The Audacity of Dope

Greatness.

This is one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen, but damn if I wouldn’t love to try it…

It’s so dope to see the homey Shad blowing up all over the world these days.  Right after Yeezy, SK is my second favorite artist out these days, and above all, him and his team are just good, cool folks.  Peep the video above to see clips from his recent performance in Cologne plus some interesting interview excerpts.

A certain Seattle DJ/blogger/all around cool guy might be featured in one of these in the near future…gasp.  From Jon Jon:

This is the first installment in a series I’ve entitled “Good Times.” The basic idea is to do more than just shoot music videos with hip-hop artists. I wanted to get a story out of them and keep it simple. For my first effort I linked up with Chicago area, DC-born rhymesayer Dave Coresh (no relation to infamous Waco man Dave Koresh). DC takes time out to drop a couple of freestyle snippets and explain his amazing teeth all whilst riding the L.

Dave Coresh is a dope MC for sure. Peep some samples here.

Awesome.  Chapter One here if you missed it.

I’ve been watching Hov make the rounds to damn near every media outlet in NYC over the past week, but I wasn’t really sold that I wanted to check out Decoded until this interview at the New York Public Library.  It’s almost 2 hours, so it’s certainly long, but if you can watch it, I highly recommend it.  There’s really good, insightful commentary from Jay, Cornel West, and Paul Holdengraber throughout.

Shout to Shad’s manager, G, who sent it over and summed it up nicely:

There is a video link below.  It’s not short.  But it’s great.

It reminded me about how important the work that we do is.  We are quite literally changing the future.

For the remaining history of this world, people who love really good food, will undoubtedly stumble upon the creative output of our friends.  I think that’s f*cking incredible, and I often forget…to remember it.

It was great to revisit Jay-Z as an artist…and it was great to see Cornel West attempt to evoke just a bit more enlightenment in a person who he clearly has a ton of respect for already.

This video also made me realize how important it is to have a Cornel West Uncle at the dinner table.

Anyways, here she is.  Dig in someday.

Now…who’s gonna cop Decoded for me for Christmas?

Balance toi!

I’m kinda geeked about this, I can’t front.  Between Winnie The Pooh and Tron: Legacy, I approve of Disney raiding the back catalog correctly.

This past weekend, I had a chance to check out the Seattle stop of the Waken Baken tour when it hit the Showbox Sodo.  I’ll be posting up my interview with the opening act, Yelawolf, soon, but I was also able to chop it up with Wiz Khalifa backstage and we recorded this quick interview for y’all.  We discussed the tour, Wiz’ incredible buzz, his experiences in the Pacific Northwest, getting his hometown Pittsburgh Steelers to support “Black and Yellow,” and more.

Shout to Wiz, Will, Artie, and Motti for hooking everything up.  Cop that Kush & Orange Juice if you haven’t already…definitely one of the best projects of the year.  Just wait until the official album drops…

Mitch: I mean lets be real here, these cyphers are the only reason any of us even acknowledge the BET Awards. And hands down the best had to go to Kanye and his G.O.O.D. Music soldiers.