MIXTAPE 127 – RAP FOR BUSY PEOPLE

(click the image below to listen!)

embed this episode in your myspace/blog/whatev:

You know what, I know you’re busy. But you’re not too busy to listen to my show. If you really care about me, you’ll listen to my show.

Today’s jawn is for busy people. Each track is below 2 minutes, no exceptions. I even included times, so in case you hate a particular track you know how long you have to suffer until the next one. But you won’t, because you like my show, and you like me.

Listen on the train, in the car, on your coffee break, in the bathroom while you’re ditching class/meetings.

I even made the tracklist all short, in case you’re too busy to read.

Jadakiss – Look In Your Eyes Freestyle. [1:18] Shouts to Gavin. m/jadakiss.
Sin Sizzerb – Preme Diesel Freestyle. [1:17] “Kill you for a dollar / I’m from Serbia holla” I’m pretty sure that’s not representative of Serbians in general. I hope. m/sizzerbsin.
Moka Only – How Little Do You Know. [1:53] Been meaning to put this on forever. m/mokafansite
Lushlife – Meridian Sound [Part Two]. [1:28] m/lushlifemedia
The Five Corners Quartet – Interlope II. [0:53] m/thefivecornersquintet
Ryuichi Sakamoto – Before Long. [1:24]
Guilty Simpson – Pigs. [1:49] m/guiltysimpson.
Platinum Pied Pipers – The Pees feat Ta’Raach. [1:32] Philander philosophy – if you’re paying. m/ppprnb.
MF Doom – Sniper Elite. [1:59]
Jay Electronica – Spark ‘Em Up. [1:34]
Bash Bros & Afro Classics – World Still Burnz. [1:26] m/afroclassicsmusic.
Ghostface Killah – Crooklyn Dodgin (off a DJ Dub mixtape). [1:15]
Uncut Raw – Imwityou. [1:35] Shouts to Max. m/uncutraw42.
Suhburb – Beat#2 from First Tape of Fall Part 2. [1:50 or something] Suhburb, I’m still waiting for my episode.

you’re also not too busy to leave a comment and lemme know what you think. holler.

MIXTAPE 126 – THE GOLDEN CARTRIDGE LEVEL 2

(click the image below to listen!)

embed this episode in your myspace/blog/whatev:

Okay, now I said this in the intro of the show itself, but just in case – you’re going to have to listen to part one, or this episode is going to make absolutely no sense.

This is a continuation of Level 1 in the Gold Cartridge saga. As you’ll remember, our hero managed to scrape through Level 1 with two lives left – will he make it to the end of this world? How long is this game, anyway? What’s with the weird Department of Defense references? And is it just me or is the amount of video game themed tracks increasing exponentially recently?

Some of these answers and more – all in today’s episode.

Random – Intro (Epilogue). While this record is sort of hit-and-miss for me, anyone with the nerve to put together an entire concept album on Mega Man earns respect from me. m/random215.

Random – Robot City feat YTCracker [short edit]. I actually got put up on YTC by someone who listened to the original Nintendo Mixtape forever ago, and I can’t lie, he’s not bad. There is an entire genre of this ‘nerdrap’ stuff, and most of it is unfortunately pretty terrible – but YTC is both an originator in the field and actually has flows. Dig the upper middle class whining about ‘posers’ – classic.

Harmonic313 – From The D feat Guilty Simpson. Really, really old cut, but still goes hard. harmonic313.com.

Theme from Werewolf (NES)
Theme from when you turn into a bunny in the Dark World on Legend of Zelda 3 (SNES)

Clipse – Virginia (Team Teamwork Lost Woods Remix). This cut is seriously just too hard. Shouts to nxt for linking me on this. Concept, execution – brilliant. D-Lo – Coppers feat Sleepy. Okay, so first this beat just really slaps hard. Things are fine left at that, but add on top of that the fact that this is a sample of the first three seconds of Metroid. Oddly enough, a Japanese rapper, Big J.O.E. used this same sample earlier, but this song totally sons that one, no question. Metroid, though. Did anyone ever even beat that game? m/mrnohoe

Airborn Audio – Now I Lay Me Down. Probably better known as two thirds (H. Prizm and M Sayid) of Antipop Consortium. They only put out one record, and I think it really went over people’s heads, which is unfortunate because this really was sort of a dope album. Note the potential ambiguous Final Fantasy loop – which is probably actually just wishful thinking on my part. m/airbornaudio.

People Under The Stairs – Gamin’ On Ya. This song is totally ridiculous – first, the samples they’re running predate anything else on here by at least five years – and then there’s got to be at least one game reference in every single bar, many of which I’ve never even played. That Karnov reference is ridiculous. m/peopleunderthestairs

Ghostface – Computer Love Remix. This cut is really old, you’ve probably all heard it, and there’s really not much to say here except that I know you’re glad I put it in anyway.

Animal Style – Living Distance. Shouts to Aaron for the heads up on this one. m/animalstyle.

…and that’s what it is this time around. holler at a scholar.

MIXTAPE 122 – TSUYU

(click the image below to listen!)

embed this episode in your myspace/blog/whatev:

So yeah, near the end of the actual Tsuyu season, I manage to get this one out. If you haven’t heard of Tsuyu, you’ll know what it is by the end of the episode. So for those of you in areas of the planet cursed enough to be still dealing with rain at this time of year, sit inside, put the headphones on, look out the window, and dig it.

Introlude: Chris Craft – Rise Again.

Finale – Issues. Both sides of the mic, dude is really just kinda dope. I’ve got a couple other joints I plan on putting up in the near future. m/finale.

Doom – Absolutely. I mean, it’s Doom.

Edan – Murder Mystery. Surreal. Shouts to F Diesel for putting me up on the dude. m/eeddaann

Faimkills – In Your Sleep. Replaying the bit at the end, I’m realizing that I may be mixing up part of the story with something else. But I definitely remember cereal, and socks. Kid clearly puts a lot into tweaking out the production – I’m pretty sure some of the references are over my head. m/faimkills

Statik Selektah – The Thrill Is Gone ft Styles P & Talib Kweli. “I’m like god damn, they even screwed up conscious rap” = thank you, amen, church, tabernacle. I can’t quite cosign on the funny clothes comment though, because I like funny clothes. m/statikselektah.

JR & PH7 – Top Rank feat Guilty Simpson and Black Milk. Guilty just continues to say violent things where violent thing-saying is totally irrelevant and unnecessary, but still sort of cool. Dig the production.m/jrph7.

Outrolude: Esser – I Love You (Prince Paul Remix Instrumental)
Chan – Lonely Road Instrumental

Rhymefest – No Sunshine. Promise, last time I put a track up off this tape. Still, though, the concept was just really that great. m/rhymefest (thanks for the correction J)

On Michael – as I said, there’s not a whole lot that needs to be said. I can’t do a tribute episode or a special or anything like that, it just doesn’t feel right.

ps – I think I’m not using “paradox” right. Blame it on the whole not-english-speaking thing.

MIXTAPE 111 – HOW WAS YOUR SUMMER

(click the image below to listen!)

embed this episode in your myspace/blog/whatev:

So this, I guess, would be the third official Summer Mixtape. For those of you who are in Southern California – it’s probably still summer for you – so feel free to grab the first edition – SUMMER MIXTAPE (2006), the second one – BACKPACKER/SUMMER IN LA (2007), and then put it together with this one, and get on your Dyno with the black mags and bang out, kiddo.

As I said – I had a major hard drive crash and lost hella data (and some music – do your backups, kids, for serious) which caused the 3-week delay, but here we go. Let’s get into it:

Intro – Thad Reid – Cruzin feat Akshan.

Stat Quo – Dear Summer (Part 2). The follow-up to Part 1, which I probably would have put out were it not for the hard drive crash-induced delay. I don’t think I necessarily cared that much about Stat Quo’s life and/or career before hearing this series, but I have to say, this is sort of an interesting series that dude has been putting out. It’s sort of like the rap version of Livejournal. Or maybe that’s Atmosphere. So maybe this is more like the rap version of Caroline’s older sister’s Xanga, because I used to read that all the time and be like damn she’s cool. You ever do that? Interweb stalking is bad, kids. myspace.com/statquo.

DJ Crazy Toones – It’s A Demo Teaser. This isn’t even a song, but I dig this cut. Some of the most ignorant statements on this episode are made by this man. I mean, I fully agree with the sentiment – too many people out there don’t understand how to put together a mixtape/cd/podcast, but come on, did we need that comment about Singapore? And why was the dude in Singapore? I mean, anybody can go to Singapore. I can go right now in probably like a few hours. Is there something special about Singapore that I don’t know? I mean, go to Tibet, fam, and I’ll be impressed. Maybe beat up a monk or something. Aside from that, this demo is just ridiculous. I really want to hear this mixtape now. myspace.com/djcrazytoones.

Birdman – Sun Come Up feat Rick Ross and T-Pain. Nobody really cares about what Rick Ross did before he was a rapper, because 90% of the rap game is lying, ladies and gentlemen. It’s an act. Yes, it has ramifications on what happens out here, and it’s okay to get sucked into the drama on some suspension of disbelief, but 騙されるな、dig? I gave a talk at a high school earlier today and some kids in the audience were absolutely blown away that rappers weren’t you know, actually shooting people in real life. Remind me to tell you about the first time I ever saw the Beef DVD (hint – it wasn’t in the US). That said, I like this cut, and it’s probably the most “traditional” summer rap cut I got on here.

Guilty Simpson – Michigan Nights. Okay, Guilty – “I’m like that cat you never liked but was scared to fight”. I’m actually thinking about this now and I can’t think of anyone I didn’t like to the point that I wanted to physically harm them but I was scared to actually give it a try. That said, I more or less quit fighting around age 12 or 13 (the age when people start bringing knives and guns to school fights). A lot of the time I wish rap songs were shorter – like on the 2 minute range – but this is one of those cuts where you’re glad you don’t have to be satisfied with a cut-up radio version. Cinematic. Dig it. myspace.com/guiltysimpson.

Replife – Do You Want To Pay A MF. Interlude status. The album is good, though. Stay tuned.myspace.com/danielgraykontarisreplife

Double F – I-5 Merge. I alluded to some superbly ignorant statements being made in this episode – and here they are. What is this dude even talking about? You’ve heard a cut off this tape before, actually. myspace.com/mystadub.

U-N-I – Yesterday. I think I was put up on these dudes last summer, and finally they make an appearance on the mixtape show. Kids set aside the A.D.I.D.A.S style swagger stuff for a minute and go somewhat serious for a minute. I like this cut. Shout-outs to Amanda for having the good sense to pick these kids up for Block Party. myspace.com/unimuzik.

Fatlip – What’s Up Fatlip? (Breakbot Remix). Breakbot is a new name to me, but whoever the cat is did a pretty good job with this remix. Fatlip somehow sounds more pathetic on this cut, and the vocal glitching is just enough to be noticeable but not over the top on some Funkstorung (not that I don’t like Funkstorung). Like you can’t listen to this and not really feel bad for this dude. And we all have days like this…right? Right? (I can’t find dude’s myspace.)

Guest Anouncement/広告alude – Jim Jones – Pop Champagne feat Ron Browz and Juelz Santana (instrumental): I’m not going to write about it here since I’m still a little upset about it, but the end of this episode got cut off by someone you’ll probably recognize…looks like next week’s episode I’ll be taking a break.

And before I forget, shout out to Mamiko again for handling the artwork on this joint because I still don’t have any image editing software yet.

So – how was your summer?