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Ravestradamus

DJ Stretch Armstrong - Live At Downtown Saturday Night

All I do is listen to DJ mixes and this is definitely one you should check out.

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Video: Wale - W.A.L.E.D.A.N.C.E.

DC STAND UP!

Tags: Wale

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Memorial Day Weekend…

kind of got you covered this weekend…

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Events: Laced At CueBar

Brandon’s Laced event is back at CueBar on U street tonight. This is one of the hottest parties in DC and its FREE. At least go for the Wii if not anything else. I don’t think I’ll be in the building tonight though.

And on a WTF note…..what’s up with the DJ getting stabbed at Eighteenth Street Lounge last night? ESL is the LAST place I could see someone getting stabbed in DC. So sad.

Tags: CueBar, Laced

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New Music: The New Royales, DJ Khalil, Jay Electronica

The New Royales feat. Jay Electronica - Posers

The New Royales - London Fog

The Canadian indie group The New Royales bring a lot to the table, mixing rock, with trip-hop and soul. Not much is known about them, but I’m diggin’ the tracks on their MySpace right now. A lot of new acts who try and mix different genres ususaly end up sounding forced and unnatural, but The New Royales seem to pull it off. The sound reminds me a lot of Broken Social Scene and some early Feist (check Let It Die) for some reason.

The most surprising fact about this group, though, is that DJ Khalil is a member. Khalil is one of the top hip-hop producers, working with 50 Cent, Nas, and Jay Z, and New Royales’ sound have no traces of his work at all. Further, I wasn’t expecting this track with Jay Electronica either, but I’m not surprised.

Hip-hop producers moving into indie rock is nothing new. Pharrell chilled with Spymob, and now Timbo is tight with New Republic. And of course lets not forget The Roots and Dice Raw’s side project Nouveau Riche, which played our Banned In DC show a few years ago. The game is definitely changing.

Khalil on the group:

It is a group that I’ve started with my production partner Chin from Vancouver and the other two members are from Canada as well, they are from Toronto. There are two lead singers: one female vocalist named Lisa Rodrigues and a male vocalist named Erik Alcock. There are all incredible songwriters and musicians. We hooked up a year ago because I was in Toronto to work with Chin and I met everybody in the studio. We were not a group at the time we were just working on music. The stuff we were making was so refreshing to me that later on we decided to put some records together. They started recording in Vancouver and then send it to me and I just lost it. We have more than 30 songs now. We are mixing all the stuff right now but the music is like the most fun I have recorded ever. Everybody in the group is so on top of their game that you can put us in a room and we gonna come up with something that I think is incredible. We took all kind of influences from Portishead to Stereolabs, White Stripes to Bjork and the Beatles. We took all that mixed it up and came with a sound. That’s something that I have just fun with but everybody who have listened to it was just blown away by the quality of the music. It is kind of the direction I want to go in terms of my production so it is like the perfect introduction to a whole other style of music. I barely listen to hip hop in my spare time and that’s something that I’ve always wanted to do.

myspace.com/thenewroyales
myspace.com/jayelect

Tags: DJ Khalil, Jay Electronica, The New Royales

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Common feat. Pharrell - Universal Mind Control

Common feat. Pharrell - Universal Mind Control

As a fan of Electric Circus I was prepared to be excited by Common’s new “electro” tinged album, but this track is weak. I don’t know what it is that I hate about this song, but I think it has less with the electro production and more with Common’s rhymes. I’m sure that this track will grow on me, however.

Tags: Common, Pharrell

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John Legend feat. Andre 3000 - Green Light

John Legend feat. Andre 3000 - Green Light

This summer is shaping up to be a good one for music, and even though this John Leged jawn is only a snippet, I predict this track will be HUGE….at least on my iPod! (hat tip: Scheme)

Tags: Andre 3000, John Legend

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New Internets Celebrities: Checkmate

The Internets Celebrities keep their YouTube game strong. Get some education out of this one too.

Tags: Dallas Penn, Internets Celebrities, Rafi Kam

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Wow, Hip-Hop Heads People Need to Chill

Update: I’m updating the post slightly to remove quotes which were taken out of context. Also, I understand how hip-hop heads may feel about this (I’ll address it later) so I’m not really trying to go at y’all like that.

So Santogold came out in some interview that said that labeling her hip-hop is racist, (Update: read the entire thing in context) and of course, the hip-hop heads went into overdrive:

Wow. See, this is why hipster bullshit needs to go away.

My, my, my what is with some of these artists nowadays? Do they just lack intelligent quotients or have no common sense whatsoever? Like who does PR for these ppl? See why such artists should never be blogged about on a hip hop blog Riz?

So yeah, if these er…hip-hop heads would get said heads out of their asses they would realize that they are contributing to the very same racism that non hip-hop Black artists have to deal with every day.

First off, it doesn’t seem like she’s dissing hip-hop, so calm the f$%k down. She’s dissing the music industry (labels, press, retail, etc) that automatically places Black people into boxes and assumes that they automatically are hip-hop artists. Santogold doesn’t rap on her album at all. In fact, most of the tracks are rock. So how in the hell is she a hip-hop artist when she doesn’t even rap??? That’s her whole point. For the most part, she does nothing remotely close to hip-hop, yet she is automatically placed in that box.

And that’s the problem. White artists don’t have this issue at all. If Santogold were white, should be hailed as the next Gwen Steffani (old skool Gwen, not Hollaback Gwen), but as a Black artist she’s stuck in the situation of being to “white” for black radio and to “black” to be fully accepted by rock fans.

As far as hip-hop goes, I’ve always taken offense at black people that criticize others for not being “black enough,” with the expectation that to be considered “black” you must do hip-hop. Some of the message board comments and blog hate regarding Santogold were very discouraging to see.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with hip-hop. I love hip-hop, and it’s the defining music of our generation, but its upsetting when I hear black people criticize someone for say, doing techno or rock, especially when they are completely oblivious to the fact that black people invented both genres. Shit, Black people did country too dammit!

Black people: you can be whatever you want to be. If you want to rock a skateboard, go for it. Pick up a guitar? Jimi did. Wear some skinny jeans? I can’t get down with that, but you just do you.

Meanwhile, I’m going to go and blast the album Burned Again from Stiffed, Santogold’s old band, and probably round it out with some Bad Brains, and Living Colour. And while I’m at it, maybe some drum and bass, some afrobeat, and some house music as well. And honestly, before you criticize, I suggest you do the same.

Black America is a really complex being sometimes. Just a short year ago we were all criticizing Barack Obama for not being black enough.

Tags: Santogold

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DC Tonight: FREE Hip-Hop at the Velvet Lounge

Upset The Setup and Catalyst Skateboards are throwing this show at The Velvet Lounge on Wednesday. It is a free show featuring Dr. Beckett, The Package, Peace Justice (aka dj.eurok) and DJ Provoke on the 1s and 2s. Doors at 9PM.

Tags: DJ Eurok, Upset The Setup, Velvet Lounge

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