Tag Archives: Hip-Hop

Beastie Boys ft. Santigold- “Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win”

12 Jul

I can’t wait for July 19 when Spike Jonze’s video for the Beastie Boys’ “Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win” featuring Santigold drops; but in the meantime here’s Major Lazer’s remix of the track off Hot Sauce Committee Part Two.

New Music: Sublime with Rome ft. Wiz Khalifa – “Can You Feel It”

29 Jun

Putting the finishing touches on what should be a killer summer playlist and I figure why not tease it a little with this new track, “Can You Feel It” from Sublime with Rome featuring Wiz Khalifa. Also Sublime with Rome are getting set to drop their album Yours Truly, July 12.

Video: My Bonnaroo

18 Jun

It took a week but I was finally able to put my Bonnaroo 2011 photos into a video slide show.  Everything is in sequential order from the moment we arrived until the final show.  Unfortunately I wasn’t able to capture every band I saw but hope you enjoy what I did capture.  Can’t wait until Bonnaroo 2012.  Let the countdown begin.

Happy Birthday Tupac/Bishop

16 Jun

Today would have been Tupac’s 40th birthday. I figured it was an appropriate time to recall one of my favorite movies of all time, Juice and the character he played, Bishop.

New Music: Childish Gambino

16 Jun

One of the best parts of a music festival is discovering new music and at Bonnaroo I did just that.  On the first night of the festival I found myself bouncing around and after catching the end of The Walkmen’s set and waiting for Deerhunter to go on, I stumbled upon Childish Gambino and within minutes was blown away.  I had absolutely zero notion of who he was or what kind of music I was preparing myself for but left craving more and while hip-hop is his game, I loved the fact that he has a kick ass band backing him.  Oh yeah, Childish Gambino is the alter ego of comedian Donald Glover; a tiny bit of information you should know ;).

I may be late to this party as he’s be rapping for some years now but I’ll take a new discovery any day.

Revisited: Bonnaroo 2011

13 Jun

10th anniversary of Bonnaroo is in the books and I’m ready to get tickets for next year. Being a Bonnaroo rookie, it was all about taking in as much of the experience as possible. After an afternoon waiting for everyone to fly in, rent the truck and an off the reservation experience at Walmart, we were on the road.  Some 60 miles and one wrong turn later, we arrived.  After finding the RV and unpacking enough food and booze to feed the entire stage crew for the festival, it was time to get the party started.  Meandering through the festival grounds at night it was hard to capture just how big the Bonnaroo fields are and how over 100,000 people flow in and out.  The first time you see it during the day, your jaw drops at the sight of an entire city being created in virtually the middle of nowhere.  If that’s what it takes for people to get along, be polite and just have a good time, I can live with that.

I also learned that no matter what bands you plan to see, you can go ahead and throw that plan out, it just isn’t going to happen and that’s a good thing.  Getting a chance to pop in and out of shows, listening to some new bands (and some old), wandering around the festival grounds and just kind of going with the flow seemed to be just fine.  Photos will be coming soon (I promise) but here are some of my highlights from Bonnaroo X.

My First Show: The Walkmen

My Final Show: Apache Relay

Best What Stage Show: The Black Keys

Best Which Stage Show(s):
G.Love/Warren Haynes

Best Tent Show: Ryan Bingham & The Dead Horses

Best Overall Show: Walk The Moon

Biggest Surprise: Childish Gambino

Best Legend Show: three way tie – Robert Plant, Dr. John, Gregg Allman

Random Moment Of Awesomeness: blue blinkers dropping from the sky for Arcade Fire’s set

Overall Stage With The Best Performances: On Tap Stage – shows included Band of Heathens, Apache Relay, Chancellor Warhol, Mat McHugh, Pimps of Joytime, JEFF The Brotherhood, Bobby Long and more

Most Entertaining Show: Lil Wayne for the fact that at least 40,000 festival goers/hippies knew all the lyrics to his songs – you had to be there to understand where I’m coming from

Most Disappointing Moment: Terrible sound quality for the Buffalo Springfield show made it almost impossible to listen to (this saddened me more than anyone will ever know)

Next Big Thing:  Walk The Moon and Apache Relay

Top Party: the overflowing sea of madness for Girl Talk at 2:30am

Oddest Show That Was A Blast: Primus

Funky Good Time Show: Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears

Band I Was Sad To Miss: GIVERS

Angriest Performer: Eminem

Best Intro: Lewis Black for Warren Haynes

What Would Have Been Great: a late night set from a headlining DJ

Top Roo’er: Guy trying to make the “World’s Biggest Glow Stick” (if you saw/met him, you know what I’m talking about)

Top Sports Bar Moment: Game 6 of the NBA finals was like the March Madness scene in Vegas (video coming soon).

Best Festival Eats: Bear Creek Farms’ hand cut French fries and Gravy

Best Broo’ers Festival Beer: Ashville Brewing Company’s Ninja Porter

Best Place To Cool Off: the cinema (if no line to wait)

Biggest Waste of Time: anything that involved a line

Shocker Of The Festival: no rain

Worst Part: Dust everywhere and if you didn’t have a bandana, you were SOL

Clutch Move: renting a pickup truck

Tip For Next Year: less junk food and more healthy food, bring laxatives and don’t go off the reservation

More Tips: flip flops are your enemy, dust sucks, that fountain water is filthier than Vegas’ Rehab, expect rain, drink water and more water

Countdown to Bonnaroo: 5 Days – Artist of the Day: Eminem

4 Jun

A five year hiatus didn’t do anything to diminish his reputation in the music game.  If anything it only made Eminem come back stronger to claim his stake as one of the all time elite in hip-hop. Fast forward three years, two new albums albums and now a total of 13 Grammy Awards to date and Slim Shady has an arsenal of material to drop at Bonnaroo.  As one of the headliners, expect the performance to be an intense 90 minutes. Perhaps a guest spot by Weezy while we’re at it?

Saturday 11:00 PM – 12:30 AM – What Stage

Countdown to Bonnaroo: 8 Days – Artist of the Day: Lil Wayne

1 Jun

I don’t think I’d purchase a ticket to his concert but the simple fact that he’s performing at a festival, yeah I’ll check out Lil Wayne.  I’m actually getting excited to see his late night set because I’m sure he’ll put on one heck of a performance, he has a grip of songs that I think everyone knows and more than anything, he’s part of the Cash Money family and was part of the Hot Boys.  I also think since it’s the grand stage of Bonnaroo, Wayne has some surprises in store, maybe Drake?  Wayne did show up at Drake’s gig in Vegas over MDW in Vegas…..

Friday 1:30 AM – 3:00 AM – Which Stage

Countdown to Bonnaroo: 15 Days – Artist of the Day: Galactic

25 May

If you’re ready to get funked up, Galactic will do just that.  The New Orleans legends who were part of the inaugural Bonnaroo and a staple band throughout the decade long run of the festival return to bring some funk and jazz to the masses.  Exuding energy and pure happiness, Galactic shows are memorable for sure and just about always include surprise guests sitting in for a song or the whole show.  Knowing the grand stage of Bonnaroo, I think we can all rest assured this will be one performance to catch.

Sunday 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM – What Stage

Countdown to Bonnaroo: 18 Days – Artist of the Day: Wiz Khalifa

22 May

If you asked most people how they first heard of Wiz Khalifa, my guess would be either “Black & Yellow” or his arrest on drug charges in North Carolina which was plastered all over twitter.  For me, I remember hearing his track “Say Yeah” in which he sampled Alice Deejay’s “Better Off Alone.”  One of this summer’s festival darlings and in support of his latest album, Rolling Papers, Khalifa should put on one heck of a performance (check the videos from Coachella) at Bonnaroo.  Sadly in my case, after sorting through the schedule it looks like I’m going to miss the show (conflicts with Mumford & Sons who hands down put on one of the best live performances).