Ha! I saw that one coming

The top 5 worst rappers...

John Legend - Evolver in stores now!

John Legend's new album from G.O.O.D Music, Evolver, hit stores yesterday. I have yet to listen to a song other than "Green Light" or "It's Over", but as the title of the album explains, his musical style is always...evolving.

T.I. - Live Your Life (video)

The video for the T.I.'s "Live Your Life" debuted today. This song was co-produced by Just Blaze (one of my favourite producers) and Canei (who?). The sample for this song was lifted off O-zone's "Dragostea Din Tei", or as most people know it, the Numa Numa song. I like that they put in Rihanna's verse from the album version of the song into the video.

I've also included the video for "No Matter What", which is one of my favourite songs from Paper Trail. The song was produced by Nate "Danja Handz" Hills.

Mitch Hedberg - Sesame Seeds

This is too funny. Granted its nothing to do with music, dj'n, production, hip-hop.. it's still good for a few laughs.

Everyday Normal Guy

This song is just too funny, and surprisingly good too. I know it's old, but hey.

When I go to the club, I wait in line, muthafucka

Universal Mind Control - Artwork

Here is the cover for Common's upcoming album, Universal Mind Control, formerly known as Invincible Summer. This album was supposed to drop in the early summer but now the word is that it's coming out on December 8th. I guess good things can't be rushed.

They Can Kick It !!!!

Here's an old school clip of Tribe rocking a party back in the day when hip hop was still good. These kinds of videos make me wish I grew up in the 80's, but at the same time I'm still grateful I got to see them perform atleast once.

Big ups to The Meaning Of Dope for posting this... click on the link for some more of these videos.

Another new beat

Dj of the Week - Grand Master Flash

Joseph Saddler aka Grand Master Flash is my choice for kicking off the "Dj of the week". One of the main reasons is that I just finished reading his autobiography The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash. The book details his entire life from toddler to now. I always had an idea of how hip-hop started, with dj's playing breakdowns of records and emcee's rhyming over it, but to read about how it ACTUALLY happened was incredible.

Realistically, Grand Master Flash is best known for being a pioneer. Is he the best dj out there? Probably not. Is the richest or most successful? Probably not. But he was the first! He was the poor soul that got robbed by the industry, so hip-hop artists could learn about business through his mistakes. (And yet some still haven't learned).

Oh and, his group, GMF and the Furious Five were the first hip-hop group to be inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame.

Notorious...coming in 2009

Check out the trailer for the movie about B.I.G. starring Jamal Woolard as the Notorious B.I.G. and Derek Luke as Puffy.

Featured Artist - Kid Sister

Kid Sister (aka Melissa Young) is a Chicago rapper signed to Downtown Records. Previously, she was signed to DJ A-Trak's label, Fools Gold and is also dating A-Trak, who is Kanye West's tour DJ.

Kid Sister has been MC'ing since 2005 and has been considered by some to be one of Kanye West's protege's. Her music can be roughly categorized as club rap, because of the up-tempo music, with influences from house music and other club genres. All in all, it's a refreshing mix considering how the music industry is so saturated with hard-hitting, serious rap music these days.

Her most prominent single to date was the late 2007 hit "Pro Nails". The original song caught the attention of Kanye, who eventually jumped onto it for a verse and appeared in the video.

*side note: this song totally grew on me after a while me and my buddy whiled out to this song like crazy haha.

Since "Pro Nails", she has released a few other singles, including "Family Reunion" with David Banner and most recently "Get Fresh", which I'm totally feelin. (Props to J-Swing for the song.)

Get Fresh

Her debut album, Dream Date, is set to be released this November and it will feature production by Trackademicks, Spank Rock's XXXChange and many others.

808's and Heartbreak - album art, Robocop + What It Is (unreleased) and Coldest Winter (mastered)

Word is that this will be the album cover to 808's and Heartbreak...I know, it's the same as the artwork for Love Lockdown.

First up: "Coldest Winter". This song is dedicated to the memory of Kanye's mother, Donda West. It follows a similar formula to Love Lockdown with heavy drums and lots of auto-tune.

Coldest Winter (mastered)

Next up are 2 songs that didn't make it to the album. The first is named after one of my favourite movies from the late 80's, "Robocop". It has some...interesting sound FX in it.

Robocop

The second is "What It Is" and no, it's not related to the early 2000's song by Busta Rhymes and Kelis. This beat sounds really familiar to me for some reason...I can't figure out why. It probably didn't make it to the album because there's not enough auto-tune on it haha.

What It Is

Props to Hypetrak and 2dopeboyz for these tracks.

Some of the biggest names in sports x Guitar Hero

This seemed too good to be true when I saw the title. A-Rod, Tony Hawk, Michael "Mr. Gold Medal" Phelps and Kobe rock out to the newest Guitar Hero game.

Mark Wahlberg talks to animals hahaha

Andy Samberg gets his Marky Mark on in this SNL skit.


Marky Mark responds...

New beat!

Made this on Oct 13th if you couldn't tell.

Featured Artist - KERI HILSON

If you don't know who Keri Hilson, first of all, crawl out of the rock that you've been living under for the past 2 years and then read the rest of this post for a quick lesson on who she is.

Keri Hilson is a singer/songwriter signed to the Mosley Music Group and has only recently began a career as an solo artist. She grew up in the ATL and has been writing songs for others since 2000. In fact, she's probably the person that wrote lyrics to some of your favourite songs. Some of her writing credits include Avant - "4 Minutes", Britney Spears - "Gimme More" and "Break the Ice", Ludacris - "Runaway Love", Mary J. Blige - "Take Me as I Am", Omarion - "Ice Box", Chris Brown - "Young Love", Ciara - "Ooh Baby", Pussycat Dolls - "Wait a Minute" and Usher - "Love in This Club, Part II".

In addition, her vocals have been featured on:
Lloyd Banks - "Help", P Diddy - "After Love", Timbaland - "The Way I Are" and "Scream", Rich Boy - "Good Things" and Xzibit - "Hey Now".

Sound impressive? It is.

Keri's debut album is called In a Perfect World and will feature production by Timbaland, Danja, Polow da Don, Eric Dawkins, Tank and others. And for the first time, Keri will get to write songs for herself instead of other artists. The first single from the album was "Energy", and was received fairly well, being that it wasn't a super-upbeat pop/hip hop/rnb song. I always felt that she needed to release a more club-friendly single to propel herself into the limelight and low and behold, one has just arrived.

Here's Keri Hilson's newest video for the "Return the Favor" featuring Timbo. I'm really diggin this song and the visuals too. Timbo does little more than act like furniture though...just sittin in his big ol' chair.

Also, I've included a rare Keri Hilson and Justin Timberlake collabo. They trade verses to LL Cool J's "Headsprung" (produced by Timbaland) off the album The DEFinition.

So there you have it, that's Keri Hilson in a nutshell. If ya didn't know, now ya do. Be sure to spread the word about her and buy her album when it comes out because artists of this caliber are a dime a dozen these days.

Ludacris ft. T-Pain - One More Drink

Here's the filming of Luda and T-Pain's One More Drink. Check T-Pain getting his Michael Jackson on...first he ditches the vocoder and now he's dancing?! I didn't know he had it in him.

Dizzee Rascal feat. Calvin Harris - Dance Wiv Me

Dizzee Rascal is an MC from the UK. This song was featured at the beginning of the latest episode of Entourage. It's an upbeat track and it's pretty catchy. As per usual, hip hop from the UK is...different from hip hop over in North America. Diggin the song though.

Kanye visits Big Boy's Neighbourhood

Kanye talks about making his upcoming album, 808's and Heartbreak.

New Ryan Leslie Video!

Ryan Leslie has finally released another video on his YouTube channel. Apparently, there's been a lotta leaked songs from his album hitting the internet so he decided to revamp them in the studio so that the final album versions will be fresh. Smart idea. Also, R-Les is pushing the release of his album back until February so that he can gain more exposure on the charts before the album drops. This guy is gonna be the next big thing, so do your part and spread the word!

I've also included a video for the song I-R-I-N-A. In my last Ryan Leslie post, this was the first song that he was working on in the studio when Ant Boogie walked in. Pretty dope.

VANS TH ROWLEY SHAMBLES HI

Every once and a while a dope new look comes out that catches my eye, and these Vans are it. Taka Hayashi is the designer and damn did he do a good job. His style is different but in a good way, hopefully a way that will sway others from carbon copying 80's shoes to actually designing something new.

808's and Heartbreak Album Art

Here is some album artwork Kanye West's upcoming album 808's and Heartbreak courtesy of Hypebeast. This is the same outfit he wore when he debuted Love Lockdown at the MTV Movie Awards a little while back. In case you didn't know, 808's and Heartbreak will be done completely in auto-tune, with Kanye doing less rapping and more singing than he's ever done. From the 3 songs I've heard so far, (Love Lockdown, Heartless and Coldest Winter) this album seems much more personal and stripped down production-wise than Kanye's previous albums, especially Graduation. This album will probably appeal more to Kanye's die hard fans and not so much to the general public like Graduation did, but I got a lotta respect for his change in direction and I'm looking forward to seeing what he does. 808's and Heartbreak hits stores on November 25.

Nailing your wife hahahaha

You might recognize the guy in this video as Nathan Fillion from Serenity and the old TV series Firefly.

More Politics - Jumpoff Street Battle: Palin vs. Biden

So after the boring and un-necessary Canadian election (which resulted in the same minority government as BEFORE) we can turn our heads back to the more entertaining Armerican election. This video is mock-up emcee battle between Palin and Biden, and its funny as hell.

McCain on Obama

A witty video from my favourite video blogger. Yes, video blogger. Illdoctrine is my favourite way to pass the time. Just incase you don't realize it, it's not ACTUALLY a McCain add.

Roc Raida @ Lamplighter

The Legendary Roc Raida was at the Lamplighter a few weeks ago and tore the roof off. Big ups to Dj Pick for filming this.

Nike Football Commercials

I saw this commercial on Hypebeast. It's directed by David Fincher (Fight Club, Se7en, The Game) and Emmanuel Lubezki (Children of Men) and is fittingly entitled "Fate". It follows the pre-destined fates of LaDanian Tomlinson and Troy Palamalu from their pre-birth ultra-sounds until their current successes in the NFL.


Also, if you haven't seen it before, this commercial is entitled "Leave Nothing" and is directed by Michael Mann (Heat, Miami Vice). It features Shawne Merriman (San Diego Chargers) and Steven Jackson (St. Louis Rams) with music from the movie score of The Last of the Mohicans. It's hands down one of the most intense sports commercials I've ever seen.

The coldest story ever told

Kanye's shared his new single Heartless via his blog. It also has some pictures of random naked women with it too...which is...different. I like the song though.

Heartless

Bike-Fu?

Even seen a gang of girls on bmx's kick ass?

Elevator Dance Party!!!

Every elevator ride should be a dance party !!

Ryan Leslie - Quicksand

This is one of the lesser known Ryan Leslie YouTube videos. He made this song earlier this year for this dance competition he was heading up called the Ryan Leslie Dance Project. As usual, R-Les never ceases to amaze.

Sophia Fresh ft. Kanye - What it is (produced by T-Pain)

Brand new ish... no vocorder action from Kanye on this one!

Sophia Fresh ft. Kanye - What it is

A Millie - Obama remix !!

I usually don't pay much attention to all these new "a milli" remixes, but this one was too funny to overlook.

Crips and Bloods Unite!!

"Then we gave each other a hug"

Weird Al - Whatever You Like

This is just too funny not to post. I used to listen this guy all the time when I was five years old.

My chick can have what she want, at Walmart she can pick out anything she want

How We Do It Over Here Remix

Here's a remix of a Busta Rhymes and Missy collabo from The Big Bang that I cooked up a few days ago.

Timbaland - Talk (final version)

Timbo finally drops the finished version of Talk. Last time we posted this song only it was just Timbo and T-Pain on the track, but Missy Elliot has been added to the roster for this one.

Love Lockdown Video

Kanye debuted this video on Ellen...kind of a weird place to do that if you ask me.

LMAO!

Jesus survives haha!

Common - Universal Mind Control

New-ish music from Common. I've been sittin on this song for a while and it still hasn't picked up... but maybe the music video will turn some heads. Oh, and the Neptunes produced it. Enjoy

T-Pain vs. his vocoder

We all know that the vocoder is the new hotness in the music world these days. T-Pain has used it so much that his name is pretty much synonymous with vocoding now. Anyways, a friend sent me this video and I thought it was hilarious, so I had to share it.

Live Stock Block Party

On Sept 14th was the annual livestock block party. The event is held outside of the Gastown location (on Abbot between Water and Cordova), and the entire block is closed off. Gman and Rizk always have some of the best Dj's in Canada spin, Dj battles, and a skateboard ramp. The best part of the event is that anyone and everyone involved in the scene shows up. It's like an annual reunion for the industry. Check out the movie below, a time-lapse of the entire day.