackmasters as producers because of their mainstream sound. He was scared of being labeled a "sellout" The first time he met Kelis, he said, "I've been wanting to make you my wife for all these years." He lists Reasonable Doubt as one of his favorite albums. He's a fan of the HBO show Girls. He cried when he heard 2Pac diss him on "Against All Odds." After not speaking to Nas for a year, Carmen Byrant heard "Ether" and "Superugly," called Nas, and said she loved him. His daughter Destiny helped him with choruses and gave him words to rap about on Stillmatic.

My Favorite Rap Album...Ever

I recently admited that my favorite rap album ever was not the usual "illmatic" or "Ready to Die" but none other than Kanye West's "The College Dropout". It recently was placed in Complex.com's "25 albums in the last decade that deserve CLASSIC status". Here is what they had to say.. With the right narrative, anything is possible, and on Kanye West's debut, one of the most enduring stories catapulted a barely-known beatmaker from soundtracking Jay-Z LPs to becoming an international superstar and one of the rap's heroes. Kanye wasn't anyone's idea of a major rapper when he first emerged; he didn't have dexterous lyrical skills required of the underground, but a consummate self-confidence reminiscent of gangster rap's biggest personalities that made up for it. He transformed his self-awareness (and a potent sense of humor) intro strengths, humanizing himself on tracks that looked to his humble beginnings ("Spaceship") and personal hardships ("Through the Wire") in order to paint a picture of an artist with a singular perspective. Not only did it jumpstart a career of one of the art form's most significant artists, but it cleared a lane for so many others as well. — DD
For better or for worse, it looks like the people of Cuba won’t be hearing Reggaeton anytime soon. The Cuban government has officially banned all Reggaeton music, citing its “aggressive, sexually obscene lyrics” and tendency to depict women as “grotesque sexual objects.” Vistel ColumbiĆ© of the Cuban Music Institute said of the decision, “We are in the process of purging music catalogues with the aim of eradicating practices that, in their content, stray from the legitimacy of Cuban popular culture.” Meanwhile, dancehall beats with excessive airhorns are still perfectly legal in the U.S. [via TheAtlanticWire]
Judging by the fact that the music video for his song "Gangnam Style" is the most-viewed video on YouTube ever, it's pretty safe to say that South Korean rapper Psy has been fully embraced by the American public. He's even set to perform the National Building Museum's Christmas in Washington concert this Sunday, which will have President Obama in attendance. Everyone loves Psy! But does he love all of us? This is unclear—according to Mediaite, about eight years ago, Psy wasn't so much rapping about the trendy Gangnam district of Seoul, South Korea, as much as he was rapping about killing and torturing American soldiers and their families. Yikes. It reportedly happened during a 2004 protest against the U.S. presence in Iraq following the beheading of a Korean missionary by Islamist extremists. Psy and other popular Korean musicians participated in the performance of the song "Dear American" by Korean band N.E.X.T. - and when Psy's turn came, he rapped the following: Kill those fucking Yankees who have been torturing Iraqi captives Kill those fucking Yankees who ordered them to torture Kill their daughters, mothers, daughters-in-law and fathers Kill them all slowly and painfully Double yikes. Additionally, in 2002 Psy participated in a concert protesting the presence of 37,000 American troops in Korea, where his performance consisted of him in gold-face paint lifting a miniature "American tank" and smashing it to the ground as the audience cheered. As of now, Psy is still scheduled to perform at the Christmas concert in Washington this weekend - but there's no denying that people are outraged about this development. Mostly Twitter, because that's where everyone goes when they have strong feelings about anything ever.

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Fight the Common Cold and Drink a Beer! (Henry Weinhards)

If you're looking for a new method for fighting that cold that comes along with the change in season, a new study has one for you—drink a lot of beer. The study, which was cited by Tokyo-based Sapporo Breweries, claims that a key ingredient found in beer can help fight cold symptoms, as well as sicknesses found in children. Researchers at Sapporo Medical University say that the compound humulone is effective in fighting against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which can cause cold-like symptoms in adults and pneumonia and bronchitis in infants and children. Humulone can be found in hops, which is used to give beer its bitter taste. Here's the thing: you'd have to get hammered for it to have an impact. There's so little humulone in beer that a person would have to drink 30 12-ounce cans of beer each for anything substantial to happen.