Core Rhythm - Nat Turner Reloaded

Core Rhythm's freshmen release, 'Nat Turner Reloaded' has the strength of a senior classman placing anything to follow it in contention for a doctorate in the major of mic management. The album is a tight work that tackles the ever looming issues of race, supremacy and the disenfranchisement of the poor and persons of color on the planet. Guest appearances by artists like Creature, Wells Knotty, GrandMixer DXT, Baba Israel and Farbeon are a complement to an already strong album, they serve to help complete this well thought out and prepared sonic offering. Incredible choices of film soundbites throughout are the glue that seamlessly meld each track together. Album cuts provided by DJ Drilla except Track 2 by DJ Center and Track 8 by GrandMixer DXT.

Slanguage listen

Kanye West - Graduation

The Louis Vuitton Don donned a cape and mask instead of the traditional cap and gown on his graduation day September 11th, 2007. My brief stream of thought on his speech at the ceremony is as follows: 'Graduation is a guilty pleasure, filthy leather, immature, corny but pure. An (un)predictable detour. It's worthy of applause, while self loathing, with nice clothing and still self assured. On an award tour, throwing tantrums for sure, for over shores or round the corner explorers. 55-70% or so of the tunes on this album are pretty much single material. (Something most artists never successfully pull off unless their names happen to be Big Boi & Andre 3000). Elton John, Quincy Jones, George Clinton & Hank Shocklee are just a handful of beings of influence without whose presence this production could literally not have manifested. "Everything I Am" is a great song. The impulse to kick the squat out of Kanye while he's suited in that bear mascot outfit does exist, but it's well balanced with the idea of a celebratory high five and victory shuffle to cheer the home team winning 07's state championship. Lastly, Kayne did not sell any narcotics or murder a soul. He just ran his mouth and shopped'. I guess that's not so terrible.

Rue Melo – Rue Melo

Once in a blue moon an album crosses my path that thrills me beyond all belief and makes me believe in true artistry again. Rue Melo’s debut CD happens to be one of those albums. A tri-lingual beauty who sings in English, French and Spanish, Melo has a level of soul rarely seen in today’s artists. In addition to her vocal and songwriting capabilities Melo is also backed by one heck of an impressive band. I was hooked within the first 90 seconds of this album and look forward to keeping it in my CD player for a very long time. The music of Rue Melo and her band is like Joss Stone on a whole other level making her eponymous debut a definite album of the year candidate.

Stone Cold Wu-Tang

OK, this wasn’t a DVD, it was a VHS tape, but as a Wu-Tang movie it still merits a review. I enjoyed Stone Cold Wu-Tang for the pure entertainment value of it. The main villain kills people with his hair braid and you can’t get much more ridiculous than that. The first seven minutes are filmed in what I can only assume was a blackout since next to nothing is visible, but after that it’s fight scene after fight scene with about paragraph’s worth of dialogue in the entire movie. A few other fun facts about the movie is that the city they’re supposed to be in is completely deserted the vast majority of the time and looks a lot more like Tijuana than Tokyo (or Hong Kong, which is where they supposedly were, but I like alliteration). For some campy martial arts fun Stone Cold Wu-Tang is a winner.

Chamillionaire – Ultimate Victory

When Chamillionaire released The Sound of Revenge it surprised me. I had it in a stack of albums and when I put it on I thought “oh no, another southern rapper,” but his charismatic nature and multiple flows won me over. With Ultimate Victory, however, Chamillionaire suffers a bit of a sophomore slump. “Ridin Dirty” was the mega hit off of the last album and Chamillionaire seems to be stuck in that flow for the vast majority of Ultimate Victory, rarely switching things up. After a while this becomes tiresome as the flow becomes routine. The news isn’t all bad, though, as there are quite a few standout tracks on the album due to the fact that Chamillionaire, unlike a lot of his peers, throws some interesting topic matter into his rhymes. Unfortunately, the rest of Ultimate Victory is a bit of a letdown. I’m guessing someone at the label pressured Chamillionaire to stick with the “Ridin Dirty” flow to sell more singles on iTunes, which he probably will as the singles will be incredibly strong. As a complete album, however, it's neither an Ultimate Victory nor a stunning defeat. Instead it's more of a 12 round split decision.

Lupe Fiasco - Food & Liquor

While there's ample talk of artists finding forever and refusing rehab while cleaning out their ear drums, easily forgotten in less than a year is a kat that spoke simply about food and liquor. Lupe Fiasco’s freshman release is a well put together piece of art. Considering all the crying about Hiphop music being so terrible, it's hard to imagine how an entire album of tight, compelling rhymes and beats, with hardly any profanity could be overlooked and ushered to the wayside. Honestly, it isn’t that hard to believe. People always seem to complain about what’s available; Then new options appear on the horizon. The ship they’ve long awaited finally shows up. It docks, but they don’t want to get on. Amazingly, all of these previously eager life guards freeze up. They suddenly can no longer swim. They soon decide it would be much safer to stay on dry land. Lupe’s fiasco is a result of poor label decisions, and improper promotion methods yes, but perhaps more so caused by a finicky audience that will ultimately starve to death or suffer severe malnourishment if they don’t have the courage to try something new.

American Terrorist f. Matthew Santos - mp3

Video: Gnarls Barkley - Who Cares

These days it isn't often you get but so excited about anything music related, unless you're lucky enough to have an extensive vinyl collection at your disposal. (Yes records rule!) Never mind, most videos plain ol suck. In the occasion that there is something worthy of your attention it ought to be noted, celebrated even. Who would have known the perfect role for lmnop movie actor/director Mario Van Peebles, would be that of a not so baaaad ass Blacula. ‘Who Cares’ out shines the ‘Crazy, Smiley Faces and Gone Daddy Gone’ set of Gnarls Barkley videos because it doesn’t take the easy route, it moves beyond obvious. Hands were definitely soiled. Blood Red Nights (the title of this short film/music video) is a three minute and thirty eight second masterwork that you will appreciate more and more every time you watch it.

M.I.A. – KALA

M.I.A. has been, since her debut, worshipped by the hipsters and adored by a large segment of the music press. KALA should put an end to most of that. While her first album, Arular, managed to merge her average singing with her average rapping with interesting production well enough to create some catchy songs, on KALA it all goes wrong. Sonically it’s simply a mess. Rather than being interesting the beats end up feeling noisy. Lyrically it’s just as ridiculous as her previous effort, but without any of the charm. While I was listening to KALA I openly wondered what made me like M.I.A. in the first place.

Bekay – The Horror Flick LP

Bekay is one of those artists whose buzz has been nice for a few years now but we’ve yet to really see him break out of the “buzz” zone and into the “star” zone. On The Horror Flick LP he shows signs that he’s ready to make that leap. The album starts out with a number of braggadocios tracks, a few too many if you ask me. It’s obvious Bekay is a heck of a lyricist, but at times I wondered if this was going to turn out to be a case of Canibus Syndrome – all battle rhymes, no hook writing ability. The last two songs on the album, however, “Don’t Feel Good” and “Dead End,” prove that Bekay is not only capable of writing complete songs, but he is capable of crafting interesting ideas and making them work over a three to four minute format. If given the right opportunity Bekay could be a star. The Horror Flick LP starts to scratch the surface of this talented individual, making it worthy of your listening time.

Britepic

Adbrite.com over the years has become a viable source of income generation for many website owners and blogs alike with their textual ads and interstitials. Not long ago did they also delve into the realm of video, attempting to tap the flourishing viral market by allowing users to tag clips with their personal logos while simultaneously making it possible for ads to be displayed along with their content in video flash players. Now, Adbrite has taken it up yet another notch in a quest to corner every possible avenue for advertising online. Simply, they suggest that you replace that universal (img) tag we all know in HTML, (used to display images), with their code that actually turns your visuals into ads. The new service is called Britepic. The idea is that since images still are one of the most highly sought after items online, why not embed ads into your images to earn money. How successful this new implementation will be only time will tell. We’ll just need to give it a test run for ourselves.