1: Jay-Z 4:44 (Roc Nation)

2: Logic Everybody (also avail on vinyl/LP)  (Def Jam)

3: Snoop Dogg Neva Left (Doggystyle)

4: Z-Ro No Love Boulevard (1 Deep Entertainment) 

5: Twista Crook Country (CMG)

 

That old adage "do what you love" is perfectly applicable to the weed loving, nationally acclaimed prolific Bay Area rapper Berner. For the past decade plus this rap artist, weed activist/entrepreneur born Gilbert Anthony Mano has crafted a unique and phenomenally lucrative and fun career, all the while balancing his two main life passions of weed and rap music. Having built a strong rep as rap recording and performing artist, to date Berner's rich back catalog boasts 14 albums including his most recent full-length release found at Amoeba,  Drought Season 3, which is just one of many dropped on his own prolific Bern One Ent. record label. Equally respected by rap fans and peers, Berner's countless studio collaborations over the years include full length releases with such fellow Bay Area artists as Messy Marv, Equipto and the late great rapper The Jacka with whom he recorded the three part aforementioned Drought Season trilogy. Others in the really long list of Berner collabs include B-Real, Snoop Dogg, Nipsey Hussle, Young Thug, and Too $hort. Perhaps even more widely known in hip-hop is his longstanding relationship and collaborative work with Wiz Khalifa. Having been down since day one with the Pittsburgh, PA based, fellow weed loving hip-hop star Wiz Khalifa, the Bay Area artist counts himself as among those part of Khalifa's elite Taylor Gang Ent. label crew along with such others as Project Pat, Chevy Woods, Ty Dolla $ign, and Tuki Carter.

Should we need further proof that weed's gone mainstream, as per The Hollywood Reporter, TV comedy super-producer Chuck Lorre is currently shopping his new Warner Bros. Television-backed weed comedy script to network television executives.  This latest from the creator of such successful TV comedies as The Big Bang Theory, Mike & Molly, Two and a Half Men, and his latest creation Mom on CBS, is a continuation in style of his previous shows. Co-written with David Javerbaum (The Daily Show), it is described as a situation comedy about a group of potheads in a legal marijuana dispensary in Colorado.  The as yet unnamed show inspires such potential potcom titles as The Big Bong Theory or Two and a Half Grams.  But not Buds. That stoner show title has already been snagged by NBC who, via a joint venture with Naomi Scott and husband Adam Scott (NBC's Parks and Recreation) are in development stages of their pot comedy Buds that's reportedly also set in a Colorado pot dispensary.  Another husband and wife pot comedy creative team are Ben Sinclair (Sisters) and Katja Blichfeld (30 Rock), who in 2012 unveiled the popular Vimeo web series High Maintenance about Brooklyn, New York marijuana deliveryman "The Guy" and all the characters he meets. HBO commissioned six episodes of High Maintenance to air in 2016.  Meanwhile Amazon Prime's streaming outlet will be producing the  "marijuana-themed family dramedy" starring Margaret Cho. Variety described it as about Cho, "who after court-ordered rehab gets a chance to start over, but has to move in with her dysfunctional family who now runs a pot dispensary."

Yet another lost to cancer! Today Clarence Reid, the man known to music fans as Blowfly (aka the original dirty rapper), passed away from terminal liver cancer and multiple organ failure. He had been diagnosed a few years ago but not too many people knew about it until this past week when his musical collaborator Tom Bowker announced how Reid had just entered hospice care in Lauderdale Lakes, Florida and that he was not expected to survive much longer in his battle against cancer.

Again today it was Bowker, via social media, who announced Blowfly's death, writing how "Clarence Reid, the genius known both by his given name and as Blowfly, the Master of Class, passed peacefully today, January 17th, in his hospice room."  In his original message to the late artist's fans, he thanked those who in 2014 had rallied their financial support and helped save Blowfly from losing his house and by so doing "kept his last days comfortable." He also noted how Blowfly had been making one final album ("his best album since the early 80s") that he called "a fitting epitaph for one of the great performers of all time." Entitled 77 Rusty Trombones, it is scheduled to be released next month and will be the artist's follow-up to 2012's Black In The Sack.

Music is always a great gift, but even when it's gift-wrapped, a new LP or CD isn't fooling anyone with its distinctive shape. Why not surprise the music lover who has everything with one of these unexpected items? Some of them are kinda fun, while others are more practical, but they are all definitely not your typical music gift.

	Bad Brains - Fire Burn Babylon Hot Sauce Hot sauce seems to be a thing that a lot of bands create (i.e. Bastille, Joe Perry, The Offspring's Dexter Holland's line of hot sauce, Gringo Bandito). The punk rockers of Bad Brains created their own hardcore hot sauce that combines sweet and heat, just like they do.
	Best Coast - Snacks Plush Cat Continue reading...