Crib Notes

Wu-Tang member Raekwon releases Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, Vol. 2, the anticipated follow-up to his ’95 album, in two weeks. Here’s the first video “House of Daggers” from the project.

The album, which has been about four years in the making, seemed to be going the way of Dr. Dre’s Detox in terms of long-awaited hip-hop records that never seem to see the light of day. But Raekwon insists he was just making sure he got it right, according to allhiphop.com:

The album, which was originally executive produced by Busta Rhymes, was reportedly complete in January 2006, with RZA added as a second executive producer. Still the project did not see the light of day. In 2007, Raekwon explained that he was determined to set the release up properly.

“I did a lot of hard work on this record,” Raekwon said during an interview. “And I refuse to throw it out and people be like, ‘Yo Rae, I ain’t know your s**t was out.’ Nah, I can’t afford that to happen no more. That happened to me on The Lex Diamond Story. That happened to me on Immobilarity. I’m not going for it on this one.”

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Rap’s obsession with video hoes and gold-diggers got you down?

Then come check out some real hip-hop tonight at Apache Café where the legendary Spinderella (DJ for Salt N Pepa) backs some of Atlanta’s dopest MCs — including staHHr (who’s featured on the latest Doom album), Adrift Da Belle, Boog Brown, CoCo Jones, AynJul, Tiffany Michael and more. Hosted by Ms. Dia of WRFG-FM 89.3 host of “The Show.”

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FOR THE PEOPLE: Chosen (back row, from left) Amond Jackson, StaHHr, Boog Brown, Kalonji Changa, Khalilah Ali, Ekundayo, Taj Anwar, Mike Flo, Doll Daze. Rita J (seated, from left), Señor Kaos, Kelly Love Jones.

Twenty years ago this summer, when Public Enemy dropped “Fight the Power” — the wake-up call of an anthem laced with 400 years of black angst and pent-up aggression — Kalonji Jama Changa was sitting behind bars for engaging in illegal drug activity or, as he now refers to it, “selling plantation poison.”

Born into a family of activists, his misguided sense of rebellion led him astray as a teen, “almost like the preacher’s son,” says Changa, who still went by his birth name Nigel Korsnick Brown at the time. “I was like the white sheep of the family.”

Locked away in prison for nearly two years, Changa finally heard his calling.

“Everything my mother and father ever told me came to me all at once. It came to me when they talked about slavery. It came to me when they talked about the prison business. Everything just started popping in my head,” he recalls. “I could not believe that I was really running from myself.”

He runs in the opposite direction now, as founder and national coordinator of FTP Movement, the several-years-old community activist conglomerate with an exchangeable acronym: “For the people. Free the prisoners. Formulating the plan. Fuck the policies,” Changa says, rattling off the endless options. “We wanted something that was interchangeable for any given situation.”

When “fuck the police” is suggested, Changa laughs. “Usually, I don’t say that. We don’t want to appear to just be some mad, ranting, raving lunatics.”

Continue reading “Food, Clothes & Shelter: Atlanta’s independent hip-hop scene remixes revolution”

“Veggies & Fruit” (Vance Vexed feat. Nappy Roots and A. Leon Craft)

“Resistance” (StaHHr)

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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Remember Atlanta — the Goodie Mob reunion concert. $35-$40. Sat., Sept. 19. Masquerade Music Park, 695 North Ave. 404-577-8178. www.masq.com. Tickets available at Ticketmaster.com.

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If you’re a fan of Madden and Jermaine Dupri’s music, whoa be unto your girlfriend.

Per the press release:

Download the OCEAN’S 7 mixtape at www.global14.comb5:00PM TODAY for a chance to be Jermaine Dupri’s VIP guest at a private celebrity preview party tomorrow for the unreleased Madden NFL 2010 video game!
Event hosted by Konsole Kingz, EA Sports and XBOX 360

But seriously, folks, download Ocean’s 7 to register. The mixtape, released in May, features Atlanta heavyweights Usher, Johnta Austin, Bryan Michael Cox, Dupri, Trey Songz, Ty and rapper Nelly in full-on Vegas rat-pack mode. It’s supposed to be a precursor to Ocean’s 7 the album and an eventual movie, according to Dupri.

Sample such originally-titled tracks as “Ain’t I” and “Too Much Swag.”

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Remember Don Imus’ “nappy-headed hoes” comment? Señor Kaos does.

Directed and produced by Eljay Williams, this episode of “The Stand On Demand” features underground Atlanta’s ultimate hustler and MC, Señor Kaos, who shares the inspiration behind his song “Girls Rock Too,” featured on his Swagger is Nothing, Talent is Everything ’08 mixtape.

The mini documentary series, a Comcast cable OnDemand exclusive, highlights Atlanta’s underrepresented hip-hop culture. This episode, shot last year, is no longer available through the cable provider so Kaos is showcasing it on his Vimeo page.

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Leonard Cohen. $49.50-$252. 8 p.m. Tues., Oct. 20. Fox Theatre, 660 Peachtree St. 404-881-2100. www.foxtheatre.org.

Tickets available via Cohen’s Ticketmaster.com page at 10 a.m. Mon., Aug. 3. VIP tickets (with memorabilia included) available for $375 and $589.

(Live in London album cover courtesy Sony, 2009)

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Goodie Mob reunion. $35-$40. Sat., Sept. 19. Masquerade Music Park, 695 North Ave. 404-577-8178. www.masq.com.

Tickets go on sale this Saturday at Ticketmaster.com.

(Flier spotted at mauricegarland.com)

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In a recent interview with Rap-Up.com, Ludacris confirmed that a recently leaked track (listen above) is indeed one of the songs he has ghostwritten for Dr. Dre’s long-delayed album, Detox.

“It was supposed to be for Detox, but I don’t know since it got leaked. I don’t know if it’s gonna get used.”

The song, “O.G.’s Theme,” showcases a husky-voiced Luda rapping under the guise of Dr. Dre: “The first nigga wit a attitude/with 30 mil sold where the fuck the gratitude?/Huh, I see all these little B.G.s/mean-muggin’ on the screen trying to be me.”

It isn’t the first rumored Detox track to leak featuring an Atlanta rapper providing the legendary producer with reference vocals. Earlier this year, a song titled “Shit Popped Off” hit the ’net with T.I. rapping over an unmistakable Dr. Dre instrumental. That track ended up in Dr. Dre’s recent Dr. Pepper commercial spot, minus T.I.’s rap. Atlanta rapper Killer Mike has also reportedly submitted work for Detox.

Perhaps, after all these years, the announced release dates for Dr. Dre’s comeback album are real. From the sound of things, he may be depending on a handful of Georgia boys to help him return with a vengeance.

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The first SMKA Productions mixtape, The 808 Experiment: Vol. 1, was so big nearly every MC and his granny is clamoring to jump on the re-up.

So we partnered with SMKA, illroots.com and DOPE Couture to give artists (singers included) that opportunity.

HOW DOES THIS WORK?… very simple. Record an original song to the SMKA beat, “Back in My Younger Days” and if your song is chosen then you win free gear from DOPE Couture and a song on the 808 Experiment: Vol 2.

STEP 1: Download the Beat
“Back in My Younger Days”

STEP 2: Write a dope song

STEP 3: Record that dope song

STEP 4: Submit the recorded song in mp3 format to smkaproductions@gmail.com

STEP 5: WIN free gear from DOPE couture and a spot on the 808 Experiment: Vol 2

You may recognize the prominent vocal sample on the beat as Bootie Brown’s intro from the Pharcyde’s 1993 classic, “Passin’ Me By.”

Don’t let Oct. 1, the contest deadline, leave you in the dust. We’ll be cherry-picking some of the entries between now and then to post on Crib Notes just to give entrants some feedback and added exposure.

Stay tuned.

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Considering all the arguments heard in defense of the dying breed of traditional (music) journalism, here’s one rarely mentioned: the art of storytelling.

Here’s a pretty good story that appeared in a Kansas City-based publication, Ink, two weeks ago about a K.C. rapper I’d previously heard little about named Krizz Kaliko. His new album, Genius (Strange Music), is already a 2009 critics’ pick. Peep the intro:

Krizz Kaliko planned to kill his future wife and himself.

His tortured life had unmercifully reached a breaking point when Crystal Matthews, then 19, walked away from their three-year relationship.

The skin disease vitiligo had scarred his face, hands and upper body with blotches of pink skin since he was 2 years old and did even worse damage to his self-esteem. A criminal stepfather, neighborhood bullies and look-at-the-monster stares from confused adults and children inflicted physical and mental pain.

Cancer took his father when Krizz was 15. In the same year, his sister lay in a coma following a car accident.

His skin disease, the emotional trauma, his insecurity, his inexperience with love and lack of life purpose created a 25-year-old man ready to author a tragic ending.

(more…)

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“I would fuck Gucci Mane so hard!”

Need I remind anyone that this is still the South, where, for hundreds of years, black men were lynched for less? Only Gucci Mane, with his steady diet of confectionary, unconscionable trap rap, could potentially set African-Americans so far back and simultaneously level the playing field.

I don’t know whether to laugh or run.

Apparently Decatur rapper Playboy Tré, seen egging the chicks on in the video along with TJ of TJ’s DJ’s, was plagued by no such a dilemma. Lying dead and disfigured in his grave, Emmett Till must be totally flabbergasted right about now.

(Spotted at NahRight.com)

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Donnis doesn’t strike me as the kind of kid who’d really gets his rocks off at the Clermont Lounge. And I think he may be slightly confused about the difference between the actual lounge and the hotel.

He puts an overly explicit spin on Bubba Sparxxx’s original song “Clermont Lounge,” and it inspires me in such a way that I’m instantly reminded of Jay-Z’s famous Nas diss line from “The Takeover.”

Allow me to take a little creative license, if you will: He sampled Bubba Sparxxx, guess Bubs was doin’ it wrong/Sparxxx made it a hot line, Donnis made it a wack song.

Indeed. The only thing redemptive here is the video, a sweet little visual narrative directed by Motion Family. If the Clermont’s owner isn’t already hip to the action, he should consider adopting it as part of his ongoing marketing campaign to save the joint from foreclosure.

They could even shoot another version and replace the underage chick with Blondie’s classic ass.

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Following the sudden news that the monthly hip-hop publication Vibe magazine was folding, the last issue hit newsstands earlier this month with part one of what was intended to be a two-part story on the Dungeon Family. Written by Linda Hobbs, the in-depth story (”Am I My Brother’s Keeper? The Untold Story of Dungeon Family”) about DF’s internal makeup, eventual breakup and ongoing reunion has renewed interest in the South’s most influential hip-hop crew — especially its two cornerstone acts, OutKast and Goodie Mob.

Whether part-two of Hobbs’ DF story ever sees the light of day remains to be seen. (Word on the street is she’s in talks with other music publications to run part two). But here’s one reunion to bank on: Shameless Plug, the burgeoning promotions team that brought rappers Drake and Devin the Dude to Atlanta in recent months, just booked Goodie Mob for an Atlanta concert to take place Sat., Sept. 19.

The venue has yet to be announced. Stay tuned for further updates.

Update: Read CL’s Sept. 16 cover story, A dirty job for Goodie Mob, about the upcoming reunion concert.

Updated: Meanwhile, peep former CL music critic Roni Sarig’s 2003 cover story “Dungeon Family Tree: An oral history of OutKast and the extended crew’s first decade”:

Cee-Lo: We happened to be in Greenbriar Mall one day, and my homeboy was telling Marqueze [Etheridge, Organized Noize associate who co-wrote TLC's "Waterfalls" with them] that I sing. He was going over to the Dungeon, so we decided to give him a ride. We went over there, and I sung for Sleepy Brown. At the time, Rico, Dre and Big Boi had rode off to get something to eat. They came back and saw me sitting there and Dre got excited, like, “That’s my homeboy Cee-Lo I was telling you about. He can rhyme, he can sing.” That particular day, T-Mo and Khujo and Gipp walked in the door — I knew them from high school. When I saw their familiar faces, I was immediately comfortable.

Khujo: Me and T-Mo started fucking with them Crown Royal liquor bags, the purple and gold bags. We used to strap them on our belts and have goodies in them — weed, a couple dollars. Just a little bag we used to walk around with, and it would swing on the side. We’d say, “It’s the goodie bag, man.”

Edited: An earlier version of this post mentioned other DF acts scheduled to play the Goodie Mob reunion show. No other acts have been confirmed as of yet.

(Story image courtesy Vibe magazine)

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Vote for Spree Wilson’s “Word” as mtvU’s Freshman Video of the Week

Atlanta lost a true musical talent a few weeks ago.

I’ve been reluctant to write about Spree Wilson’s departure to the Big Apple. Maybe because it’s further proof that our city — once upon a time rap’s freaky, funky, country cousin — has become too damned (black) Hollywood for its own good.

When CL featured Wilson last year, he was still trying to find his place among the city’s alternative hip-hop crowd:

In a close-knit scene where even the best acts still struggle to form an identity beyond the shadow of OutKast, Wilson really is an outcast. Despite the wide range of influences coursing through the disparate veins of Atlanta’s latest ground-level movement – from electro-punk to retro-’80s rap – an MC who hits the stage with an electric guitar strapped to his chest doesn’t quite fit the bill. In other words, dude is out with the in-crowd – or the out-crowd, as it were. Confused? Imagine how Spree Wilson feels.

“It’s just super weird. If you ever want to know what irony is, hang around the scene and be yourself,” he says. “I feel comfortable in my own skin, but when I walk in those places I feel like, man, I don’t belong in here.”

Mind you, he’d long since been courted by a few major label subsidiaries and was collaborating with Rowdy signee Novel, as well as producer No I.D., at the time. He earned a feature alongside Talib Kweli on Novel’s “I Am” off the 21 film soundtrack. He’d started to garner some hype from notable music blogs, too, and such tastemaker publications as URB. Even the city’s fickle, left-field scene began to take notice.

But Spree was always more hippie than hipster. I remember bumping into him in Criminal Records one time. He had an intense look on his face and both of his arms were full of used vinyl LPs — old Dylan and some obscure folk rock. Not the stuff you’d imagine a present-day MC buying. He wasn’t just grabbing up stuff to sample, either, these were artists he counted among his favorites and was adding to his collection. (more…)

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1. As the world turns, Michael Jackson’s memorial coverage, and ghostly rumors, dominate (Come out, Miko Brando, wherever you are.)

2. R.I.P. B Jay Womack (The pride of Atlanta’s garage rock scene takes a final bow.)

3. Masquerade fire extinguished; port-a-potties didn’t survive (Surely, the Masquerade will outlast all of us. Insurance fraud is not an option.)

4. Atlanta Burn to Shine house finally destroyed (Their loss is our gain; the DVD drops this summer.)

5. Funeral information for B Jay Womack (The homegoing service was held at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers.)

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Big Boi’s forthcoming solo album Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty has been blogged/talked about for so long it feels like old news. Turns out the main reason it remains unheard is because Jive Ass Records refused to release it.

So Big Boi’s seeking a contractual release from the label so he can join his former boss L.A. Reid at Def Jam, according to Eye Weekly:

“The lawyers just have to finish their lawyering,” Big explained, and added that he was happy to be working with LaFace co-founder and current Island Def Jam Chairman and CEO LA Reid again, since “he’s been with us since the beginning.”

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The Georgia Music Hall of Fame in Macon must raise $225,000 by Oct. 27 to avoid being forced to close by the end of the year, according to the AJC:

The announcement came Thursday as the Hall of Fame’s authority met in Atlanta to discuss the facility’s future. The museum has taken several cost-cutting measures recently to address cuts in state funding and earned income during fiscal 2009.

Full-time staff was reduced from nine to four positions, furloughs went into effect this month and the museum began closing on Sundays and Mondays for the first time last Sunday.

Georgia’s rich musical legacy is well-represented at the state hall of fame with 100-plus inductees representing nearly every genre, including James Brown, R.E.M., Ludacris, Alan Jackson, Usher and Johnny Mercer.

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Spotted @ The Kaos Effect.

The term “independent artist” almost seems like an oxymoron when watching Stacy Epps’ new video for the song “Floatin.” It’s obvious, near the 2:00 minute mark, that Atlanta’s indie hip-hop community has her back.

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With a client roster that includes some of the most reputable studio engineers, producers and musicians in the industry, the Atlanta-based management firm Milk Money Consulting’s monthly updates read like the Billboard 100 chart — six months into the future.

Take a peek at their June update, courtesy Brad McDonald:

Ben H. Allen is currently producing The Whigs’ new album in his (and the group’s) hometown of Athens, GA. After recording and mixing the Whigs, Ben is headed to NYC to work with Animal Collective. If you can’t wait to hear new music from Ben, check out Kate Earl’s recently released EP, Introducing Kate Earl. Ben’s project The Constellations, is currently on tour and getting huge airplay in Atlanta, Minneapolis and additional markets and the song “Felicia” is the #1 most requested song on Atlanta’s 99X.

Mac Attkisson is working with super producer Bangladesh on several high profile projects, including Dr. Dre, Missy Elliott, Leona Lewis, Usher, Ludacris and Juvenile.

Mark Exit Goodchild left Atlanta with Akon to do some recording on the road covering lots of ground in the tour bus! Before he went on tour, Exit was busy mixing, including new music from Akon and T Pain, Sean Kingston, Nina Sky feat. Pit Bull and Flo Rida, Aventura, Twista and David Guetta.

(more…)

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