Are you sick of talking about Kreayshawn? Hey, so are we! Let’s forget about her for a few minutes while we meet Kellee Maize, a Pittsburgh rapper who’s been rhyming since age nine and who espouses some pretty laudable ideals. Her new song, “Mad Humans,” prominently samples the theme from Mad Men, and the video features Maize and a small army of women that look like we imagine Joan Harris might after her first consciousness-raising session. Maize definitely wears her politics on her sleeve, spitting lyrics like “puttin’ the patriarchy to bed” and including shots of Don Draper types making out in the boardroom. Watch the video after the jump, and download the song for free (in exchange for a tweet) here.
Things have been going well for Chiddy Bang. The Philadelphia hip-hop duo doesn’t even have a proper album yet, but Chidera “Chiddy” Anamege and Noah “Xaphoon Jones” Beresin have already developed a major following thanks to the success of their mixtapes, which build rap hits on indie-rock skeletons, sampling artists including MGMT, Passion Pit, Sufjan Stevens, and Matt & Kim. Their latest mixtape, Peanut Butter and Swelly, just dropped and is available to download for free; to celebrate its release, Chiddy did nothing less than break the world record for freestyling, rapping for over nine hours straight for MTV. As the duo preps for the release of its long-awaited debut album, Breakfast, we caught up with him for the latest in our interactive video series. Click through and control the questions yourself in our exclusive interview.
A decade ago, the notion of British hip-hop was one without a lot of weight. Since then, the likes of the Streets and Dizzee Rascal have made it a concept with a lot more substance; but with the emergence of Tinie Tempah, the UK may have found its first bona-fide international superstar. His debut album, Disc-Overy, has been out for just over six months overseas, and the rapidly rising rapper is already selling out arenas. The album makes its US debut on May 17, featuring three new tracks, including a collaboration with Wiz Khalifa that’s pretty much a guaranteed mega-hit.
With Tinie beginning his first major excursion into the States, we caught up with him for an exclusive interactive video interview — where you control the questions. Click through to quiz the new face of UK hip-hop on what it’s like to start from scratch, his label Disturbing London, and his advice for aspiring artists. While you’re at it, find out why his he’d like to add Adele, Drake, and Lykke Li to a list of collaborators that already includes Ellie Goulding and Kelly Rowland.
The concept of artists performing a classic album from start to finish, popularized by All Tomorrow’s Parties’ Don’t Look Back events, has spread like wildfire over the last few years. There have been some genuine highlights — Sonic Youth doing Daydream Nation, The Stooges doing Funhouse before Ron Asheton died, Spiritualized doing Ladies and Gentlemen… –- but it’s largely been a rock-centric business, with hip-hop artists far outnumbered by dudes with guitars. Now, some rappers are adopting the idea the idea themselves: Snoop Dogg recently announced that he’ll be doing Doggystyle again later this year, and various others like Cypress Hill, De La Soul, and Public Enemy have done similar tours in the past. Still, there are a whole lot of classic hip-hop records we’d love to see live. Here’s a wishlist.
From revolutionary politics to game-changing street style, punk and hip hop have a lot in common. Although one was headquartered way uptown and the other made its home downtown (and across the pond in London), both grew out of working-class neighborhoods in the last quarter of the 20th century. Now, punk and hip hop’s founders are among music’s most recognizable and iconoclastic icons.
Still, we rarely see these two kindred forms juxtaposed. That’s one reason we’re so excited about Catch the Beat: The Roots of Punk & Hip Hop, a show that brings together the work of Janette Beckman and David Corio, photographers who published photos of both scenes in British music papers throughout the ’80s and beyond. Another reason we can’t to check it out? The images in the preview gallery after the jump, which feature everyone from Public Enemy and Run DMC to the Ramones and Ari Up of the Slits, are quite simply some of the best music photos we’ve ever seen. The show opens March 10 at New York’s Morrison Hotel Gallery. Click over to Flavorpill for more info on visiting.
Last week, the Pop Conference — held since 2002 at Seattle’s Experience Music Project — shifted locale to the UCLA campus. As before, the conference — a mix of accredited academics, critics and journalists pursuing pet themes, and musicians with ideas about what they and others do — featured a lot of smart talk about all kinds of pop, from the shape-shifting beats of Low End Theory (the LA club that served as the crucible for Warp Records star Flying Lotus), which served as the subject of a climactic roundtable, to the prototype minstrels of Thomas Jefferson’s time, brought to life by Ned Sublette. Here are five notable lessons from a weekend packed with them.
New York-based, self-taught photographer Mike Schreiber’s unique vision of hip-hop celebrities, from Nas and Biz Markie to Ol’ Dirty Bastard and Jay-Z, is collected for the first time in True Hip-Hop.
Schreiber captures his subjects with a real-life grit that becomes seemingly tangible. Most jaw-dropping is the strikingly candid proof sheet presenting a vulnerable young artist then known as Maya Arulpragasam, who would use Schreiber’s photos as she rose to fame as M.I.A.
There are tons of great books out there on the history of hip hop. And while we encourage you to read those, you can certainly get a sense of the genre’s evolution in the video below. Watch in wonder as an incredibly talented human beatbox seamlessly recreates 30 years of hip hop, including everyone from Public Enemy and Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock to Eminem and Jay-Z. And it ends with Kanye’s “Power.” Of course.
We’ll admit it: while we admire the lyrical genius displayed on Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and the musical elasticity of Big Boi’s Sir Lucious Left Foot, we have a certain soft spot in our heart for the halcyon, pre-recession days of southern rap. You know, when three cars were always better than two, and rappers whose names we can no longer recall sported Rolexes the size of Rick Ross.
This is why, when news reached us recently that Lil’ Romeo was relaunching that paragon of hedonisitc dirty south rap, No Limit Records, under the online-distribution-only moniker of No Limit Forever Records, we immediately became nostalgic for that very thing which online-only distribution obviates: the tactile CD experience, and in particular No Limit’s over-the-top cover art. While few may know Pen & Pixel, the Houston-based art studio responsible for many of the label’s most memorable covers, by name, its unique style is synonymous with extravagant rap excess. (The studio’s motto is, after all, “We do CD covers, posters, flyers, websites, videos & logos and still find time for sex.”) So, in tribute to No Limit, we’ve gathered up ten of our favorite Pen & Pixel album cover creations.
Better known for his comedic work directing Saturday Night Live, in 1979, director Gary Weis infiltrated two brutal young gangs in the Bronx to film 80 Blocks from Tiffany’s. This fall, the previously unavailable film is now out on DVD, in a package that also includes the 40-page Esquire article by Jon Savage that inspired it.
Originally shot to fill one of SNL’s weekly time slots on NBC, the documentary, which was ultimately deemed too controversial to air, examines street culture before hip-hop blossomed, at the fomentation of breakdancing and graffiti. Members of the Savage Nomads and the Savage Skulls give frank testament to the harsh reality of life in the South Bronx: their crimes, families, communities, and cops.
, has been out for just over six months overseas, and the rapidly rising rapper is already selling out arenas. The album makes its US debut on May 17, featuring three new tracks, including a collaboration with Wiz Khalifa that’s pretty much a guaranteed mega-hit.
