1) GIft of Gab Escape 2 Mars (Cornerstone Ras)

2) Masta Ace + Edo G Arts & Entertainment (Traffic Entertanment)

3) Mr. Chop For Pete's Sake (Now Again Records)

4) Sene & Blu A Day Late & A Dollar Short (Shaman Work)

5) R.A. the Rugged Man Legendary Classic Vol 1 (Green Street)

6) CunninLynguists Strange Journey Vol Two (Piece So Strange Music)


7) Jern Eye Vision (MYX)

8) Themselves CrownsDown (Anticon)

9) Killa Keise Yellow Tape Zone (Step It Up Entertainment)

10) Kam Moye (aka Supastition) Splitting Image (MYX)

Special thanks to Luis (pictured below) at the San Francisco Amoeba Music for this week's Amoeba Music Hip-Hop Top Ten Chart. The chart has a really nice, diverse mix of new releases, including several homegrown Bay Area albums such as the Haight Street store's top selling rap album this week, GIft of Gab's Escape 2 Mars. This is the second official solo album release, a follow up to 2004's 4th Dimensional Rocketships Going Up, from the talented Quannum emcee. Gab is also is one half of Blackalicious (with Chief Xcel) and a founding member of Bay Area rap-supergroup The Mighty Underdogs (with Lateef the Truth Speaker of Latyrx and producer Headnodic of the Crown City Rockers). To help celebrate this new release, which hit Amoeba shelves on Tuesday, the much loved Bay Area MC did an Amoeba SF instore on the release day. "It was really cool and he [Gift of Gab] was awesome on the mic," reported Luis of Tuesday evening's free concert. The artist was joined onstage by Dnae Beats who produced Escape 2 Mars, which was released by Cornerstone Ras.

1) TD Camp Face To Face (Hella Records)

2) Tanya Morgan Brooklynati (Interdependent Media)

3) Cam'ron Crime Pays
(Diplomat Records/Asylum Records)

4) The Grouch & Eligh Say G&E! (Legendary Music)

5) Themselves freeHOUDINIdeluxe (Anticon)

The number one album at Amoeba Music San Francisco this week is Face To Face from the longtime SF DJ/producer/engineer and head of Hella Records, TD Camp. Many may know TD Camp for his work with Bored Stiff, Co-Deez, Equipto, Zumbi of Zion I, and other artists. This anticipated 17 track CD on Hella Records, which is presented by FTC, the skateboarding company, features hella guests, mostly hometown or Bay Area artists the producer has built up a relationship with in his years in the rap game since the early nineties. Guests include: Andre Nickatina, Goapele, San Quinn, Zion I, Casual, Pep Love, DJ Qbert, Mike Marshall, JT the Bigga Figga, Bored Stiff, Z-Man, Big Mack, Willie Hen, Otayo Dubb, Spank Pops, Rick Flare, Schwinn, Akil, Bailey, Big Rich, Rosco Feddi, Philthy Rich, PZ, and Jay Anthony. Also included on Face to Face are SoCal's legendary Snoop Dogg and the late great Vallejo rap artist Mac Dre.

1) The Grouch & Eligh Go G+E! (Legendary)

2) Mr. Lif I Heard It Today (Bloodbot/Traffic Ent) 

3) DOOM Born Like This (Lex)

4) Rick Ross Deeper Than Rap (Maybach/Poe Boy/Def Jam)

5) Q-Tip The Renaissance (Universal/Motown)

For the third week in a row the Living Legends duo of The Grouch & Eligh are number one at Amoeba Music. The pair's third collaborative album, Say G&E! (Legendary Music), is the number one best selling new hip-hop album this week at Amoeba Berkeley, and has been on top since last week at Amoeba Hollywood and for two weeks already at Amoeba San Francisco (where they also performed last week). And what a diverse hip-hop album it is, with numerous guest contributors including Flying Lotus (who produced "Old Souls"), Mistah F.A.B. (who sounds unlike his usual self on the song "Comin' Up"), Gift of Gab and Pigeon John (who guest on the alt-rock sounding "All In"), and Slug of Atmosphere (who appears on the very Bay sounding, AmpLive-produced riding track "BOOM!").

Today is the third and final day of the talent-packed, weekend-long Coachella Festival, which has been Amoeblogged about here intensively in the hella informative Coachella 2009 30/30 Initiative (30 Coachella Bands Featured in 30 Days) blog over the last few weeks leading up the annual diverse outdoor music festival at the Empire Polo Field in Indio, CA.

Rightfully dubbed by the UK music magazine NME as "probably the best festival in the world," today's (Sunday, April 19th) impressive lineup includes The Cure, Public Enemy (the recently reunited), Throbbing Gristle, Lupe Fiasco, Roni Size Represent, My Bloody Valentine, Groove Armada, K'NAAN, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Antony and the Johnsons, and Themselves, who I recently caught up with. I checked out their show (amazing!) and talked with member (and former Amoeba employee) Adam "Doseone" Drucker, who shares membership in the Oakland-based Anticon duo with fellow producer/emcee Jeff "Jel" Logan.

Although Jel and Doseone are both members of the group Subtle and are constantly producing together or just hanging out in the East Bay, where they both live, as the duo Themselves they had not performed or recorded together in six years until recently. They've just recorded an album that will drop in a couple of months or so, put together a kick-ass mix-CD, and have undertaken a national tour that ends today at Coachella. Then, on Friday (24th) they begin their European tour, starting in Paris, France. I caught up with them in NYC a couple of weeks ago when they played at Webster Hall and talked with Doseone about various things, including the Anticon group's ten-year anniversary. "We made up a ton of music we always wanted to make and one was a giant collaborative effort...with everyone we ever shared air with and that was something we always wanted to do in a million ways," said Dose-One of the new mix CD that includes such killer tracks as "Know That To Know This," featuring Aesop Rock. "There's nothing like an hour-long posse cut to clean the blood," he laughed. "And we finished our full-length, which is our kind of stoic little ten song banger for the ten year anniversary and [on it] every song has its place in the history of rap recording to us and our own personal history with respect to rap and how we make music these days. So, you know, it's a blast. It was great! It was like getting our fitted suits."