The Tape

Let me start off by saying that this is one of the most interesting, inspiring, and flat out cool albums I’ve ever heard. Emmanuel Jal was a Sudanese child rebel soldier, who later escaped and is now living in London. Here is a little bit of background on Emmanuel.

“Emmanuel was recruited by the SPLA and taken to military training camps in the bush in Ethiopia. The camp was disguised as a school in front of international aid agencies and UN representatives, but behind closed doors the children were training to fight. Emmanuel spent several years fighting with the SPLA in Ethiopia, until war broke out there too and the child soldiers were forced back into Sudan by the fighting and joined the SPLA’s efforts to fight the government. When the fighting became unbearable Emmanuel and some other children decided to run away. They were on the move for three months, with many dying on the way, until they reached the town of Waat, which was the headquarter on a small group that had separated themselves from the main SPLA.”

Emmanuel was later adopted by a lady by the name of Emma McCune, and she smuggled him into Kenya. Emmanuel wrote a song off his new album about her and in memory of her, because she died in a car crash shortly after he was adopted by her.

He has an absolutely amazing story, and I highly recommend this album to absolutely everyone even if you aren’t a fan of hip-hop. Here are a few mp3’s for your sampling pleasure from his new album (released yesterday) entitled Warchild.

Emmanuel Jal- Shadow of Death

Emmanuel Jal- 50 Cent

Emmanuel Jal- Emma

The Roots came out with their latest studio release entitled “Rising Down” a few weeks ago. This album happens to be my favorite of the many Roots albums. What’s so different about this album is the large amount of quality songs and quality guest artists. Most Roots albums have been good featuring a few fantastic songs, and the rest decent (with a few exceptions). But this album features great tracks all the way through. They also have a ton of good guest artists lacking on previous discs. Some of them include Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Common, and Wale just to name a few. A few tracks really stand out on this album though. Previously mentioned in this post, is “Rising Up” featuring Wale and Chrisette Michele which I highly recommend. But a few songs not posted yet are “Rising Down”, “Criminal”, and “The Show.” “Rising Down” features Mos Def and Styles P, and features a heavy beat from ?uestlove. A minimalist guitar quietly backgrounds the lyrics, which suits Black Thought better then a frantic beat. “Criminal” features Truck North and Saigon, and is a real change from the rest of the album. It has a soft acoustic guitar and some sort of stringy banjo instrument. Truck North is not a rapper I believe and sings a very catchy hook. I give a lot of credit to The Roots for changing it up, instead of sticking to the same formula. Next and last for this review is The Show” featuring Common and Dice Raw. This song has a sort of electric synth over it and is layered by a drum beat, hand claps, and harmonies. The most diverse track on the album, and my favorite because during Black Thoughts verses, it remains simple.

“Rising Down”
“Criminal”
“The Show”

It’s not good, its gold… Santogold. That is Santogold’s RCRD LBL quote, and after hearing this album it is quite accurate. Although she does sound similar to M.I.A. she is a much better vocalist, and her songs are more catchy.

L.E.S. Artistes
One of the few early released singles, is an extremely catchy pop song with a fantastic video. Most of you already have this track, and if you’re like me it has climbed to the top of your Itunes most played.

You’ll Find A Way
This song takes a sort of odd direction from the rest of the album. It has sort of a punk/reggae beat. Her voice is sort of annoying on this track, but the chorus makes up for it with a catchy hook.

Shove It (Feat. Spank Rock)
Possibly my favorite song on the album, Spank Rock makes everything better. A cheesy synth line in this song fits perfectly, with this reggae handclapping beat.

Say Aha
This track has a fantastic chorus that has yet another catchy hook. This song adds another great layer with a horn section.

Creator (vs. Switch and FreQ Nasty)
I feel this is where Santi gets most of her M.I.A. comparisons. Although she does have a similar voice in this song, I don’t think M.I.A. would ever attempt to sing over a beat quite as all over the place as this one.

My Superman
This track starts out with an “Ay ay ay” that gets the listeners attention. Santi is whinely singing over a slow drum and bass track as she slowly builds up her voice for more “Ay ay ay’s.” Overall, a solid track to start out with.

Lights Out
This song starts out a little too Ashlee Simpson for me and ends up a little too cheesy for me. I’m sure some people will find it catchy, it’s just not for me.

Starstruck
Santogold proves to me on this track that she can entertain over a simple beat. It seems a little cool kids esque, which most can’t pull off because of its simplicity. I never would have expected this from her, just because her beats seem to be a little more manic, but she proves that she can rely on her voice as well as the beat.

Unstoppable
This song pisses me off, not a fan.

I’m A Lady (feat. Trouble Andrew)
I really enjoy this song. Santogold’s voice is really soothing on this track as she gently sings over a real laid back beat. She shows off her voice in this chorus, as it sounds straight up powerful.

Anne
This song sounds very M.I.A. to me. It has a simple Indian esque beat to it, that fits M.I.A. better than Santogold. Santogold holds her own, it’s just that this track really doesn’t grab my attention whatsoever.

You’ll Find A Way (Switch and Sinden Remix)
I always thought remixes should be saved for b-sides and such, but there isn’t much to complain about in this track. This could really turn out to be a club banger.

Santogold- Shove It (Feat. Spank Rock)

Santogold- Say Aha

Santogold- Starstruck

Santogold- I’m A Lady (Feat. Trouble Andrew)

A few nights ago I attended Kanye West’s Glow In The Dark Tour at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles. The night started off amazing and fluctuated down and up after Lupe. Lupe probably had the best introduction to a show I’ve ever seen in my life. The video was just posted under “Glow In The Dark Video,” I urge you to check it out. Anyways, I’m going to do a quick review of each performer, then give you guys my two favorite songs that they each performed.

First we have my hero, Lupe Fiasco. Lupe lived up to my extremely high expectations and then some. Enough so, for me to pursue tickets for the June show… Anyways, I would have much preferred for Lupe to play longer than 30 minutes, but what are you going to do? He came out to thematic opera music, and proceeded to explode all over Justice’s “Let There Be Light.” He only played three songs from Food and Liquor, which were “Kick, Push”, “I Gotcha”, and my personal favorite “Daydreamin’.” “Daydreamin’” is always one of my favorites because he puts a ridiculous amount of energy into it. All of his songs are exploding with his energy, but he takes “Daydreamin’” to a whole new level.* From the new album, I especially loved his shortened version of “Fighters.” About everyone of his songs was shortened, but I assume that was at Kanye’s request. Anyways, there is something about “Fighters” that gets me every time I listen.
I also gave you guys “Go Go Gadget Flow” because there was a fun little call and response during the show. Or using my favorite saying ever, just for shits and giggles.
******

Lupe Fiasco Feat. Matthew Santos- Fighters

Lupe Fiasco- Go Go Gadget Flow

Next we have N.E.R.D. While they may not have been great, they were really entertaining. Pharrell doesn’t have a fantastic voice, but it’s good enough to not be criticized. The most disappointing part of their set was the lack of “Maybe.” That is by far my favorite N.E.R.D. song. Anyways, they played quite a few numbers from their new disc “Seeing Sounds” out soon.

I give you “Everyone Nose” and “She Wants To Move”, my two favorites from that evening.

N.E.R.D.- Everyone Nose

N.E.R.D.- She Wants To Move

Let’s keep it nice… I don’t like Rihanna. I only caught a few songs, and wandered around trying to find a hot dog for the rest. Don’t worry it was successful! That was probably my favorite part of her set, oh yeah and “Umbrella” was alright. Fun to phrase it in one word. Anyways, no mp3’s for you Rihanna fans, sorry.

Last but not least (because of Rihanna) we have Sir. Ego West. Kanye’s Ego (yes it deserves a capital ‘E’) was on full display. Not only was his spaceship robot friend Jane telling him he was the brightest star on the universe, during the entire show he was complaining to his light man “Mark” about who knows what. He shoved his band behind the backdrop, so the stage was all for himself; and he had the houselights go down as soon as a celebrity was spotted in the crowd. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely loved his set… But his ego and arrogance made me enjoy it a little bit less. He seems like a perfectly pleasant man, but if he had just not played Journey during his set, I would have enjoyed him a tad more. Anyways my two favorites were “Homecoming” and “Can’t Tell Me Nothing.” Well actually, my favorite was “Touch The Sky” because Lupe came out, but that’s not even fair. If Lupe was on the side drinking a cup of water while Kanye listened to Journey (he actually did), it would have been my favorite.

Kanye West- Can’t Tell Me Nothing

Kanye West- Homecoming

HONORABLE MENTION: Kanye West- Jesus Walks

HILARIOUS MENTION: Kanye decided it would be awesome to accidentally do the same verse twice in “All Falls Down.”

KANYE RECOGNITION MENTION: Kanye really doesn’t deserve all the shit I gave him in this review. He is a great entertainer and performer, but his arrogance makes me angry. Especially when he puts the most talented artist on the bill, performing first for a mere 30 minutes.

NEW IDEA MENTION: Lupe Fiasco’s Glow In The Dark Tour

Cadence Weapon’s new album is amazing. Cadence Weapon is amazing. Afterparty babies are amazing. The newest release from Cadence “Fucking” Weapon is so ridiculously different from his debut album “Breaking Kayfabe”, the only recognizable part is his voice. It seems as though Cadence Weapon has really broken through with a new idea for this record. There is a distinguishable difference in his last album which had a very minimalistic yet interesting vibe to it. This album has a more electronic/house music vibe to it, it even has a track on it called “House Music.” I’ll just briefly talk about my three favorite tracks.

Coming in at number 3 is track number 3 “True Story.” This track starts out with a little bit of spoken word, and then bursts into Cadence rapping about rumors. His loud, dramatic, annunciated voice really makes this track exciting.

Cadence Weapon- True Story

Number 2 is the opening track of this album entitled, “Do I Miss My Friends?” This song has a ridiculous beat. It starts out with a loop of him singing “Mmm Bup.” Next comes in a little loop of him singing about him missing his friends. He proceeds to rap over his own acapella beat.He continues to sing the chorus sort of out of tune, but it’s alright because it’s damn catchy.

 Cadence Weapon- Do I Miss My Friends? (mediafire)

My favorite track on Cadence Weapon’s new album “Afterparty Babies” is called “Getting Dumb.” I guess I love this track so much for two reasons. The first being that the beat is sick. It starts out with this really heavy drum pattern, with a dirty sounding synth layered on top of it. But the main reason I guess I love this track, is because it reminds me of a better version of Lupe Fiasco’s “Dumb It Down.” I feel the lyrics in Lupe’s track are far superior, but Cadence Weapon just brings this vibe to the track that a ringtone beat doesn’t bring to a song. Even though Lupe used such a shitty beat to protest average, radio rap music, the beat still sucks. Lupe is still my favorite hip-hop artist, but I think Cadence Weapon does a better job of presenting his protest then Mr. Fiasco does.

Cadence Weapon- Getting Dumb (mediafire)

9.2/10

The only tagline to rival Juno’s “Silencio, old man!” is the album title of the Los Campesinos debut, Hold On Now Youngster. The way I’ll be doing this review is taking you through the tracklist as I listen to it. Let’s begin. The review and two tracks after the jump. (Read more…)

LIARS with NO AGE and IMA GYMNIST
El Rey Theater - 2/22/08

After waiting within the fire lines among the beer chugging punkers and Pitchfork hipsters awhile, the curtains of the El Rey opened to three teenagers. One wielded a bass guitar and a mullet. One mounted the drums and the emo hair fang. A girl stood in the corner, who bore a shocking resemblance to M.I.A, making this was obviously her secret side project. (jk) The three kids were definitely not over 18. As the first bass lines picked up, the drums kicked in loudly, and the show had potential. For a sec. The quiet looking girl in the corner, who i had seen walking around in the crowd before, flung the mic cord over her shoulder and began yelling into the mic, whilst jumping up and down. Unfortunately, the drums subsisted mostly on adolescent energy and not any kind of interesting drumming. The bass subsisted mostly on the bassist’s hair. He did play bass too, but he wasn’t very good at it. I imagined myself up there playing those instruments, which i have no training in, and doing it better. But the most important part was the vocals. To describe her voice pattern is to wrestle with destiny. Half shrieked, half yelled, half whispered (1 1/2 voice) lyrics repeated themselves loosely over the drum n bass… noise. Songwriting was lost, as the words coming out were barely, no, completely inaudible. I don’t want to spend any more time for this. I don’t like to give numbers to music, but i’m going to officially declare Ima Gymnist 0/10.

To really understand what I’m talking about, please, please, please spend 10 seconds on their myspace. It will make you feel so much better about the music you have. Ima Gymnist

After another wait, the curtains drew on No Age. To the left was a drumset, and on the front of the bass drum were stickers and posters of MIA, as seen in the pic below

On the other side of the stage Randy Randall stood in the stock-guitar-hero position, legs spread, face down, staring at his guitar.

He picked out the noisy first lines of Weirdo Rippers opener “Every Artist Needs A Tragedy” and as Dean Spunt smacked the drums and began singing into a special mic setup that made his voice sound as if it were floating over an old school radio. To describe No Age better I have to be less specific, and as it was said in the Pitchfork review of their album, “…the album builds into something much bigger than its constituent parts.” as is with their live show. Song highlights were the previously mentioned track, “My Life’s Alright Without You” “Neck Escaper” and “Everybody’s Down.” But the real highlight of the performance was the performance itself. The drums was raw, the guitar was reverbed and effected to the infinity and beyond, and the band was real. At one point Randy Randell tried to climb up onto the amps, but only managed to knock one half over and pull a plug out of the board he was using to loop a riff he had done seconds ago, until Spunt came over and hoisted him up, scampered back over to the drums, and as the soft guitar loop and ambient noise came to a head, Randell leaped off the amp, whacking at his guitar with a fury. Insta-Mosh. People were flying around, heads were banging, and shoes were lost, only to find their owners in between songs. No Age was loud, confident, interesting, different, and amazing. After a long built up intro to the last song, Randell tossed his guitar in the the crowd. Hands grasped and reached, and as people played the strings for seconds at a time before being ripped away, strings snapped and pieces of the guitar fell off. The noise was amazing and beautiful. He reached for the guitar back and the crowd sent it back to him, and even after the curtains closed he stayed there waiting for eveyrone to look around their feet and hand him back the bridge and various knobs that had fallen off. If I haven’t said this yet, No Age was fucking amazing.

No Age- Every Artist Needs A Tragedy

No Age - Neck Escaper

Now for the headliner. Liars are a highly respected band, and when I saw highly respected you know I mean I don’t like them. Now, there are a few tracks I really like, but as a whole I don’t really enjoy their music. The show was interesting, with the lead singer enduring a recent back injury which forced him to sit on the edge of a high stool for part of the performance, but he still was able to get his act on. Angus Andrew flailed around, waving his arms, making movements sometimes related to his lyrics, (”you” had him pointing to the audience, “no no no” was a shaking finger.) All in all, it looked like the time the band spent studying and researching witchcraft for their 2003 cleverly titled concept album They Were Wrong, So We Drowned had caused a spirit to possess Andrew, and it looks like it has not been excised as of yet. Jerky, inhuman movements were involved in most of his dancing.

I can understand why people love this band, but it’s just not for me. As with Vampire Weekend at Amoeba Hollywood where an underwhelming performance was brought up by my love of the band’s music, Liars at the El Rey was a phenomenal performance bogged down by my indifference to the music. I like this song a lot though.

Liars - It Fit When I Was A Kid

The album these two poets made together is great, it is entitled “Ghetto Pop Life.” They both have great flow, some sick beats, and sick loops. It reminds me of the Pharcyde and Wu Tang, at the same time. Also other than the tracks I am throwing up, be sure to check out “That Brooklyn Shit.”

I give it an 8 out of 10

Keep laying down those tracks boys!

Danger Mouse and Jemini-Omega supreme

These 3 songs I think, are the highlights of the album. Great flow and lyrics.

Danger Mouse and Jemini- Yoo-Hoo!

Danger mouse and Jemini- Born-A-MC

Former Test Icicles singer Dev Hynes has gone on a very different path since leaving the manic mayhem of the Test Icicles. But aside from many other “side projects” Hynes (or better now known as Lightspeed Champion), fantastically transforms his previous genre into smooth indie pop. I find every track extremely well written, except the few tracks with the annoying female harmonies. Anyways, I’ll do a short review of every track and then give you the MP3’s of my two favorites.

Number One- Not much to say, just a smooth acoustic guitar with a nice pedal steel in the background.

Galaxy Of The Lost- The way Hynes builds up to the chorus of this track, almost makes me forget about the annoying background vocals. All around, a nice track.

My ADD is already kicking in so let me just summarize a few tracks for you guys.

Midnight Surprise- One of the only 10 minute songs that I can listen to. The song takes many twists and turns, but never seems to lose its main focus and always resolves to a sort of half time feeling chorus. Oh yeah, there just also happens to be a pretty Test-Icicle-ish guitar solo towards the end that rocks.

Devil Tricks For A Bitch- This is another fantastic track. In case you haven’t already noticed, I absolutely love pretty much every track on this cd. Anyways, it starts out with just Hynes and a lovely string arrangement and slowly builds with drums and guitar. Not much more to say, besides another great track.

Dry Lips- My favorite song on the cd. It goes between a double time feel and as the rest of the instruments slow down, a banjo keeps the double time feel as some flutes kick in. The arrangement on this track is flawless.

Overall I love this cd so much, and I’ve only listened to it 2 or 3 times. Here are a few of my favorite songs

Devil Tricks For A Bitch

Dry Lips

The Ramones!Danny Says!A great track with some great Phil Spector production by those guys from NY with the leather and the jeans.Danny Says - The Ramones