1) Lazerbeak & Edison Kill Switch LP (Fieldwerk)

We received a whole bunch of these over a week early, and sold through our entire supply of them in a matter of days!  Given the extremely high quality of the product, it’s no wonder we couldn’t keep this on the shelves. Kill Switch is hip-hop production of the highest caliber, brought to you by the strongest label in instrumental hip hop Fieldwerk Recordings.  Doomtree’s Lazerbeak handles side A with a surprisingly subtle approach that occasionally bursts with brilliant color, delivering his finest solo instrumental work to date.  San Francisco’s own genius button-masher Edison handles side B with a much rowdier gang of beats that show off his skillful production craft, with menacing guitar jabs and gangsta bleeps that form a cohesive whole.  This one’s only available on vinyl, but it does come with a digital download card that’ll get it on your computer in a matter of minutes.  Highly recommended!


2) Tajai Machine Language CD (Hieroglyphics Imperium)

Souls of Mischief frontman and Hieroglyphics mainstay Tajai’s new Machine Language mixtape has naturally been doing very well in the Bay.  Features fellow Hiero members Casual, Opio and A-Plus, plus a joint with The Pharcyde, all for a super cheap price of $5.98.  This mix CD is just a taster of random new Tajai tracks, but should tide the Bay’s Hiero fanbase over until Tajai’s new Rap Noir album drops later this year.

For the twelfth straight year family, friends, and fans of slain Bay Area graffiti legend Mike DREAM Francisco will gather in a celebration of the beloved artist's life and legacy in what will be the biggest Dream Day (the official name of the day bestowed by the City Of Oakland) celebration to date at the Oakland Metro Operahouse where DJs, MCs, B-Boys and (naturally) graffiti writers will all gather and display their talents and honor the man who was killed not too far from the venue in cold blooded murder during a robbery on Feb 17th, 2000. Yesterday I caught up DJ/writer/TDK member Martin "WillieMaze" Aranaydo who, along with a tight knit crew of DREAM supporters has been tirelessly keeping the artist's legacy alive and looking out for the well being of the slain artist's son Akil who was only an infant when DREAM was killed. "Dream Day 10 we got the City of Oakland to officially acknowledge the anniversary, if you can call it that, of Mike's murder as Dream Day so we can imagine our city without gun violence," said Aranaydo yesterday, taking a break from prepping for tonight's event and recalling how last year was especially hard for everyone. "Dream Day 11 was a tough year [because] Akil's mother/Dream's partner, Nikki Sellers (aka The Dream Kween) lost her fight with cancer. We raised money to retain a lawyer when her family tried to keep Akil in Wisconsin. [So] money from the event went directly to bringing him home to this community that loves and honors the memory of his father."
Another individual busy getting for tonight's event is DREAM's brother Mike Francisco who I also talked to yesterday to ask him about the importance of this year's event and his feelings on everything?  "This year marks the 12 year anniversary of my brother's passing, and as we're moving on to the 3rd annual celebration of Dream Day I feel a bit overwhelmed from all the love and support from the community," he said. "It seems like every year this event gets bigger and bigger, another historic lineup with some of the Bay Areas top DJs, MC's, BBoys/BGirls, and Graff writers, to top it off some artwork by Dream and his crew TDK. This year L*Roneous will be one of the co headliners along with Equipto from Bored Stiff, and L*Roneous will be filming a video for a track he produced for Dream, so as u can see it's going to be one memorable night."  It certainly will be with, in addition to Equipto and L*Roneous, performances scheduled from Renegade Rockers, Dub Esquire, Mic T, DJ Shortkut, DJ Platurn, Tim Diesel, Pam the Funkstress, Sake One, DJ Fuze, Max Kane & Teeko, and WillieMaze himself too.

Super Bowl isn't the only event happening today. On a more bittersweet note around the same time as the Giants/Patriots game over in the UK is a big J Dilla fundraising tribute party - just one of numerous events scheduled this month, on both sides of the Atlantic, that will honor the greatly revered late hip-hop producer and emcee who died six years ago around this time (Feb 10th, 2006) following a battle with lupus. Fittingly money raised at the British Dilla event today, which is titled J Dilla Changed My Life and will be held at Scala in London, will be donated to both Lupus UK and the J Dilla Foundation with all the DJs performing for free to benefit both causes. Also in the house today will be Ma Dukes - the mother of the late great artist born  James Dewitt Yancey and was also known as Jay Dee (not to be confused with an early 90's European house music act of same name). For more exact details on today's London event, that will be hosted by Phat Kat, visit the official Facebook event page.

Other J Dilla tribute events this month include ones in Detroit, LA, Baltimore, San Francisco, and New York where on Feb 19th at the Brooklyn Bowl the sixth annual Donuts Are Forever celebration will start at 8pm and will feature such talents as DJ Neil Armstrong, Prince Paul, and the hip-hop group Tanya Morgan. Of this NYC accidentally annual event Derreck "Dee Phunk" Johnson,  a partner in Rare Form - the event's organizer, said, "We never went into this planning for it to be an annual series. The original Donuts Are Forever in 2007 was a commemoration of the first anniversary of his passing.  But when we witnessed the turnout, we were dumbfounded.  We were fans and we knew there were a ton of other fans out there...but just seeing the physical manifestation of that love blew us away.  And five years later...here we are on number six." Details.

Today and tomorrow (Oct 6th & 7th) one of the most important events in hip-hop and DJ culture takes place in London: the 2011 DMC World DJ Championships at the 02 Arena's Indig02 in which the top hip-hop battle DJs from 21 countries (reppin' the USA is DJ Vajra - full DJ battle details above) battle it out in this Turntablist World Cup in three major battle categories: DMC World Final, DMC Battle for World Supremacy, and DMC World Team. Additionally this two day scratch DJ event will present a bunch of great showcases including ones by last year's DMC World Champ DJ Ligone from France, the 2003 Supremacy Champ DJ Tigerstyle, three time DMC World Supremacy Champ DJ Switch (who'll perform the piece: Concerto for Turntables), plus an anticipated triple threat set from the revered X-ecutioners' Total Eclipse, DJ Precision, & Rob Swift.
 
This year's DMC battle comes at a time when turntablism or skratch music seems to be on a comeback in popularity on a global level. It's always been popular but after its honeymoon with the mainstream in the late nineties it seemed somewhat dormant (in actuality it had just gone underground). But lately there's been a noticeable increased interest in DJ battles like the DMC and turntablist events like Ireland's annual Community Skratch Games of the past few years or the recent Thud Rumble presentedFader Fest in San Francisco with the reunited Invisibl Skratch Piklz as trio (QBert, D-Styles, Shortkut) and showcases from the likes of US DMC representative DJ Vajra. There seems to be a flurry of new turntablist releases lately too including ones from DJ ALF, Teeko, DJ Needlz, ThatKidNamedCee, Jimmy the Hideous Penguin, and DJ Quest who is about to release this month his latest turntablist album Cosmic Parasite (a collaborative effort with the two former bandmates from his original DJ crew Bullet Proof Scratch Hamster (BPSH) - DJ Cue and Eddie Def).

1) The Throne (Jay-Z & Kanye West)
     Watch The Throne Deluxe (Def Jam) 

2)  The Game The R.E.D. Album (Geffen)

3)  Elzhi & Will Sessions Elmatic (Over The Counter)

4)  Ski Beatz 24 Hour Karate School Pt II
      (Dd172)

5)   The Cool Kids When Fish Ride Bicycles (Green Label Sound, C.A.K.E. Recordings) 

Thanks once again to E-Lit at the Berkeley Amoeba Music store for taking time to talk with the Amoeblog for this week's Hip Hop Top Five chart and also for running down (in video above) some of the cool new releases and recent arrivals in the Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley store. The new  Watch The Throne Deluxe  version of Jay Z and Kanye West's The Throne project now joins the original regular Watch The Throne CD version, both on Def Jam.  A close second place on the chart is the latest from Left Coast rapper The Game, The R.E.D. album, which is produced by Dr. Dre and Pharrell and features the the single cameoing Chris Brown --"Pot Of Gold."