Last week, while visiting the San Francisco Amoeba Music store, standing in the hip-hop aisle gazing at its thousands upon thousands of vinyl and CD titles I found myself drooling in awe. The seemingly endless selection is like an encyclopedia of hip-hop, which is what I mentioned to Luis (the store's hip-hop buyer), who offered to do a quick run-through video tour (above) of Amoeba SF's truly amazing hip-hop section for those who have not recently or ever visited the Haight Street store. This section offers the most comprehensive Bay Area rap selection (including tons of DVD titles) I have ever seen -- thanks in large part to Luis, who really knows and cares about the Bay's homegrown hip-hop flava.

One aisle over from hip-hop is the soul / r&b section and it is damn good, too, with an exhaustive selection of soul from the very latest back to the classics of bygone decades. In that section I ran into Dr. Goldstein of Free Gold Watch (the nearby Haight district store that makes some of Amoeba's T-shirts and was featured on the Amoeblog last week) and knowing his love for both soul and Amoeba I asked if he would do a quick run through tour of the Amoeba SF soul section. He obliged (video below) and made the very good point, especially in these MP3 happy days, about how when you buy a CD or record you are getting an artifact -- not to mention much higher quality audio.

2) Andy Allo UnFresh (Allo Records)

3)  Peanut Butter Wolf 45 Live (Stones Throw)

4) John Forte StyleFREE: The EP (Theory 7)

5) V/A Definitive Jux Presents 4 (Def Jux)

6) Blue Scholars Bayani Redux (Duck Down)

7) Trick Daddy Finally Famous: Born a Thug, Still a Thug (Dunk Ryder Records)

8) Lil Boosie Superbad: The Return of Boosie Bad Azz (Asylum Records)

9) Cage Movies for the Blind (High Times Records)

10) Beastie Boys Hello Nasty (Capitol)

Super special thanks to the ever knowledgable Luis @ the hip-hop department of Amoeba Music San Francisco for always being so down to supply the Amoeblog with up to the moment news on what's popping at the SF store, new music- wise. For the second week in a row Luis has provided us with a Top Ten due to the wealth of releases (both new and reissues) dropping recently. Above you can see the chart in video and text forms, while below are a series of videos by several of the artists in this latest Top Ten chart.

                    


1) Kid Cudi Man On The Moon: The End of Day (Motown / Pgd)

2) KRS-ONE & Buckshot Survival Skills (Duck Down)

3) Drake So Far Gone (Cash Money)

4) M.O.P. The Foundation (E1 Entertainment)

5) Q-Tip Kamaal the Abstract (Battery Records)

6) Nicolay City Lights 2 - Shibuya (Hard Boiled Records)

7) New Boyz Skinny Jeanz & A Mic (Asylum Records)

8) DJ Fresh The Tonite Show (The Album) (Town Thizzness)

9) DJ Shadow Diminishing Returns (Reconstruction Productions)

10) Young Cellski/aka 2Took Mr Predicter (Inner City 2000)

1) Jay-Z The Blueprint 3 (Roc Nation/Atlantic)

2)  Raekwon Only Built 4 Cuban Links Pt II (ICEAL)

3) Large Professor The LP (Red Line)

4) D. Black Ali'Yah (MYX)

5) Dr Dre The Chronic Re-Lit & From The Vaults (Wideawake/Death Row)

Amoeba SF Soul Pick of Week:  
Not too surprisingly, the anticipated, brand new, star-studded Jay-Z album The Blueprint 3, (aka TB3), which originally was scheduled to come out last year, is this week's number one release on the new hip-hop chart at Amoeba Music. The album features a slew of guest collaborators, including Young Jeezy, Kanye West (in producer mode mainly), Rihanna, Drake, Kid Cudi, Mr Hudson, Swizz Beatz, Pharrell and Alicia Keys, and is the final release in the Blueprint trilogy that began exactly eight years ago on September 11th, 2001 -- the day the Twin Towers were attacked. In fact, that was why initially Jay-Z had scheduled the release of TB3  for today (Friday, September 11th), but then he changed his mind at the last minute, reverting to the typical Tuesday date release. The fifteen track TB3 is the artist's 11th studio album and his first on his own new label Roc Nation.

1) Black Eyed Peas The E.N.D. (Interscope)

2) Slaughterhouse self-titled (E1 Entertainment)

3) Mos Def Ecstatic (Downtown)

4) Dudley Perkins Holy Smokes (1 AM APPROACH)

5) Mr Capone-E Diary of a G (Hi Power Entertainment/KOCH)

Los Angeles rapper Mr. Capone-E's brand new release Diary of a G on his own indie HiPower Entertainment record label through KOCH is a hot new seller at the Hollywood Amoeba Music store this week, joining already popular summer releases from the Black Eyed Peas, Mos Def, Dudley Perkins, and the hip-hop emcee supergroup Slaughterhouse featuring Joe Budden, Royce Da 5' 9, Crooked I, and Joell Ortiz. Mr. Capone-E's new release is bound to further broaden his fanbase, especially with such radio & club ready songs as "Light My Fire." Scroll down a bit to peep the video for this Auto-Tune assisted track that features Snoop Dogg.