The Audacity of Dope

Pinder heads out to Hawaii (and what also looks like Los Angeles) for the video to “A Learning Game” off his official debut album, Careless.  And while it’s shot fairly similar to Kid Ink’s “Time Of Your Life,” the clip turned out great.  When it comes to Seattle hip-hop, obviously Macklemore is getting a ton of notoriety (and rightly so), but JP is quietly having his own success around the country.  Couldn’t be happier to see him winning right now.  Keep going Pinder!

When “Otis” dropped this past week, I couldn’t help but chuckle at all the praise filled tweets and blogs, as if the track’s quality somehow caught folks off guard. It’s Hov and Yeezy! What do you expect?

This mini documentary really just teases us with what it might be like to live the uber-baller, can’t tell me nothin’ kind of life that Jay and Kanye exist in.  When you live in this plane, whatever you want to do, you just will it and it’s done. Want to record a masterpiece with your friends in Hawaii? No problem, MBDTF is your result.  Want to switch locales to Australia, rent castles, hang out with Russell Crowe, and immortalize him in music history?  You got it.

Despite a few folks trying to get their attention, there isn’t any competition in hip-hop for these two.  They live on the throne, we watch it.

Your boy got a promotion at the day job, which is a dope thing, but also means that time is at a premium…so I’ll let Sabzi explain this one:

People ask me why I care about making a mix of Hawaiian tunes.  I tell them that it’s because Iʼm from Seattle.

I donʼt think I can apply the word ‘foreign’ to any cultural elements that have influenced me in becoming the person I am today.

Through years of, um, ‘nourishment’ from grinds, to listening to Jawaiian tunes as a teenager, to starting a group with a military kid from Honolulu, to learning the meaning of ‘false crack’ the hard way (ha!)… the spirit of Hawaii has long maintained a notable presence in my life.

And while Iʼm not Hawaiian, nor do I claim to be a local boy, I acknowledge and am thankful for the role that the Islands have played in the development of my cultural identity.

For me, a big part of the OOF! EP project was to experiment with a new way of identifying who we are and where we come from.  It was an exercise in global cultural expression.  Perhaps this is the age we can start believing that ‘where we are from’ is anywhere that has influenced us in becoming who we are.  And perhaps our brothers and sisters are simply those who want to share this belief with us.

Watch out tho.  When you embrace this idea, you start to think that home can be everywhere and your people could be everyone.

New People comin thru, son!

Respect to In4mation for the nifty ‘OOF!’ logo they designed and lent us, respect to Ohana for engineering the delicious shrimp tempura + diced spicy scallop + krab + masago sushi that they’ve dubbed the ‘69 Roll,’ and respect to you for reading this and listening to these tunes.

Mahalo.

saba / sabzi

Download here.

When we first premiered “HI-808” on our Cornerstone Mixtape, the homies Geo & Sabzi also mentioned to us that they shot a video for the song on location in Hawaii.  A little later, I saw a rough cut of the video at the office (benefit of the day job…ScreenPlay/Fuzed Music building FTW) and now the final edit is here for the masses.  And when I say masses, I mean it.

This video will be spinning in heavy rotation on MTVu all day and it will also be on the front page of MTVu.com.  With Massive Monkees killing it on “America’s Best Dance Crew” last night, this is yet another great national look for the town via MTV.

To download the song and for more information about the Blue Scholars’ upcoming OOF! EP, check out their official site.

Oh…and I really want to go to Hawaii.  Soon.

When we caught up with DJ A-Trak this past weekend, we talked about how this track came together, since it’s kind of an interesting story.  It’s not every day that a joint originates as a fun mixtape track, only to turn into an official single (and a follow up to a smash record) just a few months later.  I bet Lady GaGa is enjoying any $$ she makes off this…

Cudi will be at our Summer Jam this weekend, so if you have any questions you’d like us to ask him, email me – DJHyphen@gmail.com

I’ve never been a huge fan of this track (the “maven” line always makes me cringe), although the drums are fire.  Hype Williams’ visuals look great, but I’m not sure they add much to the record.  They really just make me want to go to Hawaii…stat.

(I was going to embed the video, but Hyph doesn’t do auto-play.  Click the image to watch it.)

The homies Phonte and Big Pooh made their way out to Honolulu for a MySpace sponsored concert recently and the recap just hit the web (swiped from Nah Right).  I’ve only been through Hawaii once, for a 30 minute layover on the way to the Cook Islands, but I’m dying to go back.  I’m sure it’s a blast but I already know that Aitutaki > Hawaii.

Los Angeles People: y’all can catch Little Brother’s excellent live show tonight with the Inverse fam down at the Key Club.  Be there!

Seattle People: don’t fret, LB will be at Rock The Bells on the 6th…