Earlier today (April 29th, 2008) Albert Hofmann, the Swiss born scientist best known for synthesizing Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (aka LSD), died of a heart attack. He was 102 years old.  Two years ago in 2006, coinciding with his hundredth birthday, there was an international symposium (see clip below) -- with a good deal of publicity surrounding it at the time -- on his mind altering creation.

In addition to synthesizing LSD in 1938, Hoffman, known as the "Father of LSD," was also the first to synthesize psilocybin -- the active constituent of 'magic mushrooms' in 1958.  He was also the author of several books including The Botany and Chemistry of Hallucinogen and  LSD: My Problem Child. Additionally he wrote in excess of a hundred scientific articles.

Born in Baden, Switzerland in 1906, Hofmann graduated from the University of Zürich with a degree in chemistry in 1929 and went to work for Sandoz Pharmaceutical in Basel, Switzerland. This involved years of laboratory research which led him on to the study of Claviceps purpurea (ergot) and ergot alkaloids.  This led his research to spend a few years working his way through the lysergic acid derivatives. He eventually arrived at synthesizing LSD-25 in 1938.

According to sources after minimal testing, LSD-25 was set aside as Hofmann continued with other derivatives, only four years later in 1943, re-synthesizing LSD-25 because he felt he might have missed something the first time around. And on that day in April of 1943 he was the very first human to experience the effects of LSD after accidentally ingesting a tiny amount of the mind-altering drug. Although he stopped working in research several years ago, Hofmann continued to write and work as lecturer and spokesman on psychedelics right up until the time of his death.

Funny how time flies by. Already it is eleven long hip-hop years since Minneapolis, Minnesota hip-hop duo Atmosphere, comprised of producer Ant and emcee Slug (L-R in photo left), responsible for putting the Twin Cities firmly on the hip-hop map, dropped their debut album, 1997's Overcast!.

Last Tuesday they dropped their fifth studio album (and finest release to date): When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold on Rhymesayers Entertainment.

As you can imagine with this brand new album just dropping, both members of Atmosphere are pretty busy, caught up in their current tour which hits LA and San Francisco next week.  They will stay that way for much of the year as they promote this new release.  But in the past few days I had the opportunity to catch up with Slug, via email, to ask him about hip-hop, the new album, the word on a future Felt (with     MURS) album, and how it feels to be going strong eleven long hip-hop years later.  Did he ever envision himself being where he is now in his career?  "Ha. Yeah. I think our expiration date was somewhere in 2002 but I'm not complaining," he replied.  "I'll keep going 'til I get fired or replaced by a younger stronger, more attractive idiot."

 "Our approach musically was different.  We wanted to find a bigger but more minimal sound for this album," he says of how When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold is unlike previous Atmosphere releases, adding that,  "Lyrically, I wanted to write about other people's problems for once."  The new 15 track album (avail in two different packaged CD versions) is rich in ever-engaging, flawed character driven, tales, many tackling the issues of parenthood, like "In Her Music Box" and "Shoulda Known."  In the latter song Slug raps:

A quick glance at this week's Hip-Hop Top Five charts (all below) from the Berkeley, San Francisco, & Hollywood Amoeba Music locations (thanks respectively to Tunde, Luis, & Marques Newson) further proves what I've been feeling all along this year: that hip-hop is in one of the most exciting and healthiest states that it's been in for a minute. To my ears, nearly every new hip-hop full-length release dropping these days is quality shit. Sure, there's a few lemons here and there, but mostly new 2008 hip-hop is more likely to be on hit than sound like shit.

Another glance at these new rap charts also reveals that hip-hop has arrived at perhaps its most richly diverse stage in its 30 plus years.  It's as if in 2008 hip-hop has all grown up, multiplied, and gone forth and conquered the world (of music) with a wide range of sounds all qualifying as hip-hop today.  From the stripped down, style of Minneapolis' Atmosphere, to the bouncy hip-hop of the Bay Area's Lyrics Born (pictured above) with its funk foundation, to the trippy sounding Danger Mouse-produced new Gnarls Barkley, to the straight-up hard turntable hip-hop beats and cuts of DJ Quest, to the twisted soulful, ten-track, mostly instrumental,  grooves of the new one from the late J-Dilla -- a hell of a lot of musical territory is being covered under the hip-hop umbrella of '08.

HIP-HOP TOP FIVE @ AMOEBA MUSIC BERKELEY

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Washington DC hip-hop organization Words Beats & Life (WBL) are preparing to present their third annual Bum Rush the Boards hip-hop chess tournament. 

The competition, which is open to players of all ages and skill levels, is happening on May 17th in DC. There will also be chess classes for newbies plus classes in how to DJ, emcee, b-boy/b-girl, and a how-to create graffiti art class.

Inspired in part by the Wu Tang Clan and other hip-hop artists and fans' keen interest in the stimulating board game of chess, and taking its name from Public Enemy's classic album Yo! Bum Rush the Show, Bum Rush the Boards, was created to promote the idea of strategic struggle within the hip-hop generation.   The event's organizers say their hope is to "harness the power of hip-hop culture and the science of chess to open the minds of a generation to a host of new options the world has available to them."

Last year in San Jose, a gathering of martial arts, chess, and hip-hop enthusiasts convened for a free hip hop chess exhibition/ grudge match -- also geared for all ages. That event had similar positive goals of wanting to teach hip-hop generation youth the mental benefits of the age old game of chess. The NorCal event, organized by the the International Hip Hop Chess Federation's Leo Libiran and Adisa Banjoko (pictured left), featured on the boards that day Banjoko, DJ QBert, Casual, Davey D, and Boots Riley of The Coup, among others. It was RZA who won the Hip-Hop Chess Federation belt at last year's tournament.

This film was taken from two different short films shot over a hundred years ago along the identically same route in both 1905 and a year later in 1906 by an unknown cameraman, who captured the silent footage from a streetcar going straight down San Francisco's Market Street towards the Ferry Building. This short piece (one of many that utilize the public domain footage) edits together San Francisco both before and after the big earthquake of 1906.  Footage from the Prelinger Archives, edited by Matt Lake.