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)

At the Amoeba Music Hollywood store this week many of the same best sellers from the past several weeks are still holding strong in the sales charts, with the Black Eyed Peas' latest The E.N.D. locking down the number one position. Meanwhile, up north in the San Francisco Amoeba Music store, Luis reports that among the new local Bay Area releases to arrive on Amoeba SF's shelves this week include Lyrics Born's Variety Show Vol 4 on Mobile Home Recordings, whose 22 tracks include guest spots from such fellow Quannum acts as Lateef the Truthspeaker,The Gift of Gab, and Joyo Velarde. Also just arriving into Amoeba SF this week is The Grouch/Instant Messengers affiliated hometown emcee Alexander Spit, whose new full-length CD Open 24 Hours is sponsored by the hip-hop clothing company The Hundreds.

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!").

1) Paris Acid Reflex (Guerrilla Funk/Fontana)

2) Mighty Underdogs Droppin' Science
    Fiction (Definitive Jux)

3) Murs Murs for President (Warner)

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

5) Black Milk Tronic (Fat Beats)

Thanks to Tunde at the Berkeley Amoeba Music for this week's Hip-Hop Top Five sales-based chart, which finds the Bay Area's own Paris in the number one slot and his thought-provoking, lyrically charged, recommended new album Acid Reflex on Guerrilla Funk/Fontana. If you missed the interview with the controversial artist when it was published last week, click here to read the Amoeblog Paris interivew.

Reactions to Barack Obama's victory on Tuesday were upbeat (to put it mildly) in hip-hop circles. Longtime Fillmore, San Francisco rapper San Quinn told Amoeblog the next day, "Hopefully with him winning it will give little black kids in America a new sense of hope to know that instead of drug dealers and rappers and basketball players and football players and many other stereotypical but true things that we choose to be, including killing off each other, that now we have a chance if we keep our slate clean to be the president of the United States." 

Raashan Amhad of Crown City Rockers fame, who today releases the new 13 track album The Push on OM Records, will celebrate the release of this fine debut solo of his with an in-store performance @ 6PM this evening (May 20th) at the San Francisco Amoeba Music.

If you can possibly make it I strongly recommend that you attend this free, all-ages show, as this emcee (and sometimes DJ and breaker) is not just an amazingly gifted hip-hop artist but also a truly great live performer -- someone who lives and breathes hip-hop and understands the true meaning of rocking the house, y'all.

In addition to his work with the Bay Area live hip-hop band Crown City Rockers (who had to change their original name from Mission because of the UK band The Mission) the ever prolific Raashan Amhad has collaborated with a ton of artists. I must have close to ten different records or CDs by other artists that he pops up on, including the DJ Zeph single "Floor Wax" (Wide Hive) and Zion I's Break A Dawn, and I know there are many more that he guests on. 

Personally what I always like about Raashan is how he maintains that old school, golden era hip-hop   vibe in his style while simultaneously somehow always managing to sound new and fresh. Yesterday I caught up with the busy artist to ask him some questions about how he accidentally got started as an emcee, the difference between SoCal and the Bay (two places he has lived in), and his new album, which was born out of a lot personal emotions, including the tragedy of his mother dying of cancer.