The Audacity of Dope

If you aren’t familiar with her work on the recent Foreign Exchange projects, YahZarah is one of the illest singers out right now.  When the big homey Phonte hit me up to be a part of this promo video for her upcoming album, The Ballad of Purple St. James, it was an honor to help out.  Granted, I didn’t realize I committed to lip syncing her rendition of “Dedicated To You” (a classic jazz standard), but I’m just thankful you only get to see my ugly mug for a few seconds.  Let’s hope the outtakes never make it out the vault…

Damn, watching this clip was like watching the last episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air 🙁

But in all seriousness, Little Brother’s music as a group meant so much to me and played such an important role in my life from 2001 to now, it’s definitely sad that they’re ending the group (…at least for now).  Of course, on a positive note, Phonte, Pooh, and 9th will be making lots of great music in the years to come and judging by other group breakups and rapper retirements, I don’t know if I’ll give up all hope just yet…

Shout to the whole S.A.S. and of course the homey Phonte.  In Search of Stoney Jackson is one of the doper records in the past year, but that’s to be expected when Strong Arm links up with Madlib for a full project.  Cop that.

We can only hope!

If you haven’t heard the news yet, Phonte and Nicolay, collectively known as The Foreign Exchange, have been nominated for a Grammy Award for their song, “Daykeeper.”  Normally, I hate award shows and rarely care about the Grammys at all, mainly because they not only pick awful songs (big songs do not equal best songs) but they also nominate artists out of category too much.

Thankfully, and perhaps just by enough trial and error, they finally seem to have gotten something right.  With any luck, Tay and Nic will walk away with a Grammy in hand, completely independent and thanks to their passion for making great music they believe in.  Artists take note.

Here’s a dope new EP from Zo!, covering some classic songs by the likes of Stevie Wonder, Prince, Bobby Caldwell, Quincy Jones, the Isley Brothers, and more.  Zo! (I always like including the exclamation point in his name) is insanely talented by himself, and when you bring in Phonte, Darien Brockington, Carlitta Durand, Sy Smith, and Yahzarah, you already know how it’s going to turn out.  Enjoy some more grown folks music, perfect for this rainy Saturday night…

Zo! – …just visiting too

Okaaaaaay, you can blame it all on me tonight.

Real music.

I remember seeing BK-One mix for Brother Ali damn near a decade ago and I was blown away by how well he complimented Ali’s live show, especially during his solo.  Now he’s prepping the release of his first album and SNSS listeners will know that we’ve been rocking “Here I Am” with Phonte, Ali, and The Grouch real heavy lately.  You need to cop BK’s album on the 6th…[Clinton Sparks] get familiar! [/Clinton]

Shout to the homies Peter and Zeke for sending this through.

So much going on in the world of Hyph…good music, cool homies, great sports, artists coming into town, even a job promotion (raises FTW!), etc…all sorts of dopeness, so I’ll get right to it.

Check out the latest episode of SNSS for new tracks from people like Sean Price, Raekwon, Fashawn, Mayer Hawthorne, Drake, Wale, Crown Royale, Shafiq Husayn, Felt, and many more.  Special shout to Phonte and Nicolay of The Foreign Exchange calling in to talk about their show TONIGHT (Tuesday, the 15th) at Nectar Lounge.  Everyone here in Seattle better come through…it’s sure to be one of the best concerts of the year.  We gave out more tickets to that this week, along with tix to the Method Man & Redman show on Thursday and copies of the soundtrack to the new Big Pun documentary.  Thanks to everyone involved and congrats to our winners!

Lastly, as I mentioned last week, I had the pleasure of DJ’ing for U-N-I during their Bumbershoot performance.  With J. Moore aka Jonny Tarantino on the cam, we grabbed some footage for y’all too.  Be sure to watch it here to see Thurz & Y-O tear down the Fisher Green Stage in the shadow of the Space Needle.

Show #224 (9-13-09)

1. Marco Polo & Torae ft. DJ Revolution – “Double Barrel”
2. Sean Price ft. Skyzoo & Torae – “Duck Down”
3. Raekwon ft. Method Man & Ghostface Killah – “New Wu”
4. Fashawn – “Fash Plays It Cool”
5. Strong Arm Steady ft. The Game – “Trunk Music”
6. BK-One ft. Phonte, Brother Ali, & The Grouch – “Here I Am”
7. Skyzoo – “Popularity”
8. D. Black – “The Return” (Local Music)
9. Jay-Z ft. Kid Cudi – “Already Home”
10. **INTERVIEW WITH THE FOREIGN EXCHANGE**
11. Nicolay ft. Carlitta Durand – “Lose Your Way”
12. Mayer Hawthorne – “Shiny and New”
13. Wale ft. Jazmine Sullivan – “Award Tour”
14. Drake – “Fear”
15. Dynas – “Challenges Of L.O.V.E. (Leaving One’s Virtues Exposed)”
16. Big Pun ft. Fat Joe – “Twinz (Deep Cover ’98)”
17. Crown Royale (Buff1 & DJ Rhettmatic) – “We Gotcha”
18. Sonny Bonoho – “Judge Brown” (Local Music)
19. Felt (Slug & Murs) – “Protagonists”
20. Shafiq Husayn ft. Fatima – “Lil Girl”
21. Macklemore – “And We Danced” (Local Music)

Link to download the mp3 of the show – http://www.mediafire.com/?yiggnz0ux2m
(back up / streaming link – http://www.zshare.net/audio/65592032ba214e50/)

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.

Just when you start to wonder when Phonte and Brainchild are dropping another GGR…”BAM!”…they’re back.  Enjoy:

1. B. Bravo “Midnite”
2. Method Man & Redman “Dangerous Mcees” (cookin soul remix)
3. Che Grand “People Bowling” (feat. Tanya Morgan)
4. Mos Def “Auditorium” (feat. Slick Rick)
5. DJ Mitsu “Get ‘Em Up” (feat. Elzhi)
6. Amerie “Why R U”
7. Kan Kick “I’m Going To Take U Out To Dinner”
8. GB “Dealer Dog”
9. Morgan Zarate “Satin White”
10. Kenlo “Pont”
11. Jay Dee “Come Get It”
12. Freddie Joachim “Silent”
13. Raheem DeVaughn “Wanna Love You” (feat Young Chris)
14. Slum Village “Cloud 9″ (feat. Marsha Ambrosius)
15. DJ Spinna “Guaranteed” (feat. Phonte & Yahzarah)
16. Reggie B “Spirtual Fi”
17. Zo! & Asylum 7 “The Lineup” (feat. Metasyons, Finale & Buff)
18. Karriem Riggins “I Want You”
19. Byron The Aquarius “Repetitive” (feat. Daru & Da Button Pusha)
20. Lunice “This Time”
21. Onra “My Comet”
22. Floyd The Locsmif “Fuzzy Navel”
23. Afta-1 “Flor Y Uva
24. Nicolay “Lose Your Way” (feat. Carlitta Durand)

Download here.

Wow.  An excellent video from Phonte, Nicolay, Muhsinah, and Matt Koza for an excellent song off FE’s Leave It All Behind opus.  I hope you younger cats are feeling Foreign Exchange, cause their music is so necessary for when you’re feeling grown like I do these days.

Seattle people: Phonte, Nicolay, Yahzarah, Carlitta Durand, Darien Brockington, and Zo! will be performing at Nectar on September 15th and it’s sure to be an incredible show.  Even the opener, The Physics, will be great, so everyone 21+ needs to be there.  We’ll be giving away tickets each week on Sound Session leading up to the show and we’ll also be holding a contest here on TAOD to sit in on our interview with them.  Stay tuned and make sure to be there!  More info right here.