Shots.

YNQ covers the Mizell Bros.

Yesterdays New Quintet - Uno Esta

Rummaging through the crates...

Listening, enjoying, and getting ideas.

Revitalization

Hip Hop is revitalization
back is to forward
as forward is to back
so we dig through the past
and come upon roots
which always reign us in
and grow again
so take a sample of that.

Props to my man JustNice for the vid

Just me breaking down a lil bit of a track I'm working on for my EP.

The Oriental Brothers in performance

On my way out of town to pick up an Oriental Brothers LP (amongst other things), stumbled upon this. Cool to see the styles of the 70's in Nigeria.

Cameroon in the House..

Without a doubt.

Nobody Beats the Biz

Pre-Ikea shelf days lol.

The Zhane/MJ blend was dope.

TV programming is not the same anymore.

Real Rap.

Both make great points, although I feel as if LL point has now been pushed past the point of absurdity by many a emcee.

Can't get any realer than Suliman statement at the end of the video.

Cry of Jazz

Featuring Sun Ra & his Arkestra

Check all 6 parts.

Cry of Jazz

Blowin' in The Wind

Disco Rap Attack

Just a dope instrumental. B-Side Style. Found this joint 2 years ago in Brooklyn at a Salvation Army for a buck. Red vinyl from '81. It's a cover of the Unlimited Touch joint by the same name. Check the discogs entry here.

(and yeah, that's how they spelled "rhythm" on the 12", don't know if it was done purposely or not)

Shout out to my man DJ Image for helping me rip this joint. You can check his posts over at the Dollar Bin Jams blog.

Rythem Rebellion - Searching To Find The One (Instrumental)

Philly's Real McCoy

I picked up McCoy Tyner's "Song For My Lady" yesterday. Great album. The LP starts out with "Native Song", which has a great groove, Mtume on percussion adds a lot of flavor (as does his addition on the last track "Essense"). The title track sounds like what would've happened if Coltrane's classic quartet stayed together and started playing like Coltrane's second quartet ('65-67). "A Silent Tear" is a beautifully, soulful piano solo.

All in all, I'd say it was a great way to start off my Sunday morning.

McCoy Tyner - Song for My Lady (youtube link)

Discogs entry

A nod to good hip-hop

http://thekiddaytona.l-r-g.com/

Shout out to my man Nick for putting me up on this via okayplayer.

A Slice of Fela pre-politico

w/the Africa 70 "Fogo Fogo"

Off of a great compilation by the way. Check it out here.

Island Rain

I need a copy of this limited edition 7"

Sugar on the smooth tip

R&B styled vocals over reggae riddim. Lover's Rock.

RIP Sugar

11/14/10 digs

The Last Poets - Chastisment (Blue Thumb)

Fela Kuti & The Africa 70 w/Ginger Baker - Live! (Regal Zonophone/EMI)

Pharoah Sanders - Thembi (Impulse)

John Coltrane/Archie Shepp - New Thing At Newport (Impulse)

All og's (im not sure how the discogs link match up though).

Quite a satisfying dig, down Charm City. As is any day which includes a Fela pick-up.

Peace.

Break!

FELA KUTI live! - Don't Gag Me - Je nwi Temi 1971

AR AY DUBA YU

McCoy Tyner - Malika

Off of the incredible, "Asante" LP on Blue Note.

Spin this at 33 1/3 rotations per minute to experience freedom flight.

Chuuch.

A Few of My Favorite Things

This "Live at the Village Vanguard Again" album has been in constant rotation. Listened to it about 3 times today. Truely music for the soul.

Badu's last joint was the truth. Can't wait for the 3rd installment in this trilogy of releases.

And last but not least...

As a Milwaukee Bucks fan, I look forward to this season...

Sunday Morning listenings...

Although Shuggie Otis's Inspiration Information LP is a widely described classic piece of california psych-soul, I think it could've benefitted with an arranger other than Shug. The album does have some pieces that are more than fine as is, "Aut Uh Mi Hed" and the title cut been waaaaavvvyy since before Max B got a perm, "Not Available" might be my favorite track, and "Island Letter" is a good one too. I love how he uses the drum machine throughtout the album, beautifully-quirky.

...My mpc was active this morning as well...

Shu

thoughts as afternoon approaches

Just finished reading "Lumumba" by Robin McKown, it's a great biography of the late Patrice Lumumba. Published in 1969, so it has a "current" outlook (he died in '61), which is a interesting perspective to read from. It is a very good book in my opinion. An honorable man he was, to say the least. He should be in every history textbook. The lengths that were went by the US, Belgium, and the UN, to curtail his country's independence, which he was at the forfront of, were mind-bogglingly atrocious. Kinda gets me worked up thinking about it. And he stood courageously for his people and principles until his last breath at the hands of his captors (spelling?).

...

Listening to Ramsey Lewis's "Maiden Voyage" LP. Picked it up from Mr. Suit, a fine record store in my hometown of Lancaster, PA. Great album.

...

Got my mpc on...need some spices to sprinkle on this joint I'm taking to the studio tomorrow. Afro-flavor, as the whole LP will be.

...

And last but not least, a better world starts with ourselves. We need to be the best we can for ourselves, in order to do the best we can for others. Simple, but easy to overlook.

Chow.

A Beautiful Day

Recent Rotation:

Fela Kuti - Confusion LP
Ramsey Lewis Trio - Uhuru
S.S.O - Tonight's The Night
Madlib - High Jazz LP (#7 in his 'Medicine Show' series)
Curtis Mayfield - Sweet Exorcist LP

Just checked out two books on John Coltrane from the bibliotecha today. "Chasin' The Trane" by J.C Thomas and "Coltrane: the story of a sound" by Ben Ratliff....

A afro-swing permeates the rhythms of my mind even more so then they it already does by default...

Other Sunday Jazz directions

John Coltrane - Love at The Village Vanguard Again! lp

Yusef Lateef - The Gentle Giant lp (Nubian Lady, Jugle Plum)

Cannonball Adderly Quintet - Accent On Africa lp (a great dollar bin find)

Maybe some bossanova...who knows...it might be Sunday Morning Soul directions next...

Sunday Morning Jazz Post

Sunday morning makes you feel so lovely (as Outkast once stated on the 'any given sunday' ost).

In a Jazz mood today. First record I threw on was Yusef Lateef's "Hush n Thunder". Great record, Lateef is in his classic moody-funk bag here (yeah I just coined that).

I was actually put on to Mr. Lateef through some records I inheirated from my Grandmother (rest her soul). They must've been sitting in the bottom of this drawer for some time (I never saw her play one and she didn't have a record player any longer). One which I crawled and walked by for years. "The Complete Yusef Lateef". Also from her I got Eddie Harris's "Silver Cycles", which put me up on Eddie as well. Grandma on the cutting edge of jazz.

Sunday morning.

It's pancake time.





Love you Grandma.

free flow.

First thought: weather report's "nubian sundance" is funky as hell.

"The funk that you smell, that's the melanin" - me on the intro to my lp with my homie Nana Kwame.

Johnny osbourne - one more rub-a-dub 12"

Lil will - lookin for nikki "12 (a classic, ONP got damn, got 5 copies)

Vida, Vida, Live

Man...

doing a lot...

busy bee...

Music been good to me...

Black uhuru - black sounds of freedom lp

Gal Costa - Gal canta caymmi lp (brazilian press)

Barry White - Together Brothers ost.

Blacky Ivory - Baby, won't you change your mind lp

Fuzzy Haskins - A whole nother thang lp

(Listening to herbie an 'nems first mwandishi lp, my copy has a pop on first couple seconds of "wandering spirit song", maybe I should clean it...)

The j.b.'s - the grunt (pts. 1 and 2) 7"

The hypnotic brass ensemble - spottie

Waajeed and monica blaire - jamaica funk

U-roy - chalice in the palace

Some of what I've been listening to a lot as of 8/24/10.

Several 45's to be heard are in a neat pile on the coffee table...

Ahmed abdul malik 7" following up "mwandishi"

Finding textures to layer the lp...

Fin.

Posting from my blackberry

Pretty cool.

Been doing a lot of digging, been keeping busy with a lil production work, headed to brooklyn hip hop festival tomorrow. And my mpc 1000 pads are due to be replaced soon. I need that pressure sensitivity working right. just rambling.

Another new joint....

Straight outta the mpc, unmastered. This will be on my upcoming EP.

Into Soul? Check this out

Kenny Raw from Philadelphia just released his new album "Left Handed Scissors". It's full of some ridiculous Soul/Funk edits.

Trust me, you won't be disappointed.

And it's free. Can't beat that.

And if your ever in Philly, keep an eye out, you might be lucky enough to catch him spinning one of his killer funk sets at 45 rotations per minute.

Some new music from yours truly, in the form of a remix

Some Azymuth for ya

Working on a remix at the moment and was looking for running through my crates looking for a few small samples to finish it up. Looking through my jazz section, I stumbled across Azymuth's 1982 release, "Cascades". I had picked this up months ago, but might've only gave it one quick spin. My Madlib heads might recognize this joint off the incredible "Brasilintime" DVD that Mochilla put out a few years back.

Azymuth - Through The Window (Entrando pela janela)

That ole' realness

Boundless Radio Presents: Large Professor from Kellen Dengler on Vimeo.

(Via Cratekings.com)

Early April Digs

Went out on the 1st to grab some joints to listen to/chop up/stash away in the collection. Good way to start off the month.

Funkadelic - Funkadelic
Funkadelic - Let's Take it To The Stage
OutKast - Aquemini
Miles Davis - Water Babies
Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
Muddy Waters - Electric Mud

I needed the 2 Funkadelic joints, now I believe I have all the 70's Funkadelic branded George Clinton productions, need 2 more for Parliament, I think. I dig the early Funkadelic a lot. The tripped out bluesy, psych-rock, funky sound differs highly from the later releases and just go to show you the extent of George's genuis. The "Electric Mud" album by Muddy Waters also plays with that psychadelic sound as he had Rotary Connection as the backing band for that album. Check the back story for the making of that album, very interesting.

Then we got Miles. "Kind of Blue" and "Water Babies" To different periods in his career. I'm not super-well versed on his phases, but I dig the electric stuff the most. Which reminds me, I need his "On The Corner" album on wax. My favorite Miles album for sure (from what I've heard thus far).

Last but not least, OutKast took it even further out of this world when "Aquemini" dropped. Phew. Talk about stank. In my head this album is like late 90's evolution of that mid-70's P-Funk stuff, updated to the styles of the day - 1998 that is.


And on another note, I finishing up the music for my EP. Good stuff.

Some early March finds

I'm not sure why it's sideways, but hey, you can still see what they are.

Cannonball Adderley - Soul of The Bible
Donald Byrd - Electric Byrd
Various - Wildflowers 5
Rashaan Roland Kirk - Blacknuss
Manu Dibango - Afrovision
and some Swedish (children's record I think) joint I don't know the translation for.

Good look Baltimore.

Sweet, Sweet Soul.

Need I say more about one of the greatest vocal groups to ever touch the face of popular music. That's just my opinion though.

Peace.

(And yeah, I still do have more rips to post, along with original music. Soon come.)