“D.O.A” is cool, I get it. The Young Berg’s of the game have rendered the vocal effect somewhat corny and rinsed out. The thing that irks me about this song isn’t the fact someone is speaking out against the overuse of the auto-tune, its the fact that the one doing it is Jay-Z. It’s just out of character.
Let me start by saying, I’m probably this continents biggest Jay-Z fan stan. From the age of around 13 I’ve been obsessed with everything Roc-A-Fella. I know this mans lyrics back to front, from the “In My Lifetime” single to present day, and regard him as the artist that convinced me to make a career of this rap music. But beside Shawn Carter’s music, what made him the God MC was he was simply the coolest cunt alive, who’s trendsetting in pop culture was unrivaled in the late 90’s and the larger part of this decade. He always had that overly nonchalant persona too, reiterating his point by telling cats he’s “not a rapper” and that he was using rap as a vehicle to get out of the drug game, though he was simultaneously penning verses better than anyone… ever. This made the purists look like disgruntled old heads who didn’t understand the new wave of Hip-Hop, and before you knew it Young Hov had the culture eating out the palm of his hand. Read the rest of this entry »
Swiped from the MTC blog, this is an almost 20 minute piece on Smashproof that aired on Radio NZ’s Music 101 programme recently. Stream it here or download it and pop it on your iPod for an intelligent discussion of Smashproof’s relevance and NZ hip hop in general.
Local music legend and all round nice guy, Trevor Reekie; has dedicated a segment on Music 101 to Smashproof’s chart success. The show goes to air this Saturday after the news at 2pm and features an in depth interview with me (Kirk Harding) alongside some important ethnomusicology and chart experts.
- Kirk Harding
I’m at work recovering from the flu. I’ve had the new Major Lazer album ‘Guns Don’t Kill People… Lazers Do’ on repeat since 11AM (it’s almost 5:30PM now) partly from laziness but also because it’s pretty fucking cool. Major Lazer is a collaboration between producers Diplo and Switch, on this album they recorded with some of the biggest names in reggae and dancehall. I’m not really that knowledgable about dancehall and such, but this I like. The highlight of the album is easily the first track and current single featuring Santigold and Mr. Lex ‘Hold The Line’. The beat is a monster! Peep the video below.
While we’re being nostalgic about the Wu, peep this shit. Unkut.com posted up this recording of Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Method Man and Rza from the Wu-Tang Clan taking calls from fans on Tim Westwood’s show on Radio 1 in ‘97; about a month before Forever dropped. The result is almost 20 minutes of straight comedy from the clan - witty unpredictable talent and natural game for sure! Peep Rza’s response to that dude’s request for a record deal, classic!
This weekend just passed, Ghostface Killah of the Wu-Tang Clan blessed New Zealand with his first live performance in the country; only the third original founding member of the Wu-Tang Clan to come to our shores. He played at the Powerstation in Auckland with Shaun Wigs and Du Lilz of Theodore Unit and tore it down! Suffice to say it was one of the illest shows I’ve been to. But this ain’t no gig review, this is the story about how I DJed for Ghostface Killah… yeah, you read that right, I DJed for Ghostface Killah, no bullshit! How did this come to be? Allow me to explain…
The following is my recollection of the events leading up to and including my DJ set at the Ghostface Killah after-party and is the god-honest 100% truth! Give me five to ten minutes of your time and I’ll give you an entertaining read. Read the rest of this entry »
“Hi haters, I’m back off hiatus.” Apologies for the lack of updates recently, my excuse? Can’t think of a good one…
Moving on though, the following is the first video from Breakin’ Wreck representer Tyson Tyler’s forthcoming album Reality Cheque. The joint is called ‘Monstars Ink’ and I believe it is produced by Yorel (correct me if I’m wrong). The video follows a LARPer* dressed in a stone gollem outfit wandering around Onehunga and One Tree Hill.
I like the joint but I’m not sold on the video, my main gripe is that the song has a dark menacing tone to it that I felt was absent from the video. In the video the stone gollem is portrayed as a friendly but lonely and possibly depressed character who wanders around Onehunga with no apparent purpose. I reckon stone gollem terrorising the streets of Onehunga, kicking over trash cans and handing out ass-whoopings to ill-fortuned passers-by would have been more fitting. That’s just me though.
Also, Ty-Ty’s recently relaunched his blog over at www.tysontyler.com, head over there to stay updated about what he is up to.
While everyone else has been buzzing about XBOX 360’s forthcoming motion-sensing control “Project Natal”*, I’m buzzing about this announcement, Super Mario Galaxy 2 is coming! We’re suckers for a good game of Mario around here and no doubt we’ll be hibernating with the Wii this one when it comes out. Yoshi will be playable in the sequel, and can be inflated to float to new areas. Other than that there doesn’t appear to be any other major news or a release date relating to the title yet, but for now you can peep this video from IGN.
*Personally, I’m reserving judgement on this new XBOX 360 motion control shit until I see it in action (much like DJ Hero), I need to be convinced that it will work the way its ’sposed before I get excited.
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