Amongst the seemingly never-ending open bar events which consumed much of my time and liver capacity while in New York City last month, the highlight from a musical standpoint was spending the better part of an afternoon as a guest at the legendary Lord Finesse‘s home studio in the Bronx, thanks to the homey Chaze from the GRIM Team. ‘Ness blessed us with some of the music from his forthcoming project with O.C. called The Alumni, which you might recall was the title of the group that Finesse, O.C. and Large Pro were forming, but it turns out that the Live Guy With Glasses wasn’t a big fan of the name so it’s being used on this album instead. I was a little concerned when he mentioned that it was a combination of samples and live instruments, but as soon as the eerie beats leaked through the studio monitors it was clear that this was some serious next level D.I.T.C. material. He has a guy add bass, drums and keys to his samples and chops but it’s so tightly put together that it sounds like all samples…shit was crazy. (more…)
It was a big night for non-progressive rap fans in New York, with the first Mobb Deep show in over three years popping-off live and direct next to Times Square. Would Capone sneak in and attempt to hit Prodigy with a bar stool, Keith Murray style? Or would a live rendition of ‘Shook Ones’ lead to a number of drunken brawls in the crowd? The third, and most likely scenario of course, was that none of the above would happen and it would be a uneventful rap concert in the ‘New’ New York, where even the corniest white rap fan could dance around like a moron with no fear of getting smacked upside the head by a less happy-go-lucky audience member. (more…)
A little something to start your day off correctly…
Filmed and Directed by Pritt Kalsi. Here is the full film KOTB NYC 2010 featuring Casanova Rud, Minnesota Money Boss, Psycho Les and TR Love from the Ultramagnetic M.C’s. (more…)
So I hit the streets of New York on Wednesday, and so far I’ve hit a bunch of open bar events, dropped into the Combat Jack Show on PNC, tried out a few flavors of 40 Oz. malt liqour and some 4LOKO, visited The Source offices and a few food spots…and of course met a bunch of Internets!
Yesterday I rolled through to see the Producer Panel at the All Access Music Conference with Dallas Penn, Matt Raz and DJ Franchise, where I found out the following actual facts: (more…)
A good new rap record? Sure, why not? Actually, scratch that. For the most part, this a great effin’ record. Action Bronson marks the return of the highly-technically character rapper in the era of caricature performers who rhyme as an afterthought. He also envisions himself as some sort of modern-day viking, verbally raping and pillaging his way across New York. Pity those unfortunate wretches in his path. Tommy Mas provides some quality non-progressive loops and drums for the big guy to unleash speech over, and rest-assured that the Outdoorsman star recruit is only just getting started. Dead the Ghostface comparisons, Action delivers a variety of techniques that are far beyond the capacity of someone who only picked-up the pen a mere three years ago. (more…)
After beginning his career as a child prodigy of sorts, Keyboard Money Mike went on to have a long and varied career in the music game, and was involved in the earliest records of Ultramagentic MC’s and KRS-One before he was made the Vice President of B-Boy Records. These days he’s involved with everything from producing dance music in Europe to TV commercials, and was kind enough to take the time to talk to Unkut about the old days.
Robbie:How did you get your name?
Keyboard Money Mike: Two ways that name came up. I was always Money Mike. When I was young I had money because I was on Broadway shows, I was performing in jazz bands, so as I kid I was always making money. I became Keyboard Money Mike – we was on tour with Latifah, MC Lyte, Awesome 2, Public Enemy, Tim Dog, it was a lotta groups on tour. We was at one of the hotels, and Flavor Flav played piano. So I said, ‘Flav, let me play a little something for you’. So I got on the piano and start playing and he says, ‘Yo, man! Keyboard man!’ I said, ‘No, no, no. It’s Keyboard Money Mike’. He said, ‘Yeah, but you’re the keyboard man!’ ‘No, you call me Keyboard Money Mike, Flav’. He like, ‘Who the hell gave you that name?’ And then I said, ‘Ted Riley‘. I did a show with Ted one time, and the way I was playing the keyboards at one the rehearsals, he called me ‘Keyboard’ Money Mike, and that’s when I kept the name.
When did you first start working with B-Boy Records?
Let me just go through my history real quick to let you know how it all came about…Sesame Street is a very popular TV show for children. Big Bird and all those guys. Now I was one of the first Black kids to be on Sesame Street. When I was young, I got into a lot of different things. At the age of four, I got into playing piano – I was very musical when I was a young kid. Every Halloween they have something called ‘Trick or Treat’, where you go to different doors in people’s house and they give you candy and money. Well, when I went to one of these houses when I was young I saw a piano playing by itself, and I ran to the piano and my sister was like, ‘Get back over here!’ Because it was a stranger house. I just ran to the piano, so the stranger said, ‘It’s OK, let him be’, So he cut the automatic piano off and said, ‘You wanna play?’ So I just started bangin’ on the piano like the rhythm that I heard. He was like, ‘Hey, your brother go talent here! If you don’t mind, I’ll teach him?’ My music career started from that day on. (more…)
One of the reasons you persevere with this rap shit just might be those increasingly rare moments when the flow, cadence and wordplay combine into a moment of pure rap supremacy. Back in Feb 2010, Black Thought had one of these moments when he unleashed two non-stop verbal tidal waves as he proceeded to demonstrate what might commonly be referred to as ‘blacking out’. Even though he was suffering from strep throat or whatever happens from too much cot-damn rappin’, it served as a refresher to – those of us who have become too accustomed to associating him with ‘sophisticated’ Roots songs – just how raw he can get.
It also got me thinking – what is your favorite moment of an MC absolutely slaughtering a beat or ‘blacking out’?
As Unkut Dot Com returns from hiatus, what better way to set things off than the first installment of a new series of regular features written by QB Rap pioneer Tragedy Khadafi…
The Intro
Rising above form and into substance…that’s what this is primarily about. Learning to think outside of the box and for some…outside of the block – as it relates to hip hop and life in general. We are officially in ‘that’ era where virtually anything is possible when applying the right information and utilizing the right kind of power…the people of Egypt manifested an aspect of that raw power in recent times by alleviating what they deemed as their ‘oppressor’, ultimately by acting upon knowledge. Does knowledge equate to power? Not exactly. Sure a lot of us have heard the cliché ‘knowledge is power’…but it’s a lot more to it than that…knowledge is nothing if not properly utilized or put into ACTIVATION. Just how the majority of hip hop is straight ‘zombie-music’ with no life in it because most of the vital information that has been released and or developed over the years is no longer being infused in the music we’re being fed, therefore the only thing where acting upon is MISINFORMATION. This basically means that the misinformation isn’t developing real knowledge for anyone to act upon which will produce real wealth and power in the lives/minds of the listener. And this produces no growth. Growth isn’t or shouldn’t just be equated to what an artist or entertainer in the industry is making dollar wise or generates based on sales. Because that isn’t really a sign of TRUE GROWTH. Just as a person’s wealth can’t be defined by the cars, jewelry, and or clothing they possess. But as stupid as it is, that’s exactly how a lot of us define wealth and growth. (more…)
The awful truth is that rap bloggers are essentially glorified publicists. You can pick and choose who you ‘support’ or ‘expose’ but essentially all you’re doing is selecting which angle you want to roll with. Even if your blog focuses on old records, you’re essentially just promoting some European kid’s next Random Rap ebay auction. Writing reviews is basically an exercise in vanity, since 90% of the people reading the review already have the album anyway, and the only thing you might possibly achieve is ruffling the feathers of the over-sensitive artists who sent you the stuff in the first place. The idea that rap blogs are dictating radio or sales in any major way is laughable, and the theory that anyone actually values the opinion of anyone on the Rap Internets is even more of a joke. The only reason anyone visits one hip-hop site over the other is that it happens to be slightly less annoying than the other ones, or maybe doesn’t post as much crap that you hate. (more…)
This dropped three days ago so it’s ancient history in internets time but it’s more than worthy of being dug-up from the murky depths of history… Beat courtesy of Soundahfekz.
Willie The Kid feat. Styles P - ‘Live From The Ritz’
J-Love and Meyhem are both dropping albums over the coming weeks, so I thought I’d see what they have cooked-up for us on Egotistical Maniac and Self-Induced Illness. It’s worth noting that both records are double albums, which is always something I’m in two minds about. On the one hand, the amount of songs you’re getting is great value and it allows you the luxury of choosing the best songs to load onto your ipod or whatever, but the other side of that is there’s an art to creating to a cohesive album and do I really want to listen to 40+ tracks from anybody in a row? (more…)
