Today marks the birthday of two of the greatest producers in hip-hop who both tragically passed away. J-Dilla and Nujabes have both influenced so many artists over the past decade plus. Make sure you check out their discographies and read up on who they were and how they influenced hip-hop.
The first track off The Good Sin’s new album “The Story of Love X Hate”, picks up exactly where the Late EP left off. Switch does a great job on the production here, again along similar lines Late, which is perfectly fine, it was one of our favourite releases of last year and we’ve been craving more ever since. The album is due out on the 14th of February.
For one, it might be a stretch to have M.I.A on this site, but she was and still is heavily influenced by hip-hop music. Bad Girls is the first single from her upcoming album and the video is nothing short of spectacular. The video was directed by Romain Gervais, who also directed M.I.A’s Born Free. The video is really daring and the music is eccentric to say the least.
Genuinely funny hip-hop tracks are always a rare find, so when you find tracks like this, you don’t sleep on them. Here’s all you need to know, full album “It’s Probably Raining” is due on the 3rd of February, in the meantime get this track on Bandcamp. Definitely more coming soon.
Great visuals for “Are You… Can You… Were You” from Shabazz Palaces release Black Up which came out last summer. Be sure to check out the video and the entire stand out release.
A quick teaser for the long awaited 3rd DJ Format album, Statement of Intent. While it hasn’t been announced that, personal favourite and frequent collaborator, Abdominal will feature, it does include the UK’s DJ Format collaborating with Edan, Mr. Life, Sureshot La Rock, Phill Most Chill and more. This is the first we’ve heard about a follow up to 2005 album, If You Can’t Join ‘em, Beat ‘em, since he dropped the Mr.DJ/Dope Pusher EP nearly a whole year ago. The album is due out on February 27th 2012.
One we clearly missed on last year. Jazz Spastiks lay down an amazing 4 minutes of sample usage for Junclassic to kick it over. Hard to hate it, shame we missed it.
While Lasers, Lupe’s previous full length album might have been a dud, the Friend of the People mix tape showed what Lupe is capable of at his best. In this video for Double Burger With Cheese, Lupe’s rhymes are dissected and illustrated line by line. This is the type of work Lupe does best.
A video for Seijun Suzuki from the Blue Scholars latest album Cinemetropolis, which on a side note was one of the best from the last year. The video is a little random, and the samurai swords are pretty cool.
What a great collection of instrumentals this one is. The 19 year-old Hashbrown has a whopping thirty-seven of 60s and 70s funk inspired beats for you to feast on. Let’s hope we’ll be seeing a lot more of this eclectic producer throughout the year. The collection is available on one of those name your price deals.
Easily listen to our last twenty tracks. Featuring tracks by Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, Audible Mainframe, & Jams Dean
Open The Lesson Six Mix
Feb 3rd
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Nov 21st
Oct 17th
Kwes looks at Odd Future, Gravediggaz and Horrorcore in general in the return of Letters From The Front
Lesson is about progressive & cliché-free hip-hop with intelligent lyrics. Striving for something more than the mainstream perception of hip-hop. This means no misogyny, no glorification of drug-use, no violence and no played out flaunting of personal wealth.