The Audacity of Dope

Sound Session #452 was an episode all about celebration.  As we always do around his birthday, we celebrated J Dilla’s life by playing his instrumentals all night long and talking a bit about his dopeness.  Still the greatest producer of all time in my book!

We also discussed the 10 year anniversary of a classic album, Kanye’s debut, College Dropout, which coincidentally dropped during the 2nd semester of my senior year in college.  We were graduating, not dropping out, but that album still defined that time of my life and encapsulated so many of the feelings my friends and I had back then.  It helped that we got to kick it with a younger Yeezy when he was on tour in LA that year, and the stories we have from those encounters are some of my favorite memories ever.

Kanye rapping his “18 years, 18 years!” verse from “Gold Digger” acapella to us 2 years before we’d hear it again on Late Registration?  Check.  Kanye asking us incredulously, “you’ve actually heard of me?” when we were telling him about how much we liked his mixtape freestyles?  Check.  The turntables skipping so much at the El Rey that Ye stopped Don C from playing the instrumentals and had John Stephens (later renamed John Legend) sing background melodies for him to rap over?  Check.  Kanye pouring us all glasses of champagne as he performed “Last Call”?  Check.

Ironically enough, I went back to my college last week to play in an alumni game with my old basketball teammates and it definitely brought me back to those days.  Shout to everyone I saw in LA, I appreciate y’all!

Enough of that, enjoy this week’s show and be sure to come out to the release party for our new Northwest Fresh mixtape on Saturday at 2312 2nd Ave in Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood.  Free entry, open bar, prizes, good music, good people…what else do you need?  You can even celebrate Valentine’s Day and my birthday at the same time!  Here are the details.

Show #452 (2-9-14)

1. YG ft. Drake – “Who Do You Love”
2. Schoolboy Q – “Break The Bank”
3. Future ft. Pusha T & Pharrell – “Move That Dope”
4. Raz Simone – “Don’t Shine” (Local Music)
5. Yelawolf – “Box Chevy V”
6. CyHi Da Prynce – “Napoleon”
7. Phife Dawg – “Dear Dilla”
8. Add-2 – “Bomber & A Fly Chick”
9. Joey Badass – “Pantie Raid, Pt. 2”
10. Jarell Perry – “Black Valentine”
11. Rashad – “First Move”
12. Miguel – “Simplethings”
13. Mar – “Man x Woman”
14. J. Pinder – “Orange Papers” (Local Music)
15. Isaiah Rashad – “Soliloquy”
16. Step Brothers (Evidence & Alchemist) – “More Wins”
17. OB Obrien – “Steve Nash”
18. Grieves – “Shreds” (Local Music)
19. Tech N9ne ft. Mayday, Kendrick Lamar, & Kendall Morgan – “Fragile”
20. Kanye West ft. Jay-Z & J. Ivy – “Never Let Me Down” (Throwback of the Week)
21. Sam Smith – “Nirvana (Harry Fraud Remix)”
22. Fabolous ft. Jeremih – “Thim Slick”
23. Major Lazer ft. Pharrell – “Aerosol Can”

Link to download/stream the mp3 of the show – http://www.solidfiles.com/d/2b48507905/DJ_Hyphen_and_J._Moore_-_Sunday_Night_Sound_Session%2C_Show_452%2C_2-9-14.mp3
(back up – http://www69.zippyshare.com/v/63999368/file.html)
(2nd back up – http://linkmixes.com/u98z3ledypgd)

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.

Seeing this clip of Kanye and John Legend Stephens performing in Amsterdam around the release of The College Dropout reminds me of my 2nd semester of senior year down in Cali.  The homey Tunji and I had been steadily following ‘Ye’s burgeoning rap career, ever since we heard the first couple of freestyles that he put on the net, and we were lucky enough to see him perform 2 shows in LA around the NBA All-Star Weekend in ’04 (right around my birthday too).  Shout to DJ Off Beat, aka Don C, for hooking it up.  Kanye even filmed the “All Falls Down” video at our local airport in Ontario, CA that week too…if only we had known Stacey Dash was in our neighborhood…

Anyway, I’ll never forget chopping it up with ‘Ye in the back of House Of Blues Anaheim and him being so happy that random dudes like Tunj and I knew all his freestyles.  He was so geeked that he started rhyming new verses a capella to a couple of college kids, just to prove that the best was yet to come.  Hanging out with one of my best friends while Kanye excitedly rapped what would become a verse on “Gold Digger” (“18 YEARS…18 YEARS!”) is one of my favorite music memories ever.

The College Dropout changed my life, real talk.

Why the hell was this never released?  A few things could be tightened up, but the video is cool and the song was an insta-classic as soon as that first College Dropout advance leaked.  Ah…those were the days.  Senior year of college…the memories!