[Video] Caleb James: "Eddy Curry"
You might remember Eddy Curry. For some, he was the hometown kid who jumped from Thornwood High School on Chicago's South Side to The United Center on the city's West Side as an 18-year-old, drafted by the Chicago Bulls with Tyson Chandler, essentially marking the end of the Jordan era for good, and the beginning of the Baby Bulls. Well, if you know what happened next, you're likely from Chicago. His weight ballooned, he and teammates almost single-handedly put the cornrow and headband look to bed and he found a way to earn checks by sitting in a suit on a cushioned chair for thousands to ogle.
Well, Chicago's own Caleb James decided to commemorate that very certain era in Bulls history by shouting out the former athlete in his latest track, a banger appropriately titled "Eddy Curry". The video is shot by Brandon “N2ition” Riley, and features a side of the city we've been seeing a lot of; snow. James has been on his hustle in the Midwest for a minute now and last night shut down Subterranean in Wicker Park with Roman Flowrs. Keep an eye out for the SaveMoney artist's latest project, The Jones 2.0, due out next month.
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Death Grips & Local Natives Release Stems For Free
The trend of releasing music for free is not a new concept, but in the past six months even, the practice has taken on a whole new attitude and usefulness. Death Grips, never ones to wilt to social norms or adhere to expectations or ethics, released both the a capella and instrumental versions of their albums, Government Plates (click here) and NO LOVE DEEP WEB (click here) for free via their Twitter account. While the move is similar to Beyonce's instantaneous release of 14 songs and 17 music videos as one entity, it is a different kind of openness.
Local Natives also followed suit, dropping the stems from their album Hummingbird (click here). While Bey gave the world a host of new entertainment to sift through, Death Grips and Local Natives offered music geeks and production nerds an endless amount of material to work with, encouraging remixes and the use of their work. It is the sort of openness that breeds new genres and new sounds and is honestly a responsible move on the behalf of both acts and it will be interesting to see where the stems lead in the near future.
[RH Interview] Rapsody
Three years ago, while a junior in the Journalism school at the University of Iowa, I hooked my first artist interview for a small blog I had established for a class. The artist’s name was Rapsody, then a new signee to super-producer 9th Wonder’s then-new imprint, JAMLA. At the time, she was full submerged in 9th's "rap boot camp" as she described it then, spending endless hours in the studio honing her craft with notes from him and the rest of the JAMLA team, who earlier this week released the collaborative JAMLA Is The Squad.
Three years later, the foundation she built through those long hours of study and practice have molded her into one of the craftiest lyricists in hip-hop today. Where she was the student then, she is now looked to by younger artists for inspiration and guidance, something she never could have imagined back then. Six projects have spanned the time since I last sat down to talk to Rapsody and each one has shown a calculated growth in everything from her delivery to her cadence. In a world where artists can go from no one to the front of a magazine seemingly overnight, the North Carolina native is a bit of a throwback to a time when the art was more important than Youtube views and Twitter followers. I ran into her last month at a JAMLA event celebrating the addition of Chicago artist Add-2 and caught up over the phone recently to discuss the what the past few years have been like since we last sat down for a Q+A. Check out our full conversation below.
[Video] Justin Bieber: "Confident" (Feat. Chance The Rapper)
Welp, it's here. Chance and the Biebs got together on "Confident" at the beginning of December and it was just a matter of time before the collaboration got a visual component. Shot in Los Angeles while Chance The Rapper was in the midst of a move, Justin Bieber does his best impression of Michael Jackson in the somewhat-theatrical music video that tails Bieber as he lusts after a girl buying Takis. "Takis? I'd like to Takis to you on the phone." Smooth Justin. He then dances after her and she jumps on a motorcycle, but then gets out of a car. I don't know. Anyway, great timing for Chance to link his name with Bieber, now that the Canadian heartthrob has found himself on the front of every website and news outlet for his egg-tossing and speeding that has led him to hideout in Panama with Usher. Crazy. Anyway, check out the video below.
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Songs Of The Day 1/29/14 (Feat. Mac Miller, Paper Diamond, Cam'ron and more)
. . . And we're back with the latest wave of released tracks to hit the web today. Starting things off, Pittsburgh native Mac Miller, who recently announced his departure from longtime label Rostrum Records, dropped his single, "Tequila" today under the moniker Larry Fisherman. Cam'ron & A-Trak got together on "Humphrey" and a bit of generational hand-off happened as Freddie Gibbs and Madlib show the youngin's what's what on "Robes" which features OFWGKTA members Earl Sweatshirt and Domo Genesis who kill over the soulful Madlib-produced joint. Paper Diamond proves he's a machine by pumping out yet another track in what seems like a constant assembly line of bass-heavy jams and Future does his own rendition of Beyonce & Jay-Z's recent single, "Drunk In Love", but without Ciara. Check out all of the songs of the day, streaming below!
Mac Miller "Tequila"
Cam'ron & A-Trak "Humphrey"
Paper Diamond “Black Rose”
Freddie Gibbs & Madlib "Robes" (Feat. Earl Sweatshirt & Domo Genesis)
Future "Drunk In Love" (Remix)
[Video] Roman Flowrs: "More Than Enough"
Roman Flowrs made a name for himself this past summer with the mixtape, #OneHellofaPromo, which caught listeners' ears with his silky flow and careful lyricism that has come to be a mark of a certain side of the Chicago scene not labeled "Drill". Tomorrow, he plays at Subterranean in his hometown, but last night the young artist dropped the video for his track "More Than Enough," which operated as a hidden track on Roman's last release. Check out the latest from Roman Flowrs, streaming below.
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[Mixtape] J. Cole: "The Revenge of the Dreamers"
J. Cole easily made one of the albums of the year in his 2013 release, Born Sinner which brought few accolades but made up for the slight disappointment of his debut studio project, Cole World: The Sideline Story. It seems as though Cole is already back on his grind, as he celebrated his 29th birthday yesterday with the release of a fresh new project, The Revenge of the Nerds. The release of the project also coincided with Cole's announcement of a partnership between his Dreamville imprint and Interscope, which seems to have championed the artist-turned-label-head situation. The release, similar to t9th Wonder's JAMLA Is The Squad project which also dropped last night, is a sort of sampler platter for the artists workign with Cole on Dreamville, including the endlessly talented Omen and Bas.
It's interesting that Cole went the Interscope route, having just had one of the craziest concert experiences last night at Madison Square Garden where Kendrick, fresh off the Grammys, showed up to perform "Forbidden Fruit", "Backseat Freestyle" and "m.A.A.d. City" before turning to the crowd to say, ""[Cole] is one of the first cats to welcome me with open arms in this music business when I ain't know sh-- about it," he said. "So believe that, this is not no regular rapper friendship, this is my f---ing brother right here, J. Cole." Jay Z joined him onstage for "PSA" before handing him his original Roc-A-Fella Jesus piece and performing "FuckwithmeyouknowIgotit". As if that wasn't enough, Cole ended the concert by performing songs off The Revenge of The Dreamers, of which he had just showered the crowd with hard copies. Not a bad birthday, but what's he going to do for the big 3-0?
Full stream/download below with a video of J.Cole's gift from HOV below.
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[Video] ShowYouSuck: "80s Boobs"
Chicago's own ShowYouSuck meant business in 2013, and followed that up by releasing a gang of projects, the last of which, Dude Bro may be his most polished to date. The Closed Sessions' release dropped its latest video in support of the project, this one for the highly-anticipated "80s Boobs". The J. Arthur-produced track appropriately calls to mind the decade with the high synth use and the black and white visual is a simple affair, with translation subtitles rolling across the bottom while bras seem to be stocked in front of Show. The neon camera flares add a subtle 80s aesthetic to the video, shot by Addison Wright and J. Frank. In the end, the only nipples in the video are Show's, and he burns a bra. See it all for yourself, streaming below.