Amoeba Music San Francisco Hip-Hop Top Five: 10:02:08

1) Murs Murs for President (Warner)

2) Madlib WLIB (bbe)

3) T.I. Paper Trail (Grand Hustle/Atlantic)

4) People Under The Stairs Fun DMC (Gold Dust Media)

5) J.Stalin Gas Nation (Town Thizzness)

Thanks to Luis at the San Francisco Amoeba Music for this week's Hip-Hop Top Five selling albums chart -- all of which are all really strong & recommended new releases, and all brand-new, having dropped this past Tuesday, September 30th. Featured in the number one (with a bullet) top slot is the highly anticipated new major label release from much-loved Living Legends emcee Murs. Murs For President on Warner Brothers has been selling like crazy at the Haight Street as well as at the other two Amoeba Music stores including, of course, Hollywood Amoeba where Murs did a free in-store performance on Tuesday, the same day the new album dropped. Check out photos from his live performance on our website right here!

                                        Ameoba Music Berkeley  Hip-Hop Top Five  09:19:08

1)  Michael Franti & Spearhead All Rebel Rockers   
     (Amer-I Can/Unity One/Anti)

2)  Diplo Top Ranking Santogold (Mad Decent)

3)  The Game LAX (Geffen/Interscope)

4) Young Jeezy The Recession (Def Jam)

5)  eLZhi The Preface (Fat Beats)

The number one selling album at the Berkeley store this week is from the Bay Area's very own veteran political musician Michael Franti and his group Spearhead. Recorded in Kingston, Jamaica and produced by Sly and Robbie, this brand new full length titled All Rebel Rockers is the anticipated follow-up to the acclaimed Yell Fire!, released two years ago on Anti. This new album may not possess that same sense of urgency as its predecessor and hence, takes a little longer to get into, but All Rebel Rockers is still a very good album. (Yell Fire! is a hard one to top because it was so powerful a release.) Naturally, with Sly & Robbie at the controls, it has more of a reggae feel than the other genres it incorporates (mainly hip-hop and soul). 

                                       JAMOEBLOG HIP-HOP TOP TEN: 08:27:08                                             

1) Homeboy Sandman "Opium" (Homeboy Sandman)

2) NaS feat Eban Thomas "You Can't Stop Me Now" (Def Jam)

3) Lee "Scratch" Perry  "$hine" (Narnack Records)

4) The High Decibels "Miss Cindy" (Rolling Jack)

5) Paris "Don't Stop the Movement" (Guerrila Funk)

6) Murs "Can It Be" (Warner)

7) Double Dee & Steinski "Lesson 3" (Illegal Art)

8) Foreign Legion "Come To The City" (Hunger Strike)

9) DJ Spinna "The Spirit of '94" (Colt 45)

10) The Bug "Freak Freak" (Ninja Tune)

The number one on this week's Jamoeblog Hip-Hop Top Ten (a subjective song-based chart) is from up-and-coming Queens, NY emcee talent Homeboy Sandman, whose totally unique flow and style is a breath of fresh air in an otherwise overcrowded sea of cookie cutter rappers. So far only available through his website, as well as at a few select East Coast record stores, Homeboy Sandman's self-released debut CD Actual Factual Pterodactyl offers up hip-hop like you've never heard before, with great songs such as the slow-mo flow of "Opium" or the funny uptempo rapid fire delivery of "Food Glorious Food" which draws its hook from the Oliver! soundtrack.

AMOEBA MUSIC SAN FRANCISCO HIP-HOP TOP FIVE 07:18:08

1) Lil Wayne Tha Carter III (Cash Money/Universal)

2) Messy Marv Hustlas Motivation Mixtape

3) Jean Gray + 9th Wonder Jeanius (Blacksmith/Warner)

4) Immortal Technique The 3rd World (Viper)

5) Nas Untitled (Def Jam)

This week's number one seller at the Amoeba Music San Francisco store should come as lil surprise. It was Tha Carter III by Lil Wayne, which, despite advance leaks and rampant downloading of its tracks, still managed to sell big numbers (by today's music industry standards) and hit the number one spot on countless charts (both airplay & sales) from Billboard (3 weeks straight @ #1) to KMEL to Amoeba etc. Luis in the hip-hop department at the Haight Street Amoeba, who kindly supplied this week's Hip-Hop Top Five, said that Bay Area music buyers love Lil Wayne just as much as national audiences (especially considering the historic Bay Area/Dirty South connections), but that their dedication to Bay Area rap/hip-hop, including this week's chart's number two album, is unbridled.

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: