The apparent collapse of Vibe Media Group, and the end of Vibe magazine, is something less than a surprise. Rumors have circulated for months that Vibe may fold at any moment. The same rumors shadow every major newspaper and magazine, from Paste and Spin to the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times, like crows waiting to pick at their carcasses. At one point, Vibe was the best-selling urban music magazine in the country and second only to Rolling Stone in circulation; now it’s the biggest casualty of a rapidly deteriorating media climate and, to an extent, a hobbled and broken music industry.
The announcement on June 30 that Vibe is suspending publication was met with mixed reaction, from sadness (mostly on the part of journalists and industry folk) to snickers (often from musicians and music fans). (Vibe Media has changed hands many times since Quincy Jones co-founded the magazine with Time Inc. executive Robert L. Miller in 1992. It is currently owned by the Wicks Group.)
“Vibe Mag goes under.–thank you for many years of little to no coverage and bad reviews. You will be missed,” read a Twitter post from Evidence.
“What will we do when there’s no one to hate our music in print?” wrote Mr. Len.
“Wow, Vibe is gone…can they PLUUEAZE take BET with em???” wrote James Poyser.
It’s an all-too-familiar response to a decaying urban entertainment megalopolis that everyone loves to hate but no one seems (financially or creatively) capable of changing.
In related news, El-P is compiling an album of unreleased material by the late rapper/producer. “This music is going to fuck peoples heads up. i dont say that lightly,” he wrote on a Twitter update. Stay tuned.
DJ Spooky honors NAACP’s 100th anniversary with new work (latimes.com)
MTV’s James Montgomery on M.J.’s video legacy (mtv.com)
Boots Riley and Tom Morello’s Street Sweeper debuts in top 40 (mtv.com)
More bad news for the Pirate Bay’s founders (wired.com)
Can’t Stop Won’t Stop author Jeff Chang, others head to White House for briefing on U.S. arts policy (cantstopwontstop.com)
Kinda like a big deal: B.O.B.’s B.O.B. vs. Bobby Ray (rapradar.com), J. Howells Werthman’s We Are Making Plans (radiobelly.com), Ras G’s Cosmic Tones 4 Mental Therapy (brainfeedersite.com), Nobody’s Best of Michael Jackson & the Jackson 5 (megaupload.com), Dr. Strangeloop’s Sounds for Dreaming (brainfeedersite.com)
Peanut Butter Wolf posted three videos from his June 25 Michael Jackson tribute set at the Echoplex on the Stones Throw website. The second and third parts are really good, so I’m reposting them here. Check part two for some surprise remixes/edits of M.J. tracks — I’ll let you guess who the producer(s) are.
Indierapper Awol One’s Owl Hours features some surprising collaborations. First, it’s executive produced by Xzibit, who hasn’t hung around L.A.’s indie rap scene since he signed with Dr. Dre for Restless. X to the Z brings in Tash and E-Swift from Tha Liks for guest shots; others include Aesop Rock, Myka 9 and Sunspot Jonz. Factor, the Canadian producer who handled Awolrus’ Only Death Can Kill You, creates the beats for Owl Hours.
Yes, the Roots are the saving grace house band for the painfully unfunny late night talk show “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon,” and they’re working on a new album, How I Got Over, for an October release, et cetera. But touring’s still their bread and butter.
Over a year and a half after Atmosphere’s first Billboard top five hit, When God Gives You Lemons You Paint That Shit Gold, the group is still touring behind the album. They don’t get the critical respect they deserve, but no one can deny that they’re hip hop’s ultimate road dogs. This time around, Eyedea & Abilities and rock band Attracted to Gods join in the fun.
Last night, New Muslim Cool premiered on the PBS documentary series “POV.” Directed by Jennifer Maytorena Taylor and co-produced by Taylor and Kauthar Umar, the 90-minute piece focuses on Jason “Hamza” Perez, a Puerto Rican rapper and social worker who tries to live an ascetic Muslim life while dealing with discrimination and other obstacles. Check the “POV” website for future airings.
With modest and elegant camerawork, Taylor pivots New Muslim Cool on a few key elements. Hamza and his brother Suliman make up Mujahideen Team, a Pittsburgh-based rap group that mixes spiritual messages with political rhetoric. (An early scene captures Mujuhaideen Team at a show freestyling to Immortal Technique’s “Bin Laden.”) As a former drug dealer, Hamza struggles to reconcile his aggressive street instincts and his Sunni faith. He marries a black single mother after meeting her through a Muslim dating site. He amiably jokes that they’ll need to serve “macaroni & cheese” and “rice and beans” at the wedding: “The blacks always go for the Spanish food and the Spanish always go for the black food.” But their newlywed bliss is disturbed when Hamza is arrested during a raid of his Pittsburgh mosque by FBI agents for suspiciously vague reasons. Meanwhile, his s work at a local prison ends when the warden abruptly takes away his security clearance. When Hamza hires a lawyer and contacts the ACLU, the prison chaplain reveals that the warden became concerned after reading an old M-Team interview online; in the interview, M-Team refers to the U.S. government as a “snake” that needs to be beheaded.
If you’re a Wale fan, then the good news is that he’s currently on a small tour with go-go band UCB. The bad news is that the itinerary has been downsized: His San Francisco show, for example, has been moved from the Independent to the much-smaller 330 Ritch. Mixtapes are cool, but it appears that Wale will need to drop Attention Deficit soon — or land a real hit single, not his mediocre “Chillin’” collab with Lady Gaga — if he wants to continue to draw an audience.
From August through September, Philadelphia hardcore vets Jedi Mind Tricks will lead the “Hell Awaits” tour. Beantown MC Esoteric and Reef the Lost Cause lend support.
Jason “Nosaj Thing” Chung is the latest to emerge from the Low End Theory beat camp, a weekly club night that has given name to a wave of talented Los Angeles producers – Flying Lotus, Daedelus, the Glitch Mob, Daddy Kev, the Gaslamp Killer, D-Styles, Ras G, Take and others. (Sorry, but I don’t fuck with “lazer bass” or “wonky.”) First known as a local DJ, Nosaj Thing broke out in 2008 with impressive remixes of Health’s “Tabloid Sores” track (included on the experimental rock band’s Disco compilation) and Flying Lotus’s “Camel Sores” (featured on the Los Angeles 2×3 EP). Meanwhile, Kid Cudi used his “Aquarius” track (first issued on Nosaj Thing’s 2006 Views/Octopus EP) for “Man on the Moon,” a standout track on the popular A Kid Named Cudi mixtape.
With only a handful of circulating tracks, anticipation has nevertheless built for Nosaj Thing’s debut long-player. Released by Alpha Pup Records on CD last Tuesday, June 9 (with a digital pre-release arriving May 26), the hype surrounding Drift is the inevitable result of a scene gathering media and fan attention. Thankfully, Drift isn’t a summary of beat music clichés, but a haunting suite of songs that resembles Romantic classicism, minimalism/new music theory and old-school “electronica” techniques pioneered by Global Goon and Aphex Twin. (In the interview below, Nosaj reveals that he’s a fan of 18th century composers Frederic Chopin and Erik Satie. And one of Drift’s tracks is titled “1685/Bach,” a nod to the year Johann Sebastian Bach was born.) Marrying his esoteric melodies to subtly dusted beats, Nosaj Thing creates an instrumental journey that leaves an indelible impression.
At 22 years old, the mild-mannered Nosaj Thing is suitably unassuming about the meaning of his work and of the attention that helped Drift peak at number 5 on the iTunes Electronic Albums chart on June 4. (As of this writing it ranks at number 54.) “It was very therapeutic for me to make,” he says without elaborating further. “I just wanted to experiment and tell a story.” His neutral, music-for-music’s-sake stance hints that Drift is a grand instrumental drama best heard than read.
Remember DJ JS-1? The turntablist/producer dropped a decent compilation in 2002 called Ground Original. Now he has a new edition called No Sell Out, an all-too-appropriate term for these pop-motivated, auto-tunin’ times.
No Sell Out drops June 23 on Fat Beats Records. Check the press release:
JS-1 has been a recognized name in the DJ circuit since the late 80’s and has since made his mark in the hip-hop industry with numerous production credits, single releases, mixtapes, and television appearances. Throughout his career, JS-1 has gathered an extensive and impressive network of industry names. With his new album No Sell Out, a career’s worth of hard work is on full display, with JS-1 obtaining features from a who’s-who of hip-hop royalty, past, present, and future. For the past three years, JS-1 has been hard at work putting together No Sell Out, and that hard work will finally pay off on June 23rd, when the album is released to the masses via Fat Beats Records.
No Sell Out, a title referencing JS-1’s desire to create records according to personal taste despite current mainstream direction, is most notable for its extensive list of guest artists, including KRS-ONE, Large Pro, Pharoahe Monch, Canibus, Sean Price, Blaq Poet, Killah Priest, Ill Bill, Kool Keith & Ced Gee (Ultramagnetic Mc’s), Aesop Rock, Vast Aire, Chino XL, Sadat X, AG, OC, Craig G, CL Smooth, Edo G, Prince Po, Akrobatik, J-Live, Vinnie Paz of Jedi Mind Tricks, Rakaa of Dilated Peoples, Krondon, C Rayz Walz, Vast Aire, Nutrageous, Copywrite, PMD, Rahzel, EMC (Masta Ace, Strick, Wordsworth, Punchline), Termanology, Torae, Pumpkinhead, Jak D, Big Noyd, Q-Unique, Brother Ali, Slaine, Virtuoso, Pack FM, Supastition. Block McCloud, Trez, Rugged Intellect, and DJ Premier. Having so many talented and respected artists on one album is amazing. Coordinating all these artists at once can prove quite difficult, and was, in fact, one of JS-1’s greatest challenges. JS-1 says, “Doing an album like this with over 40 emcees on it, is not easy,” says JS-1. “Between myself being on tour, the featured artists being on tour, emailing files, meeting people at studios, trying to coordinate what beats to use, making everyone happy, agreeing on the concepts, and then fitting in the hooks, it is not something that gets done quickly. A lot of this album was pieced together over the past 3 years.”
Underrated Minneapolis duo Eyedea & Abilities will release their new album By The Throat on July 21. Set for release via Rhymesayers, it’s the group’s first album in five years.
Here’s a bit from the bio:
Their first album since the breakout 2004 release E&A, By The Throat’s songs range from intensely personal topics to the more esoteric (quantum mechanics). The end result is leaps and bounds beyond what MC Eyedea is perhaps best known for, his prowess as a battle rapper (winner of HBO’s Blaze Battle, Scribble Jam and several others). DJ Abilities, also a well-known battle vet and contributor to El-P’s now-classic Fantastic Damage, adds heavily to the sonic soundscape of this album, which advances beyond boom-bap hip-hop into rock-fueled guitar riffs, gritty production and melodic songwriting.
Eyedea and Abilities were instrumental in the wave of independent hip-hop that includes Atmosphere, El-P, Aesop Rock, Living Legends and several other seminal acts. By The Throat is their most progressive and refined effort to date.
Next month, Kid Cudi and Asher Roth will join forces for the Great Hangover Tour. Both have impacted the Billboard charts in recent months, Asher Roth with his top 15 debut for Asleep in the Bread Aisle and top 20 single “I Love College,” and Kid Cudi with his ever-popular top 5 single “Day ‘N’ Nite.” Pac Div and B.O.B. will appear at all the shows, and 88-Keys will open on some dates.
“It’s not just rappers up there rapping. All of us want to be up there, and we are having a good time with it,” Roth told mtv.com last week. Will you have a good time if you go? Check the dates below and decide for yourself.
DJ Spinna is one of the great producers of the underground hip hop era. He’s issued memorable recordings such as Heavy Beats Vol. 1 and the instrumental Compositions series; organizedthe memorable Wonder Wrote It dedication parties with Bobbito Garcia; been a part of groups such as the Jigmastas and Polyrhythm Addicts; and even produced underground house classics such as Cooly’s Hot Box “Make Me Happy” and Shaun Escoffery’s “Days Like This.”
However, Sonic Smash is his first album since 2006’s Intergalactic Soul. Set for release June 30 via High Water Music, it features both veterans (Shabaam Sahdeeq, Kriminul of the Jigmastas, Joc Max) and new jacks (Fresh Daily, Senor Kaos, Sputnik Brown). The first single is “Lyrics is Back” with Torae; it’s included below along with the track list. (July 3 update: The release date has been pushed back to July 21.)
Next week, Karriem Riggins — J Dilla collaborator, longtime friend of Madlib, and session drummer on countless jazz, future soul and hip hop classics, including Erykah Badu’s New Amerykah (4th World War) — will lead the “Virtuoso Experience” tour. It only encompasses two dates in Seattle and Minneapolis, a two-night stand at Oakland’s legendary Yoshi’s nightclub (with special guest Pete Rock) and, later this summer, an appearance at the Detroit Jazz Festival. But the show, which also features pianist Mulgrew Miller and other members of his Quintet, should be worth it for anyone who can attend. The dates preview a forthcoming album by the Karriem Riggins Quintet.
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