Lupe Fiasco will complete a few college dates this fall. He also issued a new YouTube video touting a slate of artists on his 1st and 15th imprint, including Sarah Green, Mathew Santos, Gemini and Hey Champ. It’s been over three years since Lupe launched the label, though — when is it actually going to drop some music (besides his own)?
On November 11, Ursula Rucker drops her fourth album, Ruckus Soundsysdom, via King Britt’s Five Six Media label. For hip-hop fans who haven’t paid attention to her since the Roots’ Things Fall Apart, the Philadelphia poetess has carved out an interesting solo career full of stylistic shifts. Her debut Silver or Lead drew common ground with broken beat gurus like Jazzanova; this new album is much tougher, with hard keyboard soul and foreboding, minimal tracks. Much of the content focuses on failed relationships and stark geo-political questions. For Obama nuts, one of the numbers (actually, just one of the interludes) notes how his candidacy has forced America to revisit its queasiness over interracial relationships, or “miscegenation.” Another cut, “Read Between the Lines,” deftly nods at rumors concerning Rucker’s sexuality.
Production on Ruckus Soundsysdom comes courtesy of King Britt, Dego from 4 Hero, Rich Medina and others. The track listing is below.
Acid jazz veteran Greyboy is releasing a retrospective, 15 Years of West Coast Cool, on November 4 via Ubiquity Records. Before the West Coast label became known for artists like Nobody and Platinum Pied Pipers (and, for beat heads, a much-sampled reissue of Arthur Verocai’s self-titled debut), Greyboy was its flagship artist, dropping popular albums such as 1993’s Freestylin’ and 2001’s Mastered the Art. The compilation, which features guest shots from AG, Quantic, Sharon Jones and others, culls from various stages of the producer’s career.
Heavily-marketed digital prankster Girl Talk is currently on tour promoting his somewhat underwhelming mix album Feed the Animals. Grand Buffet and Hearts of Darknesses are opening the first half, which ends next week; big booty fetishist CX Kidtronik and fellow Baltimore party-rockers the Death Set open the second half.
This week, Jedi Mind Tricks kicks off a tour in support of its forthcoming album A History of Violence, which drops November 11 on Babygrande. Opening acts include Outerspace and Reef the Cause as well as random special appearances from King Magnetic, King Syze and Doap Nixon.
Somalia-to-Toronto rapper K’naan has completed a follow up to his critically-acclaimed debut, The Dusty Foot Philosopher. The album, Troubadour, is set for release via A&M/Octone in January 2009.
Guest shots include Mos Def, Chubb Rock, Damian & Julian Marley, Adam Levine & James Valentine from Maroon 5, and Vernon Reid. Here’s a bit from a press release:
K’NAAN uses his unique voice and authentic style to bring an enormous dose of realness and urgency to the hip-hop world, in the tradition of great folk singers and protest songs he carves a new path filled with eloquent and thought-provoking lyrics. From the dynamic power “ABCs” to the rhythmic genre bending grooves of “Dusty Streets” and the acoustic African folk melodies of “Fire in Freetown,” K’NAAN widens the traditional hip-hop perspective on his new album expanding boundaries with the combination of hard-hitting rhythms and lyrics.
K’naan isn’t the first Canadian rapper to bring a polyglot, multicultural sensibility to hip hop. Remember K-os? He also drew wide acclaim for his debut, Exit. However, by the time of his most recent album, 2005’s Atlantis: Hymns for Disco, U.S. critics seemed bored with him, and he has only developed a cult audience here.
That’s not to say that K’naan is destined for the same fate. U.S. audiences, hip hop and otherwise, have often show little patience for non-traditional rap music, but that seems to be changing. It’s no surprise that K’naan invokes Akon, another African pop superstar, during Troubadour. Hopefully K’naan’s work will be less pandering than Akon’s. But anyway…
Next month, K’naan will open for Matisyahu on a few concert dates. His itinerary, as wll as the track listing for Troubadour, is listed below.
Belated congratulations to DJ Fly. The French DJ won first place at the 2008 Disco Mix Club World DJ Championships, which were held September 26-27 in London. Other winners at the 23rd annual event include UK DJ Switch (not to be confused with UK producer Switch), who won the Battle for World Supremacy; and Kireek, a Japanese team who won the World Team championship. Sadly, no Americans placed first this year, although DJ Slyce came in second to DJ Fly.
With 1997 world DJ champion A-Trak rapidly turning into a music industry force, it will be interesting to see if any of these DJs can make noise in the hip-hop world, not just on the scratch competition circuit. The last DMC champion to do so is 2002 winner DJ Kentaro, who dropped Enter on Ninja Tune last year.
Radiohead is holding another remix contest for a track from its album In Rainbows. The first, for “Nude,” drew over 2200 submissions. At last count, UK junglist Spor was in the lead for that contest. The new contest, which started in September, is for “Reckoner,” and it has drawn around half of the previous number with over 1100 submissions.
As was the case with the “Nude” contest, the “Reckoner” list features dozens of hip hop-inflected remixes, including joints from Diplo, Flying Lotus and others. Here are a few of the most interesting ones; I’ll upload a more complete list after the contest ends on October 23.
For the next week or so, P.O.S. will be doing the token-rapper thing as an undercard to metal band Underoath. But why hate? If it worked for Gym Class Heroes, then it may work for him.
“Love Lockdown” is the latest stylistic shift from Kanye West. It’s a predictable move similar to West’s prior co-opt of French electro-house (“Stronger,” ironically just months after his beef with Justice) and Portishead-style downtempo (“Diamonds from Sierra Leone”). This one builds on the craze for autotunin’ and the-Dream’s syllabic riffs. It follows West’s guest shot on Jeezy’s “Put On,” where he tries to replicate T-Pain’s vocoder magic with surprisingly powerful results.
Ace producer Oh No and Oxnard, Calif. spitter Roc ‘C’ hit the road last week. The Smash Mouf Tour, which courses through the East Coast this month, is ostensibly a preview of the duo’s upcoming projects, including the Transcontinental (Oh No & Roc ‘C’) and Gangrene (Oh No & the Alchemist). Both dudes have talked about launching a new label since early last year, and it seems like those plans are finally coming to fruition. However, there isn’t many details about how this will go down, but it seems that Look Records will issue the Transcontinental and Koch will distribute it.
The Smash Mouf concerts promise to showcase everyone rapping their heads off. Guests include Midaz the Beast, Butta Verses and Am I Am. Here’s hoping that someone brings skills as well as breath control.
For the next two months, you can find Tim “Sole” Holland and his Skyrider Band on the Red Carpet Tour. It’s just for kicks, although there’s a remix album of the band’s self-titled album coming shortly.
As the first release on my new imprint “black canyon records” we’re dropping a remix lp of the highly acclaimed self titled lp. Contributors include son lux, thavius beck, subtitle, jim jesus, radical face, the fog, dosh, odd nosdam, the apes, sleeper, bit tuner & bleubird, dj egadz, astronautalis, & sj esau.
We will release it as an official “leak” when we establish a release date, in hopes that those who wish to support our new business venture, our mental health & our musical efforts will do so by preordering the release here at soleone.org.
Just to add on, Tim is still down with Anticon.
Another season, another Mac Lethal tour. His fall itinerary is broken up into two parts. First, there’s a run of October dates that ends next week. Then he’ll head home to Kansas City and vote in the presidential election (and maybe buy some guns in case a race riot breaks out). After that, it’s back in the van until the holidays.
Vast Aire launched a tour for his recently released album Dueces Wild at the beginning of October. It’s now October 14. But don’t fret…there’s still plenty of shows left, as the tour lasts until the beginning of next month.
Don’t know who Proton is? Check out this interview I did with them back in March.
Download: Proton – Red and Blue Vol. 1
Continuing a flood of fall hip-hop tours, here’s the itinerary for David Banner and Talib Kweli’s appearance on Hip Hop Live! (Exclamation point not mine.)
This is the second year of Hip Hop Live, which is sponsored by Flow TV; last year’s installment brought together Rakim, Ghostface Killah and Brother Ali. Rhythm Roots Allstars (who appeared on Ghost’s The Big Doe Rehab) will reprise its role as backing band for all the artists.
Little Brother will open during the first half of the tour, which runs until October 13. Somewhat overrated Atlanta rapper B.O.B. will appear during the tour’s second half until October 25.
Method Man & Redman will soon hit the road and reprise the tag-team dynamics that dazzled crowds during Rock the Bells this summer. Boston rapper Termanology and Alchemist & Evidence (who just formed a new supergroup called the Step Brothers) will lend support.
Meth & Red are also in the final stages of recording a new album together, Blackout 2, that’s tentatively scheduled for a December 9 release on Def Jam. But will the recording process throw the tour off? I find it unlikely — at this stage of their career, the duo probably gets most of its weed money through tours. But the following MySpace bulletin, which each rapper sent out separately on October 8, seems strange.
The Roots are currently on tour with Gym Class Heroes throughout October. UK “American Boy” soul singer Estelle is opening on most dates.
Here’s the track list for DJ Babu’s Duck Season 3. Set for an October 28 release on Nature Sounds, it features guest shots from DJ Babu’s group Dilated Peoples, the fast-rising Termanology, and other mixtape favorites such as MF Doom, Kardinal Offishal (thankfully without Akon in tow), Little Brother, Sean Price and Oh No. Babu produces all of the tracks.
“It started out as a mixtape that featured some of my favorite tracks,” says Babu in a press release. “Now it has fully evolved into a platform of my own production. The album is still presented in the classic Beat Junkie mixtape style, but that’s just a clever way for me to disguise my LP.”
Today, Murs heads out on the road for a long tour that will incorporate just about ever major city in the continental U.S. And then he’ll probably tour some more. With his major label debut Murs for President (not counting the major label-distributed Murray’s Revenge) hitting stores last week, the L.A. MC plans to work hard to spread his message to the people. Kidz in the Hall lend support.
