The Audacity of Dope

Our scene in Seattle right now >>>>>>>>> your city’s. So proud of the town.

Shout to BeanOne on production.  Slaps!

It’s about that time again!  Loyal Sound Session fans will likely remember that J. and I hosted Cornerstone Mixtape #115 back in May of 2009 with DJ B-Mello on the 1’s and 2’s (click here to check that out if you missed it!), and now we’re happy to report that we’ve been selected again to head up the long-running, historic mixtape series.  We are presenting May’s tape, marking 4 years to the month since our last go-round, and also celebrating our recent 8 year anniversary of SNSS!

Just like last time, it’s an absolute honor to be selected for this tape.  The team at Cornerstone has always been some of the most knowledgeable, respectable, and coolest cats in the industry and they’ve curated this monthly mixtape series for over a decade with care, skill, and consistency that very few can match.  As soon as I started working at my college radio station, I became a fan of their monthly releases, which always featured the dopest DJ’s from around the world presenting their take on the freshest music of the moment.

To say that in this small way, we can compare ourselves to folks like Jazzy Jeff, Pete Rock, Revolution, the Fantastic Four, Sway & King Tech, the Baka Boyz, Premier, Red Alert, Kid Capri, Stretch Armstrong, Bobbito, J. Period, etc….honestly, it’s still an incredible feeling.  We’re just happy we’ve been able to do what we’ve done over the last 8 years and we’re proud of what we’ve accomplished.  When cats like Rob Stone, Dru Ha, J, Kid Potential, and the rest of the Cornerstone crew recognize and choose to highlight us with their series (twice!), it’s humbling.  We’re just very grateful.  Thank you, fellas.

For this tape, we decided to recreate what we do with Sound Session each week on KUBE 93.3 FM so it plays almost exactly like our live broadcasts, just without the commercials and with the swear words (even better, right?). We selected some of our favorite records of the moment and tried to highlight those that weren’t getting the credit they deserved.

These include great songs from some bigger names like Black Milk, Tyler, Big K.R.I.T., De La Soul, Blu, and Chance The Rapper, and also guys who are steady on the come up like MeLo-X, Young Roddy, the Smash Brovaz, Phil Beaudreau, Johnny Polygon, and more.  Plus, you know we always rep for the Northwest, and with our scene exploding right now, there were plenty of options to choose from.  In the end, we picked songs from John Crown, Nacho Picasso, Avatar Darko, Jake One, and the Physics.  We even tossed in a few world premieres, one from our homey THURZ and the other a dope record from The Game featuring Jadakiss, Styles P, and AR-16 that the world hasn’t heard before.

Above all, it’s 80 minutes of DOPE music.  This is what we do.  And we’re happy to share it with you.

Download/streaming links below.  Enjoy!

01. Homeboy Sandman – Sunday Night Sound Session (Exclusive)
02. Black Milk – Sunday’s Best / Monday’s Worst (Computer Ugly)
03. John Crown – Ben Franklin (Phinisey Music Group)
04. Kris Kasanova ft. Skeme and Jarv Dee – Shut Em Down (Exclusive)
05. Nacho Picasso & Avatar Darko – Black Velvet (Moor Gang / Fang Gang)
06. Tyler, The Creator – 48 (Odd Future)
07. Raz Simone – Formula To Life (Exclusive)
08. Young Roddy – This One (Jet Life)
09. MeLo-X – God Magic (Galax Recordings)
10. Quelle Chris ft. Tanya Morgan, Cavalier & Fresh Daily – Greene Eyes (Mello Music Group)
11. THURZ – ThirdEye (WORLD PREMIERE) (TNS)
12. Amp Live ft. James Melo – D.H.E.A. (Plug Research)
13. denitia and sene – trip. fall. (input)
14. Tuxedo – So Good (Exclusive)
15. The Physics – Take A Win (Exclusive)
16. Chance The Rapper – Acid Rain (Exclusive)
17. The Game ft. Jadakiss, Styles P, and AR-16 – Last Supper (WORLD PREMIERE) (Interscope)
18. Smash Brovaz – Whatever (Exclusive)
19. Big K.R.I.T. – Serve This Royalty (Cinematic Music Group / Def Jam)
20. L’Orange ft. Blu – Alone (Jakarta Records)
21. De La Soul – Get Away (A.O.I. Records)
22. Johnny Polygon – Normal (Exclusive)
23. Phil Beaudreau – Take It High (High Renaissance)

Link to download/stream the mixtape - http://www14.zippyshare.com/v/84334272/file.html
(back up – http://www.solidfiles.com/d/212294eb92/)
(2nd back up – http://linkmixes.com/7eb8nu0rk5my)
(3rd back up - http://www.sendspace.com/file/4ql1yt)

If there are any problems with the links or if you’d like to be added to our weekly email list to receive the playlist and download links after every radio show we do, just shoot me an email, DJHyphen@gmail.com.

Ellie’s video for her cover of Alt-J’s “Tessellate” is great.  Super sexy record, plus black and white stylish shots of Paris?  Yep!

Two quick thoughts about this record:

1) AZ’s one of those MC’s that proves a dope flow should never leave you.  It’s like a good jumper or riding your bike.  Once you got it, you should be able to keep it forever.

2) Statik Selektah continues to murder beat after beat and while he’s getting a decent amount of props, I feel he’s heavily underrated in terms of his quality, quantity, and consistency.

Recently, J. Moore and I were joined on SNSS by A$AP Rocky for an interview in our KUBE 93 studio.  Rocky talked in depth about his background, including how his brother first got him into hip-hop, his first rhyme, his influences locally (Big L, D.I.T.C., McGruff, Children Of The Corn, etc.) and around the country, and his early relationships with the A$AP Mob.  He also spoke on how “Long Live A$AP” has been well received, even with the early leak, and about his collaboration with Skrillex for “Wild For The Night.”  In discussing that song and video, Rocky mentioned his appreciation of the women in the Dominican Republic, especially his favorite group, cougars.

Shout to A$AP for coming through and our Detooz Films friends for hooking up the video.

I just finished checking out the new Fitz & The Tantrums album, More Than Just A Dream, and I really enjoyed it.  Check out the video for “Out Of My League” above and if you’re digging the feel good music, you can stream the whole project on Hype Machine here.

I’ve been in New York this week for some ESPN day job stuff and didn’t really get a chance to do anything music related, as I’ve been so busy working and hanging with some great co-workers.  That changed on Friday when I took the day off to explore the city a bit and visited my people at UMG and WMG.  After a long day, I headed back to my hotel and noticed Twitter was a buzz with Kanye’s amazing rollout of his “New Slaves” video projected on to 66 walls across the world, including one in Brooklyn.  At first, I thought it was the only NYC showing, but after checking their schedule, I noticed the last showing of the night was a few blocks from my hotel but was supposed to start 5 minutes ago.

Having worked in the industry for 13 years, I’m fully aware of hip-hop time, so 5 minutes ago really meant it was going to start in about 15.  Tossed on some clothes and jogged down to the 5th Ave Prada store (right across from Trump Tower) and sure enough, there was a crowd of about 50-75 people waiting for the showing.  Within minutes, a large black truck pulled up and crew dressed all in black hustled to pull off the tarp covering the cargo bay and unveiled the projector and speakers (seriously looked like something a Batman villain would do in Gotham City).  After a quick set up, they showed the piece, which is, of course, just as dope in its style and content as it is in its guerrilla marketing rollout.  Yeezy is back and spitting that real.

After playing it, the crew said they would run it back in about 15 minutes. They left and came back like clockwork, but after setting it up, waited a good 10 minutes before showing it a 2nd time.

Turns out, Kanye himself was on the way to watch this showing as he is in NYC for Saturday Night Live later tonight. He stood behind us with a phone up, as if he was filming like everyone else. Right after it ended, he hopped in his Maybach and drove off. And then he made us pancakes (…Chappelle Show reference).

Shout to everyone in the crowd that night. Real cool atmosphere as all us Yeezy fans were excited to see his new work and be a part of the rollout. Shout to Global Grind and XXL for picking up my video and tweets, and any other sites that have posted it.

And shout to Kanye for the realness. #YeezySeason

We’re celebrating our 8 year anniversary of SNSS tonight.  That’s a lot of shows.  Lots of numbers on the boards.

I’m definitely feeling pretty much anything associated with the Smash Brovaz right now. Junia-T helps out J Shiltz on this Relic produced gem, talking about the realness.

Download the song (and clean/instrumental for my DJ friends) here – http://www.hulkshare.com/8yg5rb7kzj0g

With the release of his new video, the lil’ homey Dave B is continuing to impress.  Download the entire Coffee EP right here!