Video: Rising Up Live on Letterman

Why couldn't they have booked musical acts like this when I was interning there?

Album Drop: The Roots & Al Green

Here are two albums to take up the rotation on your iPod for the next few months.

Rising Down is the latest offering from The Roots and though I really just started listening to them after my buddy Victoria let me hear Things Fall Apart, I've since met ?uestlove and seen the group at Duke's LDOC, where I met Black Thought as well. ?uest has called this "the most incendiary, political album of our career to date. Add up [the crime and high school drop-out rates in Philadelphia], plus being in your mid-30s and working 300 nights a year and this being an election year — yeah, all that’s what this album’s about.” Stand out tracks: Rising Up, 75 Bars, Lost Desire

Rising Down - The Roots
1. The Pow Wow (Intro)
2. Rising Down (f/ Mos Def and Styles P)
3. Get Busy (f/ Dice Raw & Peddi Crack & Jazzy Jeff)
4. @ 15
5. 75 Bars (Reconstruction) (f/ Tuba Gooding Jr.)
6. (Up Theme) Becoming Unwritten (instrumental)
7. Criminal (with Truck North & Saigon)
8. I Will Not Apologize (f/ Porn & Talib Kweli)
9. I Can’t Help It (f/ Malik B & Porn)
10. Singing Man (f/ Porn, Black Thought, & Truck North)
11. (Up Theme) Unwritten (f/ Mercedes Martinez)
12. Lost Desire (f/ Malik B & Talib Kweli)
13. The Show (f/ Common)
14. Rising Up (f/ Wale & Chrissette Michelle)
15. Birthday Girl (f/ Patrick Stump)

DOWNLOAD Rising Down


Continuing with the ?uestlove theme, the man ?uest played career reviver, working with the legend Al Green on his return to his best sound. Said ?uest, "If it were up to me and it was absolutely totalitarianism, I would live all my derivative fantasies out on this record," he says. "It would be 1974 all over again, sonically. I think they're still getting used to that." So Blue Note gave him the power and he returned Green to his legendary groove. Stand out tracks: The whole thing

Lay It Down - Al Green
1. Lay It Down (f/ Anthony Hamilton)
2. Just for Me
3. You've Got the Love I Need (f/ Anthony Hamilton)
4. No One Like You
5. What More Do You Want From Me
6. Take Your Time (f/ Corinne Bailey Rae)
7. Too Much
8. Stay With Me (By The Sea) (f/ John Legend)
9. All I Need
10. I'm Wild About You
11. Standing In The Rain

DOWNLOAD Lay It Down

I'm a provider!!!

Video: Rising Up - The Roots feat. Wale & Chrisette Michele

Wale crazy on the flow... Black Thought crazy on the flow... ?uestlove crazy on the drums... Rising Down in stores 4/29.

Lyrically Inclined - Skyzoo feat. Wale

Just got back from a crazy road trip to Hampton, VA where me and my boy Yusuf rocked to 100 Miles & Runnin' nearly the entire time. Big ups to all the Kappas of the Beta Chi chapter at Hampton U where winning is an enjoyable past time.

Lyrically Inclined - Skyzoo feat. Wale

Video: Hold It Down - Buckshot & 9th Wonder

With Talib Kweli and Tyler Woods... this is easily my favorite track on The Formula, but maybe it's just because I like hearing Talib over a 9th beat.

Video: Fresh - Fly Society

New video from Curren$y, Terry Kennedy, Felix and Hit. I've been a fan of Curren$y since the first Young Money mixtapes in the spring of 2005. His solo mixtapes and whole flow are redunk. TK is a member of Pharrel's skate team and he's not the best rapper, but I just dig the sound of the Fly Society. Check it.

Video: Paper Chaser - Playaz Circle feat. Phonte

Long live Percy Miracles.

Give It To Ya - Pete Rock feat. Little Brother

I don't know where this is from, what it will be on and it's not even the entire track... but it's fire and I felt the need to donate this "deliciousnesstiveity" as JP would say.

Give It To Ya - Pete Rock feat. Little Brother

B-Ball Tryouts - 9th Wonder, M1-Platoon, Rapsody, Young Swift & Others

9th Wonder, as most of y'all know, teaches a course in NCCU's Hip Hop Initiative and was blessed by a full Pro-Tools studio that is on campus in Durham. Out of that studio has been birthed M1-Platoon, a 5 man group of 19 year-olds from Washington D.C., who are all students at Central, Kooley High and Young Swift, a 17 year old from Durham, who's in a pre-college program at Central. 9th pulled out an old track he made while all were in the studio, and he tells the following:

I was like "ok...ima put 7 cats on this joint...everybody can try out.....but only 7 rappers can get on the jam....."

well...everybody scrambles for pen and paper...12 cats...all writing at the same time...reciting there rhyme...practicin' the flows...all that...

So...in the control room it sat me, my assistant Alleis(Softserve) and Picasso(resident beatmaker extraordinaire....

One by one, each rapper entered the booth, and lefted the booth 2 flame in their wake.....it got MORE and MORE impossible for me to CUT somebody...and at the end...I DIDN'T...

The crazy thing is...the age of these kids range from 17 to 22...with most of them being UNDER 20

so...I bring to yall B-BALL TRYOUTS...

B-Ball Tryouts - 9th Wonder & Various Artists

In order of appearance:

Guop The Great
Priceless
Tee-Three
Big Chopps (M1-Platoon)
Phocuz
Arafat Yates (M1-Platoon)
Young Swift
Scoopay (M1-Platoon)
Blair The Glare
C-4 Black (M1-Platoon)
Rep
Rapsody (Kooley High)

Video: Wale in L.A.

Wale's Mixtape About Nothing is due out in May and the video for "W.A.L.E.D.A.N.C.E." should be premiering at the end of April or beginning of May.

40 years to the day

Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, TN (4/3/68)

Video: Kanye Live at the Brooklyn Museum

Stronger (Live at the Brooklyn Museum) - Kanye WestKanye performs Stronger last night for the opening of the Takashi Murakami Exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. This museum was three blocks away from where I stayed last summer. Too dope.

Mickey Facts feat. N.E.R.D

Check out Mickey Facts in the new N.E.R.D video too. Off of his new album...

Don't Be Light - Mickey Facts feat. N.E.R.D

Yo! MTV Raps 20th Anniversary

I've been sick at the crib, but today after calling out of work I was shocked to hear the Yo! MTV Raps theme music. The show was amazing, with Fab 5 Freddy joined by Cipha Sounds in hosting, and guests like Salt-N-Pepa and Jermaine Dupri. Apparently this will be daily, throughout the month of April for the 20th Anniversary of the groundbreaking show. Don't miss it!