1) Lil Wayne  The Carter IV (Cash Money/Universal)

2) Blu & Exile Below The Heavens (Sound In Color)

3)   Candy's 22 A Girl and Her Gun
                   (Grimm Image Records)

4) Qwazaar & Batsauce Bat Meets Blaine
          (Galapagos4)

5) Blu Jesus (Nature Sounds)

Thanks to E-Lit at the Amoeba Berkeley store for the latest Top 5 Hip-Hop chart plus overview of what's new and what's hot in his opinion. These include two of the E-Lit's favorite releases for all of 2011; Qwazaar & Batsauce's Bat Meets Blaine on Galapagos4, and Astronautalis' This Is Our Science in whose indie rock meets hip-hop hybrid E-Lit hears traces of both Tom Waits and Nick Cave. Other new/recent releases of E-Lit's include Oddisee's Rock Creek Park (Mello Music) which is named after an area in the now Brooklyn, NY based Washington DC artist's home, and Otayo Dubb's Cold Piece Of Work. This San Francisco Bay Area MC, who is part of the Beatrock Music collective is teaming up with Equipto tonight for a double record release party - combined they've dubbed themselves EQUIPTOTAYO. As you'll recall about five weeks back San Francisco's ever prolific Equipto (known for his solo work, longtime membership of Bored Stiff, and collaboration series with Andre Nickatina) had an Amoeba San Francisco instore for his just dropped latest solo album, Ilyich.

Special thanks to my man Luis (above video) at the San Francisco Amoeba Music store for doing a nice in-depth run-down of the new and noteworthy hip-hop CDs and vinyl releases, including reissues, at the Haight Street store this week. As the ever knowledgeable hip-hop buyer (and DJ) notes, right now is a perfect time to stop by Amoeba SF and dig for vinyl in the vast hip-hop section of the store.

As with the Hollywood and Berkeley Amoebas, the new releases from Big Boi, Eminem, Drake, Nas + Damian Marley, Madlib, and The Roots are all in demand in San Francisco. And as noted by Luis, Phonte, who guests on the new Roots album How I Got Over, will be at the San Francisco Amoeba in one week when his group Foreign Exchange plays a free instore next Friday, July 23rd at 6pm.The critically acclaimed group (rapper/singer/songwriter Phonte + producer Nicolay), whose still in-production third album Authenticity is scheduled for an October release, play Yoshis SF later that night as well as the previous night (July 22nd) when they are billed to play with YahZarah, Darien Brockington, Zo! and live band.

AMOEBLOG: I've heard many descriptions of your music, but how do you describe the music you make?

MOCHIPET: I like to think of my music as "experimental music," but more in a sense that I am always experimenting with new sounds and ideas. Not necessarily sounds that are new to the human ear, but sounds that are always new to mine. I used to try and always make sounds that no one has ever heard before but then I realized it doesn't matter if anyone else has heard it. It only matters if I had. Other people like to call my music. IDM, Glitch, Breakcore, etc etc..  But I just make music.

AMOEBLOG: According to the liner notes, your new album, Microphonepet , was recorded over a five year span but you don't give years for each track. In which years were most of the tracks recorded?

MOCHIPET: Yes, the songs were all spaced out and recorded over the past five years. I have always enjoyed making hip hop beats and collaborating with MC's. However, I never had enough for a full album, because it was not the only thing I did. But recently I had a chance to finish up these songs and compile them into a LP. The newest ones were "Girls and Boys and Toys" with Jahcoozi, "Banna Split" with Bicasso of Living Legends and E Da Boss, "Mr. Malase" (featuring Casual of Hieroglyphics, Dopestyle, and Humanbeings), and "Take You Down" (featuring Sindri andTaiwankid). The oldest one is probably "The Graduate" (featuring Dubphonics). The older ones were generally more sample based while the newer ones were more glitch and synth based.

Britney Spears will find God, actually become a religious zealot. She’ll start her own religion, set up a compound/church in Iowa where millions of her disillusioned directionless fans will follow her.

A couple of years down the line Iowa will pass a referendum establishing itself as the independent Sovereign Nation of Iowa. By 2009, Mike Huckabee, having only ever won in Iowa, will run for President of Iowa and win. Meanwhile Britney’s sister, Jamie Lynn, will disappear from public view only to resurface in 2012, when she signs with Blue Note Records as a jazz singer.  Her new approach will emulate her idol Anita O’Day. Jamie Lynn then will write her own parenting book titled It’s Never Too Early to Start Good Parenting. 
            
She’ll eventually marry the California Highway Patrol officer who pulled her over for driving under the influence, though he’ll tear up the ticket once he recognizes her from her Playboy spread.
                     
-  Whitmore ("the thing of a thing of a thing..." Hollywood AMOEBLOGGER, member of the band Listing Ship)

BABY EATING ON FEAR FACTOR & PERSONAL MEMORIES ON NETFLIX

The cross cultural fusions happening in popular music will grow so varied that Frankenstein-esque new genres will have to be sewn together in order to describe the newest music like: gothic indie folk, or post-grunge screamo tech, or neuvo-retro contemporary psychobilly Christian, acappella death electro, braille, sunshine blues and every CD will have either a string quartet tribute or a downtempo remix.   Someone in everyone of these band will either have the chin-beard/dreads combo, extreme bedhead/facial grimace combo or will wear a necktie incorrectly.