The Audacity of Dope

Seattle: On Sunday, May 15th, I expect to see you all at the Croc to check out some of the illest (and criminally underrated) artists out there: The CunninLynguists, Tonedeff, and Homeboy Sandman.  You should be familiar with all of them by now, especially if you listen to Sound Session since we play them all quite often, but if not, come see them in person and learn something.  You’ll also get to see Blue Sky, Black Death, who make some incredible beats, and local music from the Knowmads.

Be there!

New visuals for the track Bilal performed live on SNSS a few months back.  Missed it?  Peep below:

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.

Sound Session listeners will remember that about a month ago, we co-hosted the show with the legendary Bilal.  Loyal listeners will remember our first interview with him from last year, but this time around, we dedicated the whole episode to his music.  We played nothing but Bilal records all night, mixing a sampling of our favorite songs from all 3 of his classic albums, some b-sides, and guest appearances with his colorful and insightful commentary.  He even closed out the show with a live performance of “Levels” off his newest project, Airtight’s Revenge.

I posted the audio of the entire show previously (download here), but now I’ve got the accompanying video up for y’all if you’re so inclined.  Be sure to check out part three, where he performed “Levels” live on the air to close out the show.

Cop Bilal’s latest album, Airtight’s Revenge, if you haven’t already.  Another classic!

Aloe and company perform two records live in Parisian cafes.  While “Hey Brother” was dope, this rendition of “I Need A Dollar” was insane.  I’m still happy I was able to witness this in person too.  I think I need to leak the mp3 of that performance soon…

Speaking of Paris, after watching Robin Hood last night, I officially have a crush on Lea Seydoux:

Yessir!

[La Bamba] In the year 2000 [/Conan humor], I started working in radio at KSPC outside Los Angeles and as a college freshman, I was amazed by the freedom the indie broadcasting platform afforded me.  After looking through my personal collection, the music director was impressed and allowed me to play whatever I wanted, rather than being limited to the records in the station’s library.  As a result, my early playlists were filled with music from the Soulquarians, easily my favorite collective of artists back then…and still today.

Of all the classic albums they were involved with, perhaps the record I played the most was Bilal’s 1st Born Second.  Simply put, it’s flawless, front to back, and one of the most underrated pieces of music from the last 25 years.  If you would have told 18 year old Hyphen (who actually had a different, and horribly embarrassing nom de plume at the time) that I’d one day have Bilal co-host my radio show, I would have flipped.  Ok, I would have flipped twice: who knew I’d still be in radio 10 years later?  Shrug.

We’ve interviewed him before (peep it here), but it was a special honor to dedicate the entire episode of Sound Session this week to the genius that is Bilal Oliver.  We played nothing but Bilal records all night, mixing in a sampling of our favorite songs from all 3 of his classic albums, some b-sides, and guest appearances with his colorful and insightful commentary.  He even closed out the show with a live performance of “Levels” off his newest project, Airtight’s Revenge.

I’ll have the accompanying video up as soon as I can, but in the meantime, enjoy the audio.  Shout to Dru, JK, Hawk, Marc, and Chok for helping bring Bilal through the show.  Be sure to cop his albums if you haven’t already!

Show #281 (10-17-10)
**Co-hosted by Bilal**

1. Bilal – “For You”
2. Bilal – “Bring 2”
3. Bilal – “Cake & Eat It Too”
4. 88-Keys ft. Bilal – “M.I.L.F.”
5. Bilal – “Think It Over”
6. Bilal – “Sometimes”
7. Bilal ft. Mos Def & Common – “Reminisce”
8. Guru ft. Jay Dee & Bilal – “Certified”
9. Bilal – “All Matter”
10. Shafiq Husayn ft. Bilal – “Cheeba (Nottz Remix)”
11. Bilal – “Hollywood”
12. Bilal – “It’s Cold”
13. Bilal – “Soul Sista”
14. Bilal – “Funky For You (Interlude)”
15. Talib Kweli ft. Bilal – “Can I Talk To You (Lil’ Darlin’)”
16. Bilal – “Levels (Live On Sound Session)”

Link to download the mp3 of the show – http://www.mediafire.com/?k67xajkkqnupn8b
(back up / streaming link – http://www.zshare.net/audio/817543606bc77c35/)
(2nd back up – http://usershare.net/e7zxor62i5h0)

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.

‘Ye a damn fool!  “Power” is probably my song of the year…no one man should have all that power.

And since I damn sure don’t plan to sit through another horrible SNL tonight just to see his performances, here’s “Runaway” with Pusha T too:

Swiped from IllRoots.

Almost forgot that I grabbed this footage of Jay Electronica performing “Exhibit A” and “Exhibit C” at Bumbershoot a few weeks back.  I’ve heard people were split on his performance: some thought he got the pit area hype, while others were disappointed by how often his DJ cut out the beat and how many acapella verses he spit.  One thing’s for sure…if there’s any beat you should let play in its entirety, it’s “Exhibit C.”  Hearing that bang through the speakers was definitely a highlight of the festival (as was J. Cole’s performance).

After coming through the Sound Session studios for the web chat with fans that I posted a few days ago, J. Cole took to the main stage at the Bumbershoot Festival to perform alongside Drake and Mary J. Blige.  J. Moore and I hosted the show, so I grabbed some footage from the stage as Cole battled the rain and performed songs like “Blow Up,” “Who Dat,” “Lights Please,” “Grown Simba,” “A Star Is Born,” and more.

I’ll be posting up the interview we did soon as well, but enjoy the live show for now.  You gotta love the girls in the front row going crazy for Cole and also how hard the crowd rocked when “Grown Simba” dropped (at 8:27).  “Bitch, I’m about to blow up!”

The homey J. Cole was in town over the weekend for our Bumbershoot Festival and he came through the Sound Session studio to kick it with us.  We recorded a normal interview, which we’ll air soon and also post here, but in the interim, you can peep the archive of the live UStream web chat that we did with almost a thousand listeners logged in to the room.

Cole ran through some random questions from his fans in the chat and I tossed him some that people were tweeting us at the same time.  He talked about everything from his album, his upcoming mixtape, his touring, his favorite athletes, and much more.  If you’re looking for a more formal interview, peep our sit down with Cole the last time here was in town right here.  We’ll also have a new interview shortly…

Big shout to Cole, his crew, and the label homies…all some of my favorite folks to chop it up with.  Continued success…Roc Nation in the building.

COLE WORLD.