The Audacity of Dope

My name’s Mitch. Im here to help Hyph keep this blog updated as much as possible. Ill be givin y’all music videos, mixtapes from time to time, local music, and whatever else Hyphen feels necessary. This is The Audacity Of Dope so dont expect anything less.

Just a lil info about me…I was born and raised in the NW, reppin the great city of Tacoma. I attended Wilson High School and am taking a break from school for a little while. I look to pursue a career in business eventually, music and fashion are what I live for. Blogging isnt something new to me, you can also catch me at A Quick Intermission.

Ill be posting everything I feel that you the reader would enjoy. Thanks again to Hyph for giving me this opportunity, Im glad I can share my thoughts and opinions on the music world and more with you all.

-Mitch

Editor’s note: Welcome aboard Mitch, glad to have you as part of the team.  Loyal TAOD readers, I hope having Mitch, Edwin, and myself all post up content will allow you guys to enjoy the site even more.  You’ll be able to see who posted an article right under its headline and like he mentioned, don’t forget to check out Mitch’s other site as well – A Quick Intermission.

Don’t worry…we’re not going to reduce the quality control and flood the site with sub-par ish.  Nothing but dopeness, as usual.  2010: onwards & upwards.

FTW.

This makes no kind of sense whatsoever.  I love tricks like these.

I’m Edwin Ortiz. I’ll be helping Hyphen out with keeping this site updated, whether it be a dope mixtape, footage from concerts, or exclusive content from SNSS. Also, with the approval from Hyphen, I’ll periodically post articles that I feel warrant a discussion. In this way, readers can sound off about the current happenings of hip-hop.

Without getting into too much detail, here’s a little info about me: I’m from the Northwest, born and raised. I’m double majoring in journalism and history at the University of Washington. Along with blogging duties here, I write for HipHopDX.com and have contributed to other various sites such as KevinNottingham.com.

I look forward to building with the viewership/readership Hyphen has already received with TAOD, and I hope that this sites reach can expand through quality content and commentary.

And remember; Holla at a playa when ya see him in the streets. (c) Stuart Scott

Editor’s note: Welcome aboard Edwin! – Hyph

ahhhh, the homies!  Good times y’all…

Alright, I’ve put this off long enough but the time has come for me to officially put out the call: we are looking for an intern to assist with Sunday Night Sound Session on KUBE 93 and The Audacity of Dope.

Long story short, with my day job going well, I’m finding less and less time for SNSS and TAOD related projects.  Meanwhile, the demand for radio show and website content gets greater and greater. 

Sound Session has been broadcasting on KUBE’s 100K watts for over 4 years now and we’ve established ourselves as one of the premier outlets for dope, progressive hip-hop on the radio throughout the country.  We have great relationships with artists and labels and folks tune in from all over the world each week.

Likewise, the blog has grown from merely a place where I archived radio shows and interviews, to a fairly active site with an increasing amount of traffic every quarter.  I would like to post up more content, but my schedule doesn’t allow that many updates each week.  Even with the limited posts, TAOD is pretty well known in the hip-hop blogosphere, and I’m always pleasantly surprised when I’m talking with an artist or label and they mention they check out the site regularly.  But the bottom line is that there’s a lot of untapped potential here, so it’s time to turn this up a notch.

That’s where you come in.

I’m looking for someone to assist with a few main things regarding the radio show and the website:

• Recording and editing our video interviews. We interview artists almost every week, but the amount of time it takes to edit the video and post it often means that they sit on my computer for weeks, if not months (…or even years).  We turn down interviews all the time as well, just cause we don’t have time to put together the content after recording.  We want someone who can record them (either on your own camera or our Kodak Zi8) and then edit them in iMovie or Final Cut Express/Pro for posting online.  We can tweak the format if you have new ideas, or we can stick to the current presentation that we use.  Check out www.vimeo.com/hyphentv for some examples.
• Editing our audio interviews. Sometimes we don’t record video (though hopefully this would be less often if we had an assistant), so we’d like someone familiar with editing audio.  You don’t need to be a Pro Tools expert by any stretch of the imagination, but you should be familiar with basic editing concepts and be able to use an audio editing program or two.
• Assisting in the studio during Sound Session. If you’re able to come down to the station most Sunday nights, we’d love to have someone help take phone calls and assist with the production of the show.  We don’t run a very complicated broadcast, but if you’re interested in learning how it all goes down and chilling with J. Moore and myself, we could use an extra hand.
• Blogging on The Audacity of Dope. I would like someone to help post dope content on the site.  It would probably work two ways: 1) I’d send you some material to post up when you have the chance.  2) You’d find content that you think should be posted on your own and then toss it up (probably with my approval at first and then if that goes well, you could post up whatever fits with the site at your discretion).  This would also entail sending content to some of the other main blogs to post up from time to time, so you should be able to network fairly well without annoying folks.  I.e., if you’re unfamiliar with the magic of the BCC function in emails, please stop reading now.

So there you have it.  Nothing too fancy and, in all honesty, nothing too glamorous.  This won’t make you a star or guarantee you a job in this industry, but it should be a great way to learn about the business.  Plus, you’ll get some fun perks like hanging out with artists, free tickets to shows, being cooler than your friends, etc..

Unfortunately, we cannot offer school credit right now because the Clear Channel intern system would require us to get a new person after every quarter.  I don’t want to have to find a different person every few months if I can help it.  I’m looking for someone who wants to really throw themselves into this, take pride in his/her work, and dedicate a few hours a week to it for a long period of time.  If you’re interested in interning for the KUBE promotions staff and receiving school credit, you can read more here.

A few people have also already asked, “is there any pay?”

Of course not, welcome to the music industry!

If you’re interested, please email me at DJHyphen@gmail.com with a brief letter and any links to work you’ve done that might be similar to this position.  I’d also like to know:

• Who you are
• Why you want to help
• Why we should select you
• What special skills you may have

Obviously you’ll need to be a Seattle-area resident to help, but if you’re not and still want to get involved, hit me up and we can talk about it.  If you know someone who might be interested, please help spread the word via email, messageboards, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, etc..

Thanks y’all…

I know TAOD is generally PG, but Olivia Munn’s non-nude (booooo) Playboy spread is now online and it’s so necessary.  See the rest of the pictures here.  I think we need to get Munn on SNSS someday.

Yes, I’m a hip-hop dude…but yes, I have an unhealthy obsession with pandas.  Sue me.

I think the description sums it up nicely:

I’m not going to sugar coat it. This video is eight baby pandas playing in a crib for four minutes. Nothing really happens, but there are eight baby pandas. Eight. Baby. Pandas.

Nuff said.  Shout to McFly on the assist.

For all you up and coming musicians out there, if you’re a fan of Daniel Merriweather like I am, you may want to look into this.  Daniel and his team are giving you the chance to remix his “Change” single with Wale and get some great exposure for it.  For more information, click here.

And if you missed it when it first dropped, the video for “Change”:

Shout to my folks down under in AU.

In case you see me around town, it wasn’t a punch, obviously.  The last fight I was in was like 7th grade (ironically also on the court).  It was an elbow during one of my basketball games last night.  And I’m happy to say I was killing it both pre and post ‘bow.  Still probably should have got a few stitches.

My chin scar story is still my favorite though…what’s your best battle wound?