1) Lupe Fiasco Food & Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album Pt. 1 (Atlantic)

       

Today (July 24th) Kreayshawn unveiled the colorful video above for her brand new single "Go Hard" which is taken from the Oakland rapper's upcoming album, Somethin 'Bout Kreay  which will drop on Columbia Records by the end of the year. The artist, whose meteoric rise to fame has been well documented including here on the Amoeblog, shot to fame via the viral success of the May 2011 video "Gucci Gucci." The ever-popular video, which to date has racked up almost 37 million YouTube hits, landed her a big dollar record deal with the major label which within a couple of months of its release.  Since then she's built on her fanbase as well as managed to continually piss off a segment of diehard hip-hop heads who feel that she rode on the coattails of Bay Area rap culture and slang just to get to where she is. She and her White Girl Mob crew dismiss these detractors as "jealous haters."

Fresh back in the US from a European tour that took her to festivals in Norway, Belgium, France, and the UK (where she launched her new collaborative t-shirt line with clothing brand A Bathing Ape) the artist says of the new single "Go Hard' with the "la,la,la" refrain that, "I wanted to inspire people to just do their own thing." The rapper/rapper / videographer came up with the video storyboard, which she describes as "a visual adventure," in collaboration with design based collective Syndrome, who have previously done videos for big name stars like Eminem, Ke$ha and the Black Eyed Peas.

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

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

3) Casual The Hierophant (F.B.M.G.)

4)  Game The R.E.D. Album (Geffen)

5)  Smoke DZA Rolling Stoned (Fat Beats)

Again this week much thanks go to E-Lit at Amoeba Music in Berkeley for taking time to talk with the Amoeblog for the latest Hip Hop Top Five chart entries plus an overview of the numerous new underground hip-hop releases, in both CD and vinyl formats.  These include Open Mike Eagle's Rappers Will Die of Natural Causes, the full-length by Candy's 22 in CD format, A Girl and Her Gun ("drugged out country & western rap music" - as E-Lit describes the unusual rap release), the ever prolific Blu's (of Blu & Exile fame) latest remastered version of Jesus, and Kirby Dominant & Factor's Champagne Nightmares on Fake Four Recordings. Scroll down a bit to check out the video for the album track "Orca" off the duo (also named Champagne Nightmares) off this fine latest pairing of the unique East Bay emcee with the Canadian producer who first joined creative forces back in 2004 on One Way Ticket on Side Road Records. Their new video was directed and produced by Stuey Kubrick in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Last Saturday night at the DNA Lounge in San Francisco, the tirelessly hard-working duo of A+D (a.k.a. Adrian and Mysterious D - the DJs / promoters / remixers and producers of the ever-popular weekly mashup club Bootie SF and the myriad of similarly themed Bootie parties they oversee in numerous cities including New York and Los Angeles) celebrated their 8th year anniversary with a mega blow out party at the packed-to-capacity SF club.

In true tradition, the hardworking pair didn't simply play music for people to dance to at last weekend's party, but instead went above and beyond the typical duties of club promoters by putting on a huge production -- one that filled the club with festive streamersand NYE style balloons ready to drop, a full concert by their spinoff live mash up band Smash Up Derby (a bad ass six-piece featuring Adrian on lead vocals) whose mixedmedia set included an informative history of the mashup projected onto a largescreen, and600complimentary mashup compilation CDs pressed especially for the occasion. They also gave away pairs of their Bootie brand headphones.