The Audacity of Dope

New visuals from the homey Pinder. Produced by town legend Vitamin D, video by Charles Donaldson and Yuk The World’s BeanOne.

Fresh.

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.

Our SNSS local song of the year a few years ago is now a smash hit on the international charts.  Wow!  Congrats to everyone involved, especially Mack, Ryan, and Jon Jon.  This might end up being video of the year too!

I’m in awe.

What started out as somewhat of a novelty record has attained cult-like status, and it’s sure to grow to unprecedented heights with the release of the visuals for “And We Danced.”  I remember when we played this on Sound Session after Ryan first sent it over and we confused the hell out of our listeners.  I don’t know why though…the proposition is simple:

We’re having a hoedown…are you hoes down?

You should be.

What up y’all?  Apologies if I’ve been a bit M.I.A. (noMaya) over the last week or so.  I know I have a ton of music to get to, emails to answer, interviews to edit, blog posts to write, etc., but I’ve been caught up with my non-music life recently.  It’s actually been great to focus on the day job and other normal, grown up facets to life, but I’ll try to get back in tune on the music side this week.  Holler at me if you need me!

Enjoy this week’s SNSS with new music from The Roots, T.I., Cocaine 80s, Allen Stone, Phonte, Lupe Fiasco, Chip Tha Ripper, DJ Shadow, Danny!, Torae, and more.  That dopeness.

Show #333 (10-23-11)

1. T.I. ft. Pharrell – “Here Ye, Here Ye”
2. Mac Miller – “Blue Slide Park”
3. Cocaine 80s – “Six”
4. J. Cole – “Daddy’s Little Girl”
5. Rocki Evans – “Funeral Song”
6. Torae – “That Raw”
7. Rasheed Chappell – “What I’m Here 4”
8. Allen Stone – “Sleep” (Local Music)
9. Proh Mic ft. Tone Trezure – “Sleep In Girl” (Local Music)
10. Danny! – “I Don’t Wanna Hear That Sh*t”
11. Mayer Hawthorne – “Henny & Gingerale”
12. DJ Shadow ft. Posdnuos & Talib Kweli – “Stay The Course”
13. Immortal Technique – “Toast To The Dead”
14. Phonte ft. Evidence & Big K.R.I.T. – “The Life Of Kings”
15. Lupe Fiasco – “Lightwork”
16. Cam’ron ft. Kanye West & Syleena Johnson – “Down & Out” (Throwback of the Week)
17. Action Bronson & Statik Selektah ft. Nina Sky – “Cocoa Butter”
18. Sonny Bonoho – “Coogars” (Local Music)
19. Yuna – “Come As You Are”
20. The Roots ft. Big K.R.I.T. – “Make My”
21. Chip Tha Ripper ft. Wale – “25 Wives”
22. Sir Michael Rocks – “Brite”
23. Rick Ross – “I Love My B*tches”

Link to download the mp3 of the show – http://www.mediafire.com/?ap7iwa1d9dd5047
(back up / streaming link – http://hulkshare.com/ykozyfmq4pvp)
(2nd back up – http://www.zshare.net/audio/9514807385efd0f4/)

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 show, just shoot me an email, DJHyphen@gmail.com.

The Brothers From Another are back home from their first year away from college and I really couldn’t be more impressed with the young homies for this one. Ah, reminds me of my days coming back to the 6 after spending the school year in Los Angeles.

“They don’t say hella like we do…”

Special shout to the SNSS intern, Young Nicholas aka Beeba for his help on the show this summer and for being a general fool in this video.  Killin’ it.

This track is the first release from their upcoming project, Quality of Living, and the song can be downloaded here.

Jake on the beat.  Pinder on the vox.  All you need.

Simply put, the homey Jon Augustavo makes music videos look doooooope.  Here’s his new reel, featuring many clips you’ve seen here on TAOD.  Check his site for more.

The homies Macklemore and Ryan Lewis are not only two of my favorite artists from the town, but they are also two of my favorite people in the Seattle music scene.  They’re just really cool dudes who love making art and take it pride in everything they do.  When you mix in their incredible talent on top of that (need proof?), it’s mandatory to check for everything they’re involved in.

Here’s their long awaited collaboration, The Vs. EP, where they sampled some contemporary bands and combined rock with hip-hop.  Don’t get it twisted though, this isn’t some half-assed, corny mash up project.  Instead, it’s an excellent piece of work where Ryan’s lush soundscapes are complimented perfectly by Mack’s heartfelt and sobering (quite literally) rhymes.  I can’t recommend this highly enough.

Download here.

Now that it’s my day job to watch music videos all day, I see damn near every clip that gets released.  As such, when a dope one comes around, I’m always extra impressed because I know how much effort gets put into the good ones…and I know how easy it is for folks to cut corners and release wack visuals, even for dope tracks.

We’ve been pretty blessed in the Seattle hip-hop scene to have produced some great videos recently (The Saturday Knights, They Live, The Physics, Choklate, and Zia Mohajerjasbi’s work with the Blue Scholars and Common Market, among others), and now we’ve got another from Clockwork.  The three man crew comprised of Lace Cadence, Take One, and Miguel Rockwell just released “Hold On” from their last album, Future Pastime, and it’s easily one of the cleanest videos I’ve seen in a minute.  There are some great effects to match up with the crystal clear images, plus the track is dope.

Cop Future Pastime on iTunes right here and follow the crew on Twitter as well.