The Post Christmas Wrap Up

I'm enroute to work brunch once again after many months away. I told the bartender to be hooking up some champagne in my glass of OJ, hope he remembers! If you took a break from the computer over the holiday you might of missed more than a few things, here are a few jawns that grabbed me.



Kendrick Lamar has only elevated in the months since the release of his stellar O(verly) D(edicated) record. If you missed out on the review or interview peep 'em respectively. Schoolboy Q is the only member of the Black Hippies who hasn't hit us with a great project. With this leak off Setbacks there is no doubt in my mind that he will stand tall with his family.



SL Jones isn't a name I've heard too much outside of a guest verse or two with Killer Mike. Here he calls on the big homie to close out his track. Pill also swings through for a solid 16, dude is becoming my new favorite guest rhyme slanger. SL holds it down, makes me curious what he has coming. This is off a tape he plans to drop in January. The new year is already looking promising and I'm still devouring music from the year that we ain't quite finished with. Gotta love great music!



Speaking of Mike this is some serious hiphop shit right here! Just let that track above play. Yes that is El-P lacing Killer motherfuckin' Mike with a monster of a beat. They are working on an album that shall be released via Adult Swim. I seriously couldn't be more excited for this and it's been more than a hot minute since Jamie Meline's alter ego has gotten me excited in the slightest. Rest assured should this hit the internets faces will be melted while minds are sharpened on the knowledge Killer Mike recites with ease.

And this being our blog and all we did drop a little EP yesterday you might have missed. It's from Brothers From Another and you can learn more here - or just scroll down slightly. I'm outta here, come eat some food at Palisade today and help ease my hatred of the place.

One Time @ Bandcamp With... Kendrick Lamar

On the first of October I was kicking back at the Batkave, listening to some tunes contemplating the Das Racist show going down that evening at the Comet. Out of no where I got a call from an unknown number. The conversation went something like this.

ME: "Hello"
Caller: "You wanna talk to Kendrick Lamar"
Me: "................... Yes"

Details were flushed out and what went from being a phone conversation became an in person interview prior to his show at Sodo opening for Tech N9ne. Random pairing, you are telling me.

If you didn't read the review of O(verly) D(edicated) at least get the tape cause this is one of the best albums of the year and deserves your ears.

Kendrick Lamar is an intelligent cat who was personable and very honest. He reps his home hard and I learned his CPT heritage has gotten him on the road in the past with The Game - even visiting our city before in 2008. Certainly not your average twenty three year old rapper. Read up.

Introduce yourself, who is Kendrick Lamar?
Kendrick Lamar is Compton, California. Kendrick Lamar the oldest of four. Both parents, from Chicago, came to Compton in ‘84 had me in ‘87. I like to say Compton a lot because that’s what I represent, I represent everything that it holds. You listen to my music it represents a kid that’s trying his best to duck the influences of the city. That represents everyone that’s living in the city. The influence can be police, peer pressure, gangs, drugs, whatever. That’s me.

You say on one song “Half of yall don’t even know Kendrick” - what should people know?
I think one of the misconceptions is that I’m this overall angel at heart. I tell my stuff from the inside looking around rather than the outside looking in. So when I talk about all these ills and these situations, I’m not knocking it or saying it’s bad because I go through the same shit that everybody else go through. I think that’s one of the biggest misconceptions right now, they put me around this whole conscious thing, but I’m just like every other person that’s living in the city. I’ve been through some shit, negative situations where it’s not cool to glorify the shit. I just gotta show people I’m more like them.

Where did you go to high school?
Centennial High, it was cool too.

When did you start rapping?
I started rapping in 8th grade, matter fact 7th grade I was 13. I got inspired by the DMX album because Pac had died, I felt like there was a void missing in hiphop, DMX came with that same type of motherfucking energy and I just got inspired and started writing. Then I went back and studied all the greats, Pac, Biggie, Nas, Big Daddy Kane, everything, just perfected my craft.

That was a lot of East coast names for a West coast head...
Yeah. I grew up on the West coast, I know it. Truthfully I didn’t like Biggie until after he died. I think everybody can say that but they just too scared to say that shit. I didn't give a fuck I was a downright Tupac fan, fuck everything, Bad Boy killa all that shit. Yeah that was me. I was nine years old, I didn’t give a fuck ignorance was a bliss to me. Shit I seen Tupac in person, in Compton, on Rosecrans. You couldn’t tell me shit. I didn’t give a fuck if Biggie new how to rap good. It was all about Tupac. That was just me being a child not knowing shit. After he died, then i started rapping, then I started realizing this is the shit I like to rap about, same shit Biggie, Jay-Z is kicking. Then I went back, got out of my naive ways, studied that shit. Shout out Biggie rest in peace, Pac all legends.

Your parents grew up in Chicago?
Yeah born and raised.

Did you hear a lot of music from Chicago growing up then?
A lot of oldies, just a lot of oldies. My parents, it’s like... The best way to describe my upbringing is, you ever seen Menace to Society?

Yeah.
Remember when Cain is a kid? They had parties every motherfucking Friday. Drunk, smoking, I got tons of motherfucking cousins and older uncles. There was always music in the house, everyday. They played rap, R&B, oldies, so I grew up on a variety of shit which basically is musical influence for me because that’s how I pick my music as far as instrumentals and beats, a lot soul samples, snare drums. It all comes from that.


Who are some of the producers on OD?
I got mostly in house. Soundwave, King Blue, TaeBeast, Willie B. I got a major producer on there named Wyldfire - he produced the Nas and Jay-Z “Black Republican” track. That’s about it right there.

When you say in house, what is that? Is it your company?
Top Dawg Entertainment. It’s the company I signed with at 16 or 17. The CEO is a dude, Top Dawg himself, I put out a local mixtape when I first jumped in the booth at 16 and I spread it locally. It caught the ear of him and he’s believed since and we moving on.

So OD came out for free, then was gone and only on iTunes. What’s the situation with it?
It’s still floating around there for free. I was batteling my company on putting it out for free from the jump. I felt like everybody wasn’t a believer in Kendrick Lamar yet. The Kendrick Lamar EP did great, better than what I thought it would do but i felt like I still need to put out this free music, I ain’t touched everybody yet. They was like nah. It’s a good thing my people believe in me, think I can actually sell. But I was like let’s put it out for free. So we came to a compromise, we put it out on iTunes, put it out for free for a few days and just let it float and see how many people pick it up and make their own links. At the end of the day it turned out a good thing, it still got out to the people that need to hear it, you can search for it if you really want it, and for the people that bought it, it’s letting me know people still buy music and are looking for it.

Who would you like to work with?
People ask me this all the time... It’s cliche to say like Jay-Z, Nas, Andre3000.

Are there some young cats coming up you are into?
I like a lot of neo soul stuff. India.Aire, Bilal, Floetry. That’s the people I want to work with. I think they so musically inclined that they will take me to that next level that I haven’t been. Even though they doing a whole other genre of music I feel they can open up another motherfucking part of my brain where it’ll make me rap better, or make me put together my music as a whole on another level.


What’s the deal with the Black Hippie project?
Ah the Black Hippies, you know what that whole project and that whole idea was just some shit we were sprinkling out and it just caught motherfucking fire as soon as we threw out a couple tracks. We are everywhere with it right now. We working on a mixtape, album shit. We got a whole lot of motherfucking music in the chamber. We can throw shit out anytime but we just want it to be right and get all the artist projects out and let everybody see each individual artist as their own entity so they will know where we come from. Then see it as a group, Ok here is how it all meshes together.

How did y’all come together?
You know we just fell out the motherfucking sky. Schoolboy Q is from LA, Rock from Watts, Ab-Soul from Carson, I’m from Compton, you know those are all local motherfucking cities. We all around the same age group, high schools ain’t but 10, 5 minutes from each other - LA is a small as a motherfucker man. Everybody know each other. So I fall through the Top Dawg studio one day and see Jay Rock, seen him come through Centennial with his gang, his hood or for a female. Ab-Soul, same with him, knew him through a mutual friend, we just all came together at the end of the day.

What’s next after the tour?
Oh yeah I got the album done. I’m just gonna push this motherfucking OD until the wheels fall off and then hit em across the head with the album shit.



What’s the story with the video you dropped today?
You caught that? That’s crazy, we were just talking about that. You heard the “Heaven & Hell” record? I wanted to go totally left field. The “Heaven & Hell” record is basically a description on heaven and hell, on how I think heaven look from an imaginary perspective and hell being the today world we live in today. So the guy cruising from the first point of view in the car is basically saying through all the red lights in life he never stops. That can be one perception. The second one could be everything that’s going on around him he’s still speeding through. That can be the hell perception. It could be all types of violence, type of shooting, extortion, he’s still getting through to do whatever he has to go do. And then at the end of the video he meets a significant other, somebody that he loves and supports him. The whole process of me making the “Hevean & Hell” record I want people to think, the ultimate high is god. But on a spiritual level sometimes people can’t meet them standards, pray and actually believe he is real. So you need somebody in actual life, in physical form to keep your serenity inside of you. So that’s where you see the lady at the end. The lady can be your brother, your sister, or your pops. You always need somebody at the end of the day to keep you sane in this motherfucking world. That’s actually a piece from 1975 and probably the world is just now seeing that shit, I felt it went right with the music.

You got any last words?
Oh shit go cop that Kendrick Lamar OD, that’s all it’s about right now. Just spreading the word about good motherfucking music. Got G Malone in here. He got this Drive By Music. It’s all motherfucking West coast shit, we just trying to bring it back to where it’s suppose to be, the respect we need.

---

Thanks to Alex for hitting me up while in town and making this happen!

Kendrick Lamar "O(verly) D(edicated)"

The West coast is my place of birth and my home, yet I’ve rarely followed as many artists from my home coast as I do from the land where the sun rises. Maybe I just hold cats from my area to a higher standard? As the South took over the game in recent years and the East became a joke of it’s former self the West has been on a steady uprising seeing artists springing up full of life, lyrics and potential to bring hiphop to the next generation.

Kendrick Lamar is from Compton and unlike his famous neighbors doesn’t claim any set. He saw it all and much like Nas telling us about what he saw from his project windows Kendrick tells us about life. Not just any life though. A life full of pain and sorrow. Happiness and joy. Ups and downs. Good relationships and bad ones.

Where the West coast rappers of the past (by and large, not all) were about colors and a gangster mentality these new kids grew up on that and around it, or in it. Today they are making rap about life from a realistic perspective, talking about aspects of life a generation or two ago wouldn’t of got any white kids in the suburbs blood boiling.

Kendrick Lamar is a terrific emcee who plays with his delivery, voice and intonation (see “Monster” freestyle) to convey the feelings tied to the experiences he is sharing. Be it the hazy “H.O.C.” where he talks about being mistaken for a pothead by teachers, rambles off some serious stoner type philosophy and makes as good a weed song as those two joint rolling brothers or "The Heart Pt.2" where you are introduced to who Kendrick Lamar really is.

His community isn’t far from his mind and he addresses violence, despair and drugs among other uncomfortable topics throughout the tape. “Ignorance is Bliss” was one of the early leaks and is still as moving with the added benefit of two more verses. “Heaven & Hell” shows him going off pretty stream of conscious style about problems in the world today, cliche maybe but not when it’s done on Lamar’s terms.

While he can get serious on you, he doesn’t forget about the party and has a couple up beat jams here for the good times. “I Do This (Remix)” sees U-N-I, Skeme & Brown joining the Kendrick and Jay Rock for their previous collaboration. Over a monstrous beat these guys crank the energy up to 10. Ab Soul shows up here for “P&P1.5” where they talk about the two vices in their lives, pussy and Patron. Far from an ignorant song about getting drunk and banging, this is an intense examination of how each affect life positively and negatively.

Musically the album is rich and warm. It rarely shows off any traditional “West” coast type sound. “Michael Jordan” brings to mind the crunk of Lil Jon cut with a thick kush filled swisher. Somtimes some horns will blast, but mostly it’s subtle drums, soft piano chords and spacy synthesizers. Perhaps this further proves how much of an instrument Kendrick’s voice is as nothing ever sounds soft here, no matter how “soft” those sounds i just described might seem.

O(verly) D(edicted) is a great release. It’s a tough release. It’s not going to win just anyone over. It’s deep. It’s heavy. It’s not always happy. But it’s full of knowledge and insight. Kendrick Lamar runs with a crew that calls themselves Black Hippies and this is certainly some freedom music for the people. Perhaps Dr. Dre gave him the nod because this is what modern day gangsta rap should be?

Unfortunately it appears Kendrick Lamar's bandcamp site has been taken down. I swiped this link from the dope house, my bad guys. If you do anything today, download and listen to this tape.

The Left Coast Revival

While us North Westerners stay on our 206, 253, and 503 shit we really can’t forget about our coastal brethren down in Cali. LA has stayed in my mind largely in part to Flying Lotus and his Brainfeeder collective along with the weekly that goes hand in hand with the crew, Low End Theory.

While the city that delivered some of the most timeless hip hop jams the culture has seen, in recent years it’s seen a decline in quality emcees dropping knowledge like their roots demand. As the lyricists lost their way it gave rise to the beat makers to step forward and flourish. Doing their own thing, taking cues from no one and merging more styles together than anyone should ever get away with, something new has been brewing.

Teebs is about to unleash his full length on to the public, I don’t want to spoil to much just yet nor am I truly ready to as I just sunk my brain into it once this evening. I will say this, while in the cloud and riding the bus home at midnight Ardour was the perfect sonic background. Almost celestial in nature, he shows yet another dimension to the “beat” movement we are witnessing.

While at the Airliner beats drop so hard you’d think they were sent back through time for us to get fucked up to, another LA native and long time music maker has just unleashed his debut opus. A saxophone player since his youth, Terrace Martin named his jump off after the Marvin Gaye album of the same title Here, My Dear - playing on the same theme the record is full of love talk, sentimental mood music and heartfelt verses about love and the pain it can lead too.

Martin has been a presence in the LA Hip Hop scene for ages, and with the release of Here, My Dear we are blessed with an at times self indulgent, but always forward progressing release that shows the kind of innovation we used to expect from the town and today isn’t seen from anyone making your standard hip hop stylings. He breaks out his saxophone all over the record, merges live instrumentation and beat making techniques like we haven’t heard since Dr. Dre in his prime. Love me some West coast grooves.

Those classic grooves were brought to life by passionate emcees who had voices for the ages. Ice Cube kept us all in tune with his tales of inner city violence, race relations and more - his intelligence amazed some and only fed others to come stronger, better. I just turned off Cube’s latest album. Gone is the fury to make me pay attention. And it’s not even a matter of good or bad, it just is. It sits their in your speakers and earhole, unwavering. Flat. Lifeless.

What did I put on? More of that new west coast shit! Kendrick Lamar has that anger. He makes music you feel. He spits raw, letting his voice crack. Listening to the first track off of O(verly) D(edicated) I can’t help but feel like the ghost of Cube is hanging out above the beat. This is that Amerikkka’s Most Wanted type dope.

While the world awaits for Game to drop another album - as long as he name checks these cats here, their friends and pulls beats from FlyLo’s archives I’ll check for it - and once again save the West three cats have done it three times in the span of a week for me! Stop pondering fates of dead paths tied to lost causes and open your ears to what’s around you and live around all the music you can.

Kendrick Lamar "Monster (Freestyle)"

Kendrick Lamar - "Monster" from CALMATIC on Vimeo.

Waking up with an hour to post something before work means I got time to post one thing for yall in the morn. Well Lamar is a captivating dude! This had to get out. I love how he spits the verse hella aggressive but yet is smiling and laughing throughout, letting you know this black hippie is just having fun with it. KILLS the beat!

"I'm the best rapper alive tell Lil Wayne to swallow his pride"

Download his tape when it drops and grab his first project on the bandcamp!