New Music Tuesday #20

Pharrell Williams, Khruangbin & J. Cole

Twenty weeks in a row!? That means that we are almost halfway through the year. Where does the time go? It most certainly doesn’t go to my drafts folder where several half written newsletters are just kinda waiting to be polished off and published.

Well that ain’t happening today. Instead it’s just new music, videos and books. An assortment of things that have caught my eye and ear since last week.

I’d like to think that this week will be the one that I finish one of those other newsletters but the lionshare of my creative output is going towards working on bringing The Almanac of Rap back.

EVENTS

I’ll be on Twitch this Tuesday from 2-4 pm est.

Butterboy on April 15 at Littlefield and Roy Wood Jr., Laurie Kilmartin, Ali Macofsky, Zilla Vodnas, Andrew Durso & Kofi Thomas are all on the lineup. Tickets

Shouting At The Screen on April 25 at Nitehawk Theater in Prospect Park and you can get tickets here.

(Man my calendar is looking dry as fuck! Who got a gig for me? Somebody book me to spin something! hahah (no seriously… book me!))

BOOKS

Big Sean is now an author. I love seeing rappers use their words for things other than raps. I can’t vouch for said book because I haven’t read it but he’s very much on his heart chakra intentionality shit as of late so I bet the book is on some Deepak Chopra writing Rich Dad Poor Dad shit. LINK

VIDEOS

Ray J apparently is lauching his own Reality TV network called Tronix which is a very bad name for a TV manufacturer let alone network but what do I know, I named a rap group Tanya Morgan. He’s on the press circuit doing weird interviews cus he’s made that his brand and he stopped by one of my favorite Youtube shows to make some memes. I would link the trailer here but I can’t tell if I am amused or appalled so you can watch it at your own risk here.

Hannibal finally dropped the video for ‘I Lift Weights’ and it is a fantastic fever dream with some cool as cameos and a fun song. I really enjoy his humor and music so this is right up my alley.

Rob shot this sometime last year? Early this year? I don’t know. I do know that I am off camera chilling which is a fun footnote. Rob don’t miss so you know it’s some bars in here.

Kenny Beats’ The Cave series is probably my favorite show on Youtube. The premise is link with an artist and make a song from scratch on the spot. The songs are always cool and this time Q shows up confused as hell about the process but still makes a jam.

Remember last week when I was raving about Juvenile retroactively making a video for an old song? Well now it’s Kurupt! One of my favorite MC’s covering one of my favorite songs.

Alchemist is his own genre. How can you not appreciate anything he does at this point?

ALBUMS

Pharrell dropped an album via a website and you can download the mp3s. I love this because it begs the question of what are you doing with your mp3s? As a rapper and DJ song files are important to me but as a music listener are they important to you? Do you even care about owning music at this point? Here is a LINK to the tunes as well as a button to comment about my mp3 questions.

J Cole dropped this project on Friday that included a response to Kendrick and then a few days later at Dreamville Fest (his own festival) said the verse he wrote basically gave him the ick. He even said he might delete it which is also the name of the album that the song is on. Fascinating.

This album. Man listen. Such a good album. Listen to it NOW.

Jose James dropped this BANGER of an album. Saturday Night been in heavy rotation around here. Get into it.

Serengeti’s Kenny Dennis character is back and you can show some monetary support over at BANDCAMP

I heard people talking about this and know this guys name but don’t know the music that well. Figured I’d share it tho cus it’s probably a vibe.

I saw Kareem Riggins’ name and figured that this was worth sharing. Honestly have no idea what it sounds like. Somebody let me know if it’s any good.

Kooley High drops soon and until then here is the last single before the full lenght.