Nyle

Remember Nyle? Sure you do. I blogged about him a while back for this:


Nyle "Let The Beat Build" from Nyle on Vimeo.


Well I followed up on him, looking for more music and information. And I found a hidden gem in Nyle (pronounced Ny-lee maybe, he says both, so like, wtf). And guess what? Another Philly born talent. I love this shit. He goes to school at NYU and made the above video there with a bunch of his class mates. You really gotta hear this kid go. Using covers of artists like Jack Johnson and sampling songs like "Take a Walk on the Wild Side," Nyle does it all.

Don't take my word for it though, check out his music with this incredibly easy mp3 player from his website. I'm going to feature a song on my dropbox for you guys, but I'm also going to include the inredibly easy mp3 player from his website that you can listen to and download directly from (well, from 'Frosh' at least), so you can listen to all of his stuff if you want.

Nyle - Wildkick (drop)

Nyle Music 1 (Frosh)
Nyle Music 2 (S'mores)
If you're from Philly or my area, which I know almost all of you are, be sure to check out Bye Philly from this second link. Mad shoutouts to Philly, cheesesteaks, Will Smith, Wawa, Ritas, South Street, the attack on Santa Clause, and more in it. You'll love this song, it's not often someone raps (well) about things we actually know.

"But Philly, it's not you, it's me, can't you see?"

Check out NYU too if you only are gonna listen to a couple songs.

His website here.

Aime

I really have nothing on this kid, I'mma get on it though, cause this kid is fire. I stumbled upon him while perusing through some illRoots posts.

And what do you know? Another hot artist from a Philly school. Straight outta Temple University, allow me to introduce you to Aime.

Aime - Dope Boys
Aime - Swag of a College Kid
Aime Feat. Samantha Rise - 2 Tantric
Aime - Heartbreaker
Aime - Aime for the Basics

Hey Temple kids, recognize any of these places?



His flow is nice, and his lyricism and witty rhymes are outstanding, as is his use of samples and different instrumentation. The diversity of his music is seen in these 5 songs alone. Telling a story with his rhymes and music in Heartbreaker, a comparison can easily be drawn to Atmosphere. The moods of his songs vary as well, with Heartbreaker being slow and serious, 2 Trantric being smooth and laid back, and Dope Boys hitting hard. Kid's got talent.

I'm gonna keep an eye on this kid for new music and info. In the mean time, enjoy the rhymes and flow of Aime.

Be By Myself

Asher dropped the video for Be By Myself. It's pretty abstract and artistic. I dig it. Something's a little funky with the video, about 2 minutes in, I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to be in there, and it cuts out earlier than the released track does, not sure if that's on purpose. It's all good.

Asher Roth Feat. Cee-Lo - Be By Myself

Stay Fly

Pulled directly from White Folks Get Crunk comes this Luny P remix of Three 6 Mafia's Stay Fly. It's infinity times faster, got a nice heavy house beat behind it, and just gives the song a new feel. Chickety check it.

Props to White Folks, this drop is right from their website.

Three 6 Mafia - Stay Fly (Luny P Remix)

Let Love Rule

Over 20 years ago, Lenny Kravitz released an album entitled "Let Love Rule." 6 years later, the album was certified gold.

The hit single, "Let Love Rule," became immensely popular and Lenny Kravitz was shot to the top of the charts. But you've most likely never heard the track, because when it comes down to it, it's been lost amongst the new age music, and the original track is somewhat lackluster, although I still enjoy it. The saxophone solo is really impressive at the very least.

Many years later, Let Love Rule, the album, was re-released, and who comes along to remix the hit single? Justice! (You know Justice, these guys created D.A.N.C.E.) Check out their rendition of the song, but I also recommend checking out the original so you will better appreciate this remix. The electronic feel and bass in this remix has Justice written all over it. The electric accompaniment to the sax solo is outstanding.

Lenny Kravitz - Let Love Rule
Lenny Kravitz - Let Love Rule (Justice Remix)

And if you haven't guessed, sorry hip hop lovers, you will find your stereotypical hip hop neither in Lenny Kravitz nor Justice.

White Rappers

Asher and Rick Ross's albums were released the same week (maybe same day, I don't know or care too much), in case you haven't heard. Well, that's not the only thing they faced off in.





And a new Eminem track off of Relapse. It's 'eh.' May 19th debuts the comeback of Eminem.
Eminem - 3 AM (drop)

Basement Jaxx...And Lil' Wayne

Whatchu know about Basement Jaxx? Probably not much. Well they sing "Where's Your Head At?" That's some 2001 ish, but at least you know who they are. Bet you didn't think that they looked like this though. They're an electro-house duo from the UK who know how to rock your face off.

Well fresh off their newest album, appropriately named, "The Return of Basement Jaxx," comes this.

Basement Jaxx - Raindrops (drop)

This is far from anything remotely close to hip hop, so sorry hip hop lovers. My advice? Turn this up to at least eleven and rock your fucking face off.


Oh yeah, and this sounds like it could possibly be Lil' Wayne's next radio jam once it makes the jump from internet to mainstream; it sounds extremely radio friendly to me. And the radio loves Kevin Rudolf.

Lil' Wayne Feat. Kevin Rudolf - Spit (drop)

"Sayin hey ohhh, whoaa oohh ohh"

2 Weeks of Hip-Hop

Jacked straight from The Tape (cause they're the shit), link and all, is the new Hood Internet jam.

The Hood Internet- Two Weeks Of Hip Hop (Dead Prez vs Grizzly Bear) (direct)

"And it don't stop 'till we get the po-po off the block."

Quickie News and Track

Quickie. Some news and a random song.

Asher Roth's 'Asleep in the Bread Aisle' rocketed to the number 1 album on iTunes before 24 hours had even passed. Universal Records undershipped his album around the country, guess they didn't expect it to do so well. They're more than 200,000 albums short, or so rumor (illroots) has it. The album is sick, but I'll save that for another post, another time.

New jam from Ron Browz, Keri Hilson and Juelz Santana, called Simple.

Let The Beat Build

Nyle "Let The Beat Build" from Nyle on Vimeo.


Take a seat Lil' Wayne and make way for Nyle.

Lay You Down

Snagged this one from Leak Jones.


Tyga Feat. Lil' Wayne - Lay You Down (drop)

You can probably guess what kind of song this is just by my taste in hip hop. Smooth rap again. It's not often I'll feature Lil' Wayne, but Wayne really just sits back on this song for the most part. If you didn't know any better, you'd guess he was humble, opening the song with "Hello world, my name is not important. Today is about Tyga."

A little about Tyga. This Compton rapper is cousins with Travis McCoy, the lead singer of Gym Class Heroes. He gained recognition by opening for Gym Class Heroes and Fall Out Boy. His track, Diamond Life, was featured in Madden 09 but his most popular song is probably "Coconut Juice," the video below. He signed onto Young Money Entertainment (Lil' Wayne's record label), and Decaydance Records (Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy's label), so we can definitely expect to see more of this kid.

More Chiddy Bang

I can't stay away from these guys. They haven't let me down with a single track yet. Information on the group is pretty scarce, but I can tell you a few things about them. The Philadelphia group consists a four freshmen in college, and are made up of a vocalist, keyboardist/producer, drummer/producer and guitarist. I'm sure each does more than one job in this group though. So basically, their music begins and ends with them only. From the beatmaking and lyric writing to the final production, Chiddy Bang takes care of it all. Their biggest introduction to the public came when they had the opportunity to open for Jazzy Jeff and Mike Jones.

I can bet we'll be hearing from these guys more often.

I was surfin' around their myspace and their webpage, and found a link to a handful of their releases. The flow, creativity and overall sound of the group makes it all the more astounding that they haven't blown up to epic proportions yet. But they will. And you'll have known them first.

Chiddy Bang's SoundCloud Page (6 separate tracks)

C-C-C-C-Cudi

Cudi's got a new one. Talk about chill rap. I fucking love this guy.

KiD CuDi - Higher Up (drop)

"If I was ever wrong, this moment ain't it."

New Cudi mixtape drops Monday.

Speaking of Cudi, you might as well grab this new Chiddy Bang track I copped from Pretty Much Amazing.

Chiddy Bang - Day N Night (direct)

Don't Buy Asher's Album

You may remember Hollywood's "Don't Vote" video I posted a while ago. Oh, you don't? You don't actually read anything I write? Perfect! Cause here it is again!



Well Asher made his own spin.



"Yo, real talk, Asher Roth caused the recession."

Asleep in the Bread Aisle, 4/20.

EDIT: I think they took down the video. Sorry!

Shankbone

Shankbone is another artist I discovered on thesixtyone a while back. They were my favorite artist from there for a long time for their fun raps and songs. If beer has drinkability, Shankbone has listenability. Easy listening that's always enjoyable. They're not exactly lyrically profound, but their rhymes definitely have nice flow, and the beats are legit. I'm impressed, especially considering this stuff came out a while back, and they're seniors in high school now and they started in 7th grade. Enjoy the fun and impressive songs of Shankbone. For more information on the group and more completely legit (and some more serious) songs, check out their myspace page, here. All of the songs on their myspace are different than these, and some of them are pretty awesome, in particluar "Chillah Perhaps" and "Beat Goes On."

(Only pictures I could find of them we're from their page)

Shankbone - What a Night (drop)
Shankbone - Pressure Drop (drop)
Shankbone - What Can I Say? (drop)
Shankbone - Roller Coaster (drop)

Jurassic 5

"I'm not trying to say my style is better than yours, I'm just on some other shit"

Jurassic 5 - Concrete Schoolyard

It's been a while since I've reviewed an artist or song. But Jurassic 5 are an artist too talented and too under appreciated to let slide by. Jurassic 5, which consisted of Charlie 2na, Akil, Zaakir (Soup), Mark 7ever and DJs Nu-Mark and Cut Chemist, started in LA and began their career by releasing Jurassic 5 EP in'97. Often compared to De La Soul or A Tribe Called Quest, Jurassic 5's tracks consisted of meaningful and topical lyrics, often touching on the subject of rappers losing themselves in the fame and wealth. (I often wonder if these MC's even know how it feels/ To dedicate they whole life to this mic of steel./Its not about the bills, that's not keeping it real./ A lot of tight rappers out here ain't got no deals).

Jurassic 5 later broke up in 2007 for reasons not known for certain.

Concrete Schoolyard opens up with that familiar smooth feel to it that I've grown so attached to. It's not just the music the flows smoothly though. This song is a true definition of smooth rap. Each verse is being sang/rapped by a different MC, often switching off line by line, like the first verse. It's so smoothly done, you might not even notice that every other line is different MC. The pattern works harminously, switching off lines and coming together as one at the end of the verses. The voices match the music dynamics as well, most notably would be when Charlie 2na starts his voice in his characterisitc unbelievably deep voice; as he begins, the highs drop out leaving mostly bass, but not enough bass to overwhelm Charlie's voice or the listener's ears. The ability to bring all of the MCs together to sound as one is a talented skill that Jurassic 5 flaunts in almost every track of theres.

Lyrically, the song hits the subject of rappers becoming too obsessed with money and fame, all the while showcasing some of J5's own rhymes and promoting themselves in typical rapper fashion. Claiming to bring it back to the old days, before popularity/money was the most important aspect of music, in the chorus of the song, the group just does that.
"Let's take you back to the concrete streets/ Original beats with real live mc's/ Playground tactics/ No rabbit in a hat tricks/ Just that classic/ Rap shit from Jurassic"

Jurassic 5 - Concrete Schoolyard (drop)


And a great video that Jurassic 5 and Dave Matthews Band created for their single "Work it Out." I need not comment on the political satire in this. It's funny and satirical. It's like J5's Southpark.

Jimmy Rollins

Thanks to The Tape for this one, I'm just going to link their direct link. Jimmy Rollins spitting mad fire on this track. Yes, Jimmy Rollins as in the Philadelphia Phillies shortstop. Thank God he's good at baseball at least.

Jimmy Rollins - I Wish (direct)

Gone For the Weekend

I'm going to GW for the weekend, so there won't be any posts till Sunday night(ish). I'll leave with you some news and a song or two though.

First some news,

The death of the skillfull mashup is approaching rapidly. Definitely could have seen it coming for a while now. Now you can choose two songs, and that's it. The computer will do the work, including the change of tempos and key...click the "merge" button and that's it. You're a DJ now. Great.

Asher Roth released/had leaked a snippet of "Am I Em," featuring Chester French, from Asleep in the Bread Aisle, you can find it pretty easily I'm sure. I'm done posting tracks from the album, in order to keep some suspense. The album should be awesome if everything is this unique and skillfull. I only listened to this snippet once but it sounded like he was rapping/singing over the instrumentals played backwards at one point, something I haven't seen in any music in a long time.

If you peruse through a lot of music blogs and hate clicking through the ads of sharebee, etc., and waiting for the 45 seconds and whatnot, awesome news. Super awesome invention right here, called the SkipScreen, for Firefox. No more waiting and clicking through ads after you download this.

I found out with this drop website, my space is limited, so I'm going to be deleting songs a week or so after I post them. I'll delete em as I need em, shouldn't be a huge issue, you just won't be able to back in my posts from a while back and access the drop file.

This is funny. PETA asks the Pet Shop Boys to change their name.

Let's get to some music,

Ivan Ives Feat. Cappadonna of Wu-Tang - Honor (drop)

Girl Talk - Knife (Grizzly Bear Feat. Clipse Remix)
Girl Talk - Let's Call It Off (Peter Bjorn And John Remix)

Girl Talk that you may not have known? Yeah, weird, right? It's old news though so I'm sure some of you know it. I like when he remixes a single song though.

I'm taking a history of rock n' roll in the 70s and 80s class, last week we found out the song that singlehandedly brought copyright issues to the forefront. And it's by a band you wouldn't have expected, at least not I. Especially after the Beastie Boys got away with releasing a #1 hit, quite deliberately called "Rhymin' And Stealin'", featuring samples of Zeppelin and others. Anyways, De La Soul inadvertently jumpstarted the copyright revolution when they were sued by The Turtles for sampling the Turtles' "You Showed Me." When The Turtles won the million dollar lawsuit, the standard had been set, everything needed to be cleared from then on out. Of course, the laws put in place weren't as complex as they are now; you needed to get permission, include the sampled artist(s) in the track information, and if the artist wanted, you had to pay money up front for the use of it. I couldn't find the mp3 of De La Soul's controversial sampled song "Transmitting Live From Mars," but I snagged another heavily sampled song from the same album, sampling Otis Redding, Sly & The Family Stone, and Steely Dan.

De La Soul - Eye Know (drop)

Hood Dreamer

Pulled this one from Leakjones, which D Liff tipped me off to a little while back.

Willy Northpole Feat. Bobby Ray (aka B.o.B)- Hood Dreamer

Kids

You all know the song Kids by MGMT, if you don't know, then shame on you, but there it is, linked. This post isn't about MGMT though, well, sort of. It's about Chiddy Bang. Some freshmen college kids from Philly, represent. They're relatively unknown, but I advise you remember their name. They've only got a few songs left, but rhymes and beats like you've never heard. Feels good to get some fresh air of music in this top-40 type music we've been enveloped in lately.

"Can I please get a little bit of knowledge? Somebody tell Roth that I don't love college."

Chiddy Bang Feat. MGMT - Kids (drop)

Check out the rest of their music here, at their myspace.

Awkward

Here's an oldie. Thanks CollegeHumor.

Awkward rap:



"Excuse me, I cannot reach the top rack. Oh you don't work here, you're just black? Awkward!"

New Eminem

Em drops his latest, "We Made You," and what do you know? It sounds exaaaaaaactly like his old stuff. This doesn't blow me away really, but it's good to see Em back. Jessica Simpson on the hook, really? Not sure. The video is hilarious though, enjoy "cameos" of Jessica Simpson, Elvis, Sarah Palin, Tony Romo, Britney Spears, Jennifer Aniston, John Mayer, Amy Winehouse and the Rain Man. No mercy from Eminem on this one.But also, real cameos of Dre and 50, the 3 headed monster, even if they don't have any airtime in the song.

"Relapse" comes out May 19th.



Eminem - We Made You (drop)

Stand By Me

It's amazing when you think of music on a larger scale, past just the shallow songs we've come to obsess over as a country. It's something that every nation and every person can have in common and it's something that can bring people together, regardless of race, religion, social status or location.



Find out more about the foundation that put it together and see more videos similar to this one here, at the Playing for Change website.

Asher Again

Chances are, if any more Asher tracks leak from his CD, I'm not gonna post it. I don't want to contribute to another 808s and Heartbreak internet leaking massacre. But maybe this is an official release, I'm not sure. This is a hot track, a great indicator of how good this CD will be. "Asleep in the Bread Aisle," 2 weeks from today, be ready.

Asher Roth Feat. Cee-Lo - Be By Myself (drop)

You may or may not recognize Cee-Lo from Gnarles Barkley.

Told You So

As predicted, the CDQ of Cudi, Common, and Kanye's track, with A-Trak on the cuts, is out. Here ya go! Bask in its greatness. Eat it Lady GaGa.

"I got seniority, with the sororities, so that explains why 'I love college.'"

Kid Cudi feat. Common & Kanye West - I Poke Her Face (drop)


And The Lonely Island made another video for another hilarious track off of Incredibad. Featuring Seth Rogan too!

Beastie Boys

This is one of the million reasons the Beastie Boys are better than you.




I watch this like twice a day. Thought I'd share my favorite clip of my favorite group with you guys. They just look like they're having such a good time. And they're unbelievably creative with their performances, coming up from the subway and so on.

New Assshhaaa

The bonus track off of Asher's "Asleep in the Bread Aisle" has been released. I'm listening to it for the first time literally right now, as I type this. So I'm withholding judgment and any analysis on it, again.

Asher Roth Ft. Beanie Sigel & Rock City - Perfectionist (drop)


New Cudi/Common/Kanye joint, with A-Track on the cuts, on the way called "Poker Face." The song sounds sick, but the only copy out that I know of right now is a radio rip that sounds like crap. Give it a day or two while we wait for CDQ (CD quality).

Ivan Ives Pt. 2

Okay. Here's the scoop on Ivan Ives. He's fucking sick.

Checked out his website, found some more music, and some information about him. He's a talented lyricists with a lot of witty rhymes and some nice plays on words. The Rolling Stone named him one of the top 40 artists to look out for. He's from LA and signed on to No Threshold Records. I snagged a mixtape that I'm in the midst of listening to now, I'll probably post the bests of it, or the whole thing, on here when I'm through it.

On his website though, he's got videos and videos and videos of some of his music. So to wet your appetites of good music, here are a couple of my favorites. Go over to his page and check it all out.

Ivan Ives

I literally have nothing on this guy. No idea who he is, and what his deal is. I can't even find an mp3 for the song I'm featuring. But it's sick. Stay tuned for info and a possible mp3 of this song.

Ivan Ives - Villain

Pokah Face

I couldn't even listen to this song until this Pete Rock remix came along. The original drives me fucking nuts. This remix sucks the dancy aspect (like there was any there to begin with) out of the song and transforms it into a chill, chill, mellow song.

Lady GaGa - Poker Face (Pete Rock Remix) (drop)

Oh Asher

No words.


Asher Roth April 20th from Album out 4-20 on Vimeo.


And the original.

Outkast

With Andre 3000 in the news and all for being pulled over for speeding at some ridiculous speed, probably 90 in a 65, I thought I'd bring back some old 1996 Outkast, and an old remix of Outkast, that I'm a huge fan of. I think this song kinda slipped through the cracks, but you may recognize the chorus if you don't know the song, and chances are you'll be singing it all day after hearing it regardless if you know the song already or not.

Outkast - ATLiens (drop)
Outkast vs. MF Doom - ATLiens (Remix) (drop)

How's everyone liking this new 'drop' form of sharing?

P.S. Found a site meter to track the traffic through this site. Siiick.