Amoeblog

Hip-Hop Rap-Up, Week End 05.24.13: French Montana, Jahzel, Has-Lo, Indecent The Slapmaster, Kings Of The Mic Tour + more

Posted by Billyjam, May 24, 2013 08:20pm | Post a Comment
Amoeba Hollywood Hip Hop Top Five Week Ending May 24: 2013

1) French Montana Excuse My French (Bad Boy/Interscope)

2) Kendrick Lamar good kid, m.A.A.d city (Aftermath)

3) Kid Cudi Indicud (Dreamworks)

4) Tyga Hotel California (Cash Money)

5) Tyler, The Creator Wolf (Columbia)

In the number one position with a bullet on this week's Amoeba Hollywood Hip-Hop Top Five chart is French Montana's Excuse My French. Pretty impressive considering that this is the first release by French Montana- well the first official release following a dizzying string of over two dozen mixtape releases by the rapper - all of which paved the way for this major label (Interscope Records) debut. Excuse My French by the Moroccan-born, American rap artist known as French Montana (not to be confused with UK hip-hop instrumental artist Young Montana?) comes in both the regular 13 track Excuse My French CD edition and the 19 track Deluxe Excuse My French CD version. Of the new album the Amoeba.com reviewers write, "French’s flow comes out like melted butter over the popping “Ain’t Worried About Nothin’,” one of the album’s catchiest songs, and the eerie, slow-motion “Marble Floors,” which finds French bragging about how his exquisite flooring lures the ladies alongside a winning roster of collaborators". Indeed one of the advantages, it would seem, of upgrading from DIY mixtape status to major label official release status is that you can afford to pay some high profile artists to make cameos on your album. And on his new release French Montana does that does that, and some, with an impressive long list of collaborators lending their talents. These include such rap and RnB artists as Raekwon, Ne-Yo, Lil Wayne, Drake, Nicki Minaj, 2 Chainz, Snoop Dogg,Birdman, Rick Ross, DiddyFabolous, Trey Songz, The Weeknd, DJ Khaled, Mavado, Ace Hood, Jerimih, Scarface, Machine Gun Kelly, Red Café, Los, Chinx Drugz, Young Cash, and Max B. But what is truly noteworthy about this is that he didn't have to pay any of these guests (with the exception of the latter incarcerated Max B) since, according to an MTV News story published this week, they all gladly did their cameos for the love. So that was what he must have meant when he rapped "money don't mean nothin'" in the aforementioned "Money Don't Mean Nothin.'" However, it is hard not to notice in the popular cameo-heavy video below (including Diddy whose Bad Boy Records with distribution via Interscope he has this major label deal) for this lyrically repetitive single that there is over the top product placement of the vodka brand Ciroc that Diddy has a vested interest in.


French Montana "Ain't Worried About Nothin' (explicit)" (2013)

New York State of Mind Amoeblog #32: Bike Share Program, American Human Beatbox Festival, Conspiracy of Beards Take NY

Posted by Billyjam, May 22, 2013 04:14pm | Post a Comment
  Midtown Bike Rack This Week Before Been Loaded For New NYC Bike-Share Program

The good news from New York City this week is that, following a few false starts of promising good weather following an elongated winter that cut into spring weather, the warm weather has finally arrived and looks set to stay. The bad news of the past week is that, despite all of the advances in human rights especially in this incredibly diverse heavily populated city, that hate crimes are reportedly on the rise - a sad reality that was brought to light over the weekend when a gay man was shot and killed in Greenwich Village in an apparent hate crime. The tragic irony of this unprovoked cold blooded murder was that it occurred just a few short blocks from the Stonewall Inn - the landmark of the beginning of gay rights revolution - when, according to NYPD, 32 year old Harlem born Brooklyn resident Mark Carson was fatally shot in the face with a .38 caliber revolver by homophobic slur throwing 33 year old Manhattan ex-con Elliot Morales who has been charged with second-degree murder as a hate crime. This hate crime, according to NYPD records, is the 29th (reported) anti-gay bias attack this year in the city - a startling statistic since that is over double the number for the same period in 2012. In reaction to this fact, and following this latest hate crime, on Monday (May 20th) thousands of New Yorkers, including some Pols, took to the streets to march in protest. The rally was organized by openly gay City Council Speaker/mayoral candidate Christine Quinn who promised both a new anti-hate initiative in NYC public schools and increased NYPD presence in both the heavily gay populated Greenwich Village and Chelsea districts.

Remembering Ray Manzarek: 1939 - 2013

Posted by Billyjam, May 21, 2013 09:18pm | Post a Comment
      

Since news first broke yesterday of the passing of legendary rock keyboardist Ray Manzarek, who co-founded The Doors in 1965 with Jim Morrison, people have been playing Doors music and sending out tributes. I never realized just how many people loved the Doors so much but such is the sign of a truly great band. Some people, upon hearing the news at first, didn't believe it and questioned if it was a hoax. Such is the ere we live in. But soon everyone found out that sadly the news was no hoax and that the greatly admired musician/author/film director, who maintained a consistent passion for his art throughout his life, had left this earth. Yesterday, Monday May 20th, the South Chicago born Manzarek died at the RoMed Clinic in Rosenheim, Germany following a battle with bile-duct cancer. Manzarek was 74.

While Jim Morrison - the late great vocalist and front man of The Doors - might be the first one to come to mind when the average person thinks of the Doors it was the blues rooted keyboard playing of Manzarek and his signature hooks, that also doubled as the bass backbone of the group's sound, that helped distinguish the Doors' warm sound. And the fact that the Doors even came about in the first place is thanks to Manzarek's intuition and foresight. As the story goes; following a chance encounter on Venice Beach with Morrison, who he first met at UCLA before the two film students had graduated, Manzarek convinced the future Doors front man, who considered himself a poet and not a musician, that his poems/songs would be best presented with the backing of a blues-based rock band. And the rest as they say is rock n roll history. Manzarek's soulful musicianship was instrumental in defining such Doors classics as “Light My Fire,” “Riders on the Storm,” “Love Her Madly,” and (my personal favorite) “Roadhouse Blues.”

Shing02 + DJ $HIN's New Icon Series Dedicated to the Technics SL-1200 Turntable

Posted by Billyjam, May 21, 2013 08:21am | Post a Comment
"I think it's beautiful that we all contributed to this cultural movement of hip-hop, though some unwillingly, from the engineers to the marketing guys to the DJs, that's how instruments change history when they're taken out of the original context.. Just like how the Hammond organ was designed for church music and Leslie speakers came along to jazz things up, or when distortion was introduced to the electric guitar, and so on. The invention of mixing breaks and scratching transformed the idea of music as we know it, and it owed a great deal to Technics SL-1200s, which was only meant to be a high-end record player for audiophiles." - That's DJ/producer/musician and occasional contributor to the Amoeblog Shing02 talking to me recently on his clearly passionate feelings towards the Technics SL-1200 turntable and its importance to DJ and hip-hop culture. His admiration for the Technics turntable is so great that, along with fellow  SL-1200 fanatic DJ $HIN, Shing02 recently unveiled the webpage Wheels of Steel: Technics SL-1200 series folder icons dedicated exclusively to that  beloved DJ instrument that a few years ago, to the shock of many DJs, ceased being manufactured.

As both a fan and practitioner of hip-hop Shing02 says that he cannot but hold deep respect and love for the Technics SL-1200. It was this feeling of awe for the turntable as to why he and DJ $HIN decided to set up the the icon series dedicated to "one of the most impressive runs in modern design achievements." The icons in the image above were each assembled from dozens of pictures found online, and reflect every model upgrade including function, buttons, lights, and finish. The website also outlines the history of the model which began back in 1970 when Japan's Matsushita Electric (later to become Panasonic Corp.) introduced direct-drive turntables (SP-10), updating and upgrading the model throughout that decade. It was in 1972 when they introduced the SL-1200 MK1. The website notes how the 1210 series was the European counterpart to the 1200s as well as how the company continued to manufacture many direct drive models before the MK2 in 1979 which would go on to become "the de facto industry standard." The following three decades of models resulted in only minor alterations in design. The very last model would be the MK6 Technics SL-1200 model in 2008. Two years later, in October 2010, the company ceased all production of the beloved turntable. Below is my conversation with Shing02 about the turntable and the new icon series whose future updates will include interviews with some retired Technics engineers.

Amoeblog: What made you guys decide to do this icon series dedicated to the 1200's?

Move Over Cats: It's Time For Mice To Star In Popular Videos

Posted by Billyjam, May 20, 2013 10:52am | Post a Comment

Orchestra Da Camera from Quiet ensemble on Vimeo.

As witnessed by the positive reaction to the YouTube cat videos and the recent Oakland Internet Cat Video Festival clearly felines (as well as canines) have been hogging the popularity polls when it comes to viewer hits of online videos of creatures. But that stronghold by kitties may soon witness some competition if mice videos, like the one above uploaded a couple of months ago by the Rome, Italy based Quiet Ensemble, start to gain in popularity. That video above is the intricate Orchestra Da Camera musical installation that shows the "forty elements of the chamber" - mice running on their wheels with each wheel connected to a carillon.  When the wheel turns (activated by each mouse) it in turn triggers the carillon to begin playing its corresponding musical note. As the Vimeo video description for the video notes, "The great number of carillons and the random actions of the living creatures makes unrecognizable the melodies (lullabies by Brahms, Schubertand Mozart) creating an unexpected musical carpet determined by the mice."

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