Smithsonian Institute is planning a great exhibition which delves into the founding aspects of Hip-Hop culture. This is a good opportunity to re-expose some of the earlier artists but hopefully it can also be structured in a way as to provide a balanced view of the varying sub-cultures that arose throughout the years. Link

The museum, part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., is announcing its plans to embark on a collecting initiative, “Hip-Hop Won’t Stop: The Beat, The Rhymes, The Life.”

The project, which will collect objects that trace hip-hop’s origins in the Bronx in the 1970s to its current global reach to form a permanent collection, is expected to cost as much as $2 million and take up to five years to complete.

Museum officials have yet to raise the money, which will come from private donors. They plan to use the funds to pay for artifacts, record oral histories, hold consultations with advisory groups and mount an exhibit telling hip-hop’s story.

Hip-hop culture, whose main elements include rappers, disc jockeys and breakdancers, is considered one of the most powerful cultural explosions ever. Today it’s incorporated into marketing to sell everything from cars and clothing to food and furniture.

Gentle Jones gives us a nice revealing interview with Myka9. Citrus Sessions getting bootlegged? Ghostwriting for NWA? Link, previously: New Myka9 Album For Free - Citrus Sessions, [AUDIO] Myka 9 radio/interview in Hawaii (side note: can someone start a petition to get those annoying text ads out of allhiphop and sohh articles, c’mon! Do y’all really get clicks? Is it really worth it?)

From Busdriversite

Busdriver’s new record
Busdriver has signed on with Epitaph for his upcoming release. With production being tackled by Nobody and Boom Bip respectively, it’s expected to exhibit a musical depth that has only been hinted at in the past. Expect it in the Fall.

What do Kid Koala, Odd Nosdam, Doseone, Jel, Dale Crover of The Melvins, Massive Attack, Dan “The Automator” Nakamura, Rahzel, DJ Muggs, Amon Tobin, Bebel Gilberto, Dub Trio, DJ Disk and Kool Keith all have in common? Mike Patton. Link

Although not explicitly stated, it appears SonyBMG intends to promote it’s artists by means of hiring fake fans. Copied below is a summary of the job ad which describes the position. We don’t mean to pick on Sony because it is pretty well known in marketing circles that “word of mouth” campaigns can be created by hired individuals very easily and I know from first hand experience that SonyBMG is not the only media company which employs this strategy. But what gets to us is that Sony has time and time again promised to stop deceiving it’s customers. From marketing movies to selling CDs to promoting musicians, will media companies like Sony ever concentrate on developing talent and quality work instead of trying to dupe customers or pay off radio djs? nytimes brief, Sony admits fake fans on ad, Sony fined $1M for lying

Unpaid Shills Wanted Sony BMG, fresh from being exposed by a blogger for planting stealth, and potentially dangerous, antipiracy code in some of its CD’s, is seeking interns to plug its artists online. The interns will promote artists in Web communities where many people go specifically to share music without the influence of corporate marketers. “Do you blog, have lots of friends at your MySpace page, and love music?” its ad at entertainmentcareers.net asks. Epic Records, a Sony BMG imprint, “is looking for skilled, motivated interns to promote artists on social networking sites like MySpace, Purevolume, Facebook and others.” The ad doesn’t say whether the interns will identify themselves to their online “friends” as agents of Sony BMG. But they’ll get college credit (for this unpaid job, Sony BMG only wants applicants eligible for that) and a bullet point for their résumés, so what’s the difference?

I am pretty fortunate. I got to see Wu-Tang Clan Live at the Hammerstein Ballroom on Valentine’s Day. I won’t go into some long drawn-out review of how I felt during the performance. I won’t go into how dope it was to see the surviving eight members go through classic after classic for 90 minutes. I won’t go into how it felt to sense everyone’s energy as we all screamed at the top of our lungs every line for every verse for every song. I won’t go into how great it was to see ODB’s mom on stage getting a tribute from the crowd as countless lighters and cell phone screens shattered through the dark venue, all while the group performed Shimmy Shimmy Ya and Brooklyn Zoo in almost total darkness. I won’t go into how cool it was to see the group clowning around on stage, squelching any rumors of tensions and grumblings between the members. And lastly, I won’t go into how it felt after the show was done and everyone had left the stage. Instead, I will post some pictures someone else took. Someone who was much closer than I was. I will also post an unofficial set list from what I can remember.

Pictures

Unofficial Set List
Wu-Tang Clan - Bring Da Ruckus
Wu-Tang Clan - Clan In Da Front
Wu-Tang Clan - Can It Be All So Simple
Wu-Tang Clan - Da Mystery Of Chessboxin’
Wu-Tang Clan - Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthing Ta F’ Wit
Wu-Tang Clan - C.R.E.A.M.
Wu-Tang Clan - Method Man
Wu-Tang Clan - Protect Ya Neck
Wu-Tang Clan - Tearz
Wu-Tang Clan - Reunited
Wu-Tang Clan - For Heaven’s Sake
Wu-Tang Clan - It’s Yourz
Wu-Tang Clan - Triumph
Wu-Tang Clan - Older Gods
Wu-Tang Clan - One Blood Under W
Method Man - Bring The Pain
Raekwon - Incarcerated Scarfaces
Raekwon - Criminology
Raekwon - Glaciers Of Ice
Raekwon - Ice Cream
Ghostface Killah - Fish
Ghostface Killah - Run
Gza - Shadowboxin’
Gza - Duel Of The Iron Mic
Gza - Liquid Swords
Gza - 4th Chamber
ODB - Shimmy Shimmy Ya
ODB - Brooklyn Zoo
Inspectah Deck - Rec Room
Masta Killah - No Said Date
Cappadonna - Slang Editorial
Cappadonna - Winter Warz verse over Biggie’s Who Shot Ya instrumental
Rza - We Pop

Here’s a poem recited by Saul Williams on a recent MTV2 commercial. It’s somewhat brief but still great stuff.

Cities play upon our souls like broken drums
We drum the essence of creation from city slums
But city slums mute our drums
And our drums become hum drum

‘cause city slums have never been where our drums were from
Just the place where daughters and sons become offbeat heartbeats
Slaves to city streets where hearts get broken
When heart beats stop
Broken heartbeats become breakbeats for niggas to rhyme on top

But they rhyme about nothing
They don’t have nothing to rhyme about ‘cause they’ve never seen the
moon
Your styles can’t be universal if you’re not intuned with the wind

12 Jewelz - Foolish Mentality Produced by Dj Greyboy

This song was released on vinyl somewhere around 1997 via Dj Greyboy’s P-Jays label. Record featured two tracks, Outside World b/w Foolish Mentality. According to news reports floating around Eastern Europe, 12 jewelz disbanded few years ago. Greyboy has been runnin’ dolo releasing jazzier music. Sha Dula working on stuff with Open Mynds Entertainment. Respect due. Re(tro)spect.

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GRANDGOOD AUDIOCAST: Generally we feature newly released Contemporary Rap, as played by people from GRANDGOOD. Broadcasted on the eleventh of each month. Visit www.grandgood.com for more info. Try one of our channels.

In the same vein as Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, Hell Razah from Sunz Of Man breaks down their first album track-by-track. Link to article

Shining Star - The story behind “Shining Star” is so deep. The original track was done by me and Priest and RZA had done this beat. We were out in Cali. We recorded 85% of this album out there. This is when Wu-Tang was out there doing “Wu-Tang Forever.” We had done the original song. I ran into Wyclef at “The Jungle” shit for Muhammad Ali at Radio City. We were talking about doing a song together. I had lost contact with Lauryn Hill, but I had a talk with Wyclef about how he felt about doing a track for us. The track that he had originally gave us, we had tracked it up, but we really wanted to make history with him. We were like, “Yo, we need a beat for this “Shining Star” remake of an Earth, Wind, and Fire joint. The second version we had done sounded like some roller-skate-type shit. We needed something gritty. We didnt want to sound pop.

We recorded it with Earth, Wind, and Fire. This wasnt no Pro Tools shit. We were with them! We met their family, their kids…we had done this song and Dirty came to the studio, Rest in Peace, ODB came to the studio and when he heard this…he had been with Wyclef doing “Ghetto Superstar.” When we had done “Shining Star,” it was kind of weird because Pras came into our studio and asked ODB to do a verse for “Ghetto Superstar.” We were bugging at the time because we didnt know they were going to call that “Ghetto Superstar.” We felt that some funny stuff was happening. Were doing “Shining Star” and now youre doing “Ghetto Superstar”? It went down, we did the track with Earth, Wind, and Fire.

Wyclef was real good. I have footage coming out on a DVD showing the making of this song. Wyclef came in and got us to chop our verses down to eight bars. Wyclef thought we should break it into pieces where we all come in sporadically. This came out incredible. When we finished it, we were like, “This song right here is history” It took a lot to get this song done, and we earned Earth, Wind, and Fires respect because they had never heard anyone rap on some positive and spiritual vibes before.

Jay Dee will be missed by many. If you’re not exactly sure why, this is for you. Comprehensive compilation of his work, 3 volumes, 46 tracks in all. Link (via mental combat)

update 021406: A lot of great mixes in his honor floating around

hiphopmusic
sophisticated and coarse
straight bangin
vinyl addicts

A Rolling Shout-Out To Hip-Hop History, high tourism potential for the South Bronx? Link (registration required, or use bugmenot)

As the tour wound down and the bus headed south from Harlem down Fifth Avenue, Caz stood up at the front and regaled the crowd with rhymes extolling the old school. The tour de force is a rap called “Before,” in which Caz makes a grand metaphysical boast in behalf of hip-hop itself: “Before Reganomics/ Before rappers got shot in their stomachs/ Before Britney, Mariah and Janet/ Before Soul Sonic Force rocked the planet/ In its lyrical form and in the essence of time, by no means get it twisted/ My name is hip-hop, and I have always existed.”

Mostly new music from 7inch vinyl, free mp3 albums and dying cd releases. Please go out and support your favorite artists and they will support you. Don’t just be a spectator, participation is critical.

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Marrow Of The Mind - 88 To Rochelle Link
Alkaholics - Do It Link
Myka Nyne - Me And My Girl Link
Serengeti - Brad And Jen Link
Polyphonic - Rumors Of War Link
Louis Logic - Strange Link
Blueprint + Illogic - Kill The Machine Link
Orko Elhoeem - Our Daily Bread Link
Grayskul + Qwel - Ant-Glitter Link
Main Flow + Donte - Roulette Link
Dextah - Untitled Link
Roc Raida + Fat Joe - The Truth remix Link
MF Grimm - Book Of Daniel Link

GRANDGOOD AUDIOCAST: Generally we feature newly released Contemporary Rap, as played by people from GRANDGOOD. Broadcasted on the eleventh of each month. Visit www.grandgood.com for more info. Try one of our channels.

Kool Keith is one funny dude. Link

We are a group of concerned world citizens that are calling for transparency and acknowledgement of a secret agency also known as NOGATCO (National Objectives for Governmental Astral-Terrestrial Covert Operations).

In the same vein of the successful WuTang Meets Indie Culture compilation, Nature Sounds has seen the light and is planning on releasing an album featuring a wide array of artists. Link

A host of hip-hop notables have lent tracks to the compilation “Natural Selection,” due April 4 via Nature Sounds. The 11-track set is led by the track “Angeles” from the buzzed-about collaboration between Ghostface and MF Doom and “The PJs,” a Pete Rock track featuring Raekwon and Masta Killah that will be found on Rock’s upcoming album, “NY’s Finest.”The collection is rounded out by two cuts from Strong Arm Steady (comprised of Xzibit, Phil The Agony, Krondon and Mitchy Slick), one which features Chamillionaire and Ras Kass, Masta Killa’s “Ringing Bells” and a Raekwon/Tragedy pairing on “Guerilla Rap.”

Confused essay trying to argue for the reevaluation of the moniker Hip-Hop. It fails, in my opinion, to recognize that “progressive” Hip-Hop has existed continuously since the 80s, you just can’t come across it regularly on popular radio or tv. But it is there so what’s the point in arguing that it needs to be reborn or something? Just because confused marketers use the term Hip-Hop without serious regard for what it means to the original generation, does that mean Hip-Hop itself has changed? Link

Three part interview with Lord Finesse.

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

About your latest project, the “Funky Technician” remix project. How did that happen and why did it happen?
That happened because I was talking with Buckwild about doing instrumentals; an instrumental album for the first album. Which I did, I’ve got that done. It was like why won’t we remix some of the old joints. It’ll also have a few bonus cuts like “S.K.I.T.S. remix”, “You know what I’m about remix”. I’ve got a version Muro did for me. It’s coming along but I just want it to be an album that you just pick up and enjoy you know. As a matter of fact I will put up a second verse by O.C. on the “S.K.I.T.S. remix”.

Which one of your LP’s do you like the best?
“Funky Technician”… the hunger! When you do your second and third album, the hunger is never the same as the first album. ‘Cause like I said I was living at my grandmother, I didn’t have no money, I was on a come up…Once you get money you buy gear and cars and chains, you’re more feeling the females. You might not have been getting that many females, so a lot of your time goes out to fucking a female. You’re not focussing on writing rhymes, you’re focussing on going to a party, sliding-off with this chick and go to her crib!

Props to Delicious Vinyl, Spike Jonze and Fatlip for making great videos. This one is for the optimistic song Worst Case Scenario, from Fatlip’s recently released album Thelonliest Punk. Like my man says sometimes when things get rough, “…at least we’re not in Serbia or some sh*t.” Link, previously: Download Fatlip Documentary By Spike Jonze!, Audiocast No. 111105: What It’s All About