MIXTAPE 116 – PRIORITIES

Happy new year, happy new president, hope you bought yourself a new hoodie instead of blowing it on chocolates for some dude/female who aint appreciate you anyway. Been a minute.

For those of you who have been curled up in a ball in your room, in the dark, whispering silently to yourself “man, I wish dex would hurry up and talk about something he has no business even opening his mouth about for over 12 minutes in an outro”, this is your episode. For those of you who haven’t, it’s all good because you can just loop the tracks instead.

Priorities – we all have them.

Tracklist

Intro – Kev Brown - Keep On Instrumental. myspace.com/kevbrown

Co$$ - Angelic feat Blu. Both of these dudes are dope. I can’t support the Power Rangers reference (never liked them dude(ette)s from the start, Ninja Turtles reigns supreme son), but Blu’s “we in the field tryna kill demons” for some reason makes me want to go play Final Fantasy or something.myspace.com/paidthecoss

Bambu - Crooks and Rooks. From LA to..uh, LA. Really, relistening to this track again, probably all of that nonsense at the end shoulda just been left to a close ear bent at this joint. I know I’m a little late on this, but this joint, along with the video, is some of the best rap music I have heard in a minute, period. myspace.com/bambumusic

Primeridian - Money feat Rashid Hadee and Pugz Atoms. True story – I found this cut, unlabeled, in my iTunes the other day, and dug it. I sent an email to Suhburb to double check that this was okay to blast on the show, and got a “uh, I didn’t write that song, fam” mail back. Lol wut? So I dug through my gmail box and it turns out it’s a Primeridian cut. Make no mistake, being mistaken for a Suhburb production is a good thing (come on, the drum work – doesn’t this sound like 06 era Suhburbia?), but seriously people gotta start tagging their mp3s – this “final mixdown 080707.mp3″ business is getting old.www.myspace.com/primeridian

oh yeah, thanks to mamiko for this ep’s design.

Tor Cesay – The Perch feat Flying Lotus, Phonte, and Oddisee. I got this sampler from (I think) Giant Step and it was sort of great. I really wanted to put some of the more grimy tracks up, but I ended up going with this one. Anyone out there more up on this person, the proper pronunciation of her name? myspace.com/toruk

Royce - Shake This. I’m too tired to remember the original sample on this cut (help?), but I’m actually kinda into with it. The balance and intensity is pretty impressive. I like how the first verse is squeaky clean and then all of a sudden Royce flies into a flurry of curse words near the end of the second verse, and then it’s really all over. Also how his statement regarding his status with Primo is actually affirmed an appropriate sound effect. Seriously guys, Primo-style radio edits are so much better than album cuts.

Pax and Pry – Another group whose name I’m not quite sure how to pronounce. I forget who put me up on this group (they’re from NL, so maybe Ouxu? was this your doing?), but right now I am very thankful for their advice because they are sort of good. And, for anyone wondering how they might implement, sans bandcamp or any other outside party, some of the pushy “advice” given in this previous post aimed at independent rappidy rappers, their site is a good example. paxandpry.com

Outro Instrumental – King Most Yancey Boys Megamix (sliced, looped, etc).

Eskibeat Public Service Announcement – as you probably noticed, that was a cover of the old Wiley “Eskimo” beat as produced by yours truly with a few minutes of spare time and a Nintendo DS. I’m totally serious, I expect to see a hit track pop up from over there produced on a DS. Also sorry about the whole echo effect thing, somebody told me UK people liked that sort of stuff so I was just trying to do some outreach.

Actually, if anyone wants the raw version of that track I can post it up.

And that’s what it is. While I’m not really confident that I expressed myself properly (or concisely) in the outro, I am serious about being worried that people that just randomly support any minority (choose your own definition for that word) artist, just for the sake of “supporting” them, are taking away from and cheapening the efforts those artists within that same group that really are dope and truly do deserve respect for putting out good music.

So yeah, does anyone have any thoughts on that? I’m sort of interested in hearing what people think about this.

MIXTAPE 113 – SKEETER WAS BLACK

I was originally going to talk about something else here, but all of a sudden I like felt the holy ghost or something and was inspired to talk about this. Seriously everyone, this is an important issue that I feel strongly about. I’ve actually had serious conversations about this.

Intro: Copywrite – Fuck A Soundcheck (prod RJD2)

Busta Rhymes – Packin Them Things (prod Kev Brown). This is just sort of a given. And even Busta Rhymes voted for Obama. You know where to find Busta, so go check out myspace.com/kevbrown.

Blu and Mainframe – Hold On John. Off of the Johnson and Jonson record, which you’ve been hearing bits of for the last couple years or so. Apparently the joint is actually out now, and it’s highly recommended. I don’t think there’s a single cut on this record that I don’t like. I’ve said enough about this record before, so I’ll leave it at that. Shouts to Steve for this one. myspace.com/jandjbabyproducts.

I mean, think about it. The only dude who seemed to be able to dance. He could beatbox. He wore rappidy-rap style clothing – well, comparatively. Oddly enough, I never felt like this was stereotyping – I just naturally internalized that Skeeter was Black. I seriously can’t wrap my head around the fact that some people don’t get it. To my white friends – I like you all a lot, but sometimes you miss things. Very important things. Like which cartoon characters are which race.

Stanza – Do. As heard previously on your favorite rap podcast, this is another selection off of Name This Album. The lyricism is sort of bizarrely great (trying to imagine the hand contortions in the beginning is alternately funny and amazing) and as with the rest of the cuts on here, there’s actually a message in here. And as I mentioned in the outro, Stanza has inexplicably put this entire record up online for free download – inexplicably because it’s easily worth the money. The record is dope. Go get it here, and check out the rest of the site at mqrt.com.

MF Doom – Rapp Snitch Knishes feat Mr Fantastic. Does anyone actually know anything about Mr Fantastic? I mean, I could google the dude, I guess, but after listening to this, I’m realizing that I haven’t heard much of anything from the dude.myspace.com/mfdoom.

This of course, is all based on when the show was on Nickelodeon. I quit watching when Disney took over. Actually I think at that point in my life I was a little busy to be watching cartoons (okay, it was just on at an inconvenient time. I definitely used run late for school because I wanted to catch the end of Pokemon).

Q-Tip – Gettin’ Up. On the Dilla rework – you might have heard this one, but for those who haven’t – dope. This really is a proper rework. myspace.com/qtip.

Marlena Shaw – California Soul (Diplo remix). For real, when I read the track title before actually listening to it, I was both excited and worried to hear what sort of destruction Diplo would wreak on this classic – but it’s oddly restrained. It’s good. myspace.com/officialmarlenashaw.

Outro: Qwel and Kip Killagain – Heliocentric (Instrumental). I actually like Qwel.

So, really. Doug was clearly white, Skeeter was obviously Black. The logic doesn’t really run across color lines, however – I mean, what about Bee Bee? She’s blue too, but I never got “Black vibes” from her, if that’s an appropriate word. And reversewise, come to think of it, Patti was sort of ambiguous – mixed ancestry, perhaps? She was sort of dark. Connie was Asian. I’m fairly confident about that one.

Am I overthinking this? Any other theories are welcome.

Oh yeah, and thoughts on the music. You know.

MIXTAPE SHOW EPISODE 18

This show is pretty much the official relaunch of the mixtape show, the most major known unknown rap / hip-hop podcast on the internet. Basically it’s a fucking mixtape that you can download, for free, and it’s not illegal. Read the show notes, check out the artists, buy they shit, bookmark my shit, tell your friends. Let’s go.

First off is Hezekiah. I got clearance to put this joint on a long time ago, but I liked it so much that I couldn’t really find a spot to do it justice til now. Have any of you ever seen dude perform this song? I did, and he pretty much just wore a suit and jumped up and down and hollered. Nobody seemed to know the words, and nobody really seemed to care because he was wearing a suit and jumping up and down and hollering. It was great. If you get a chance to see him perform, do it. Way more energy than you’d expect from his most recent album, Hurry up and Wait, which is good by itself. Check out Hezekiah at Soulspazm.com..

Hezekiah – You.

Exile feat. Blu – Soul Rising.

I’ll be honest, I hadn’t heard much from these two before this. The homie John Kim from Sound in Color hooked me up with the mp3, so I had to put it on. If you want to know more, get your fucking Google on. For now though you can check out www.soundincolor.com.

Off of Up Above Records, Kev Brown. Peace to sam for getting this one to me. The song pretty much speaks for itself, so just listen. Apparently he’s done work with De La Soul, Jewel, fuck a namedrop, go listen. myspace.com/kevbrown..

Kev Brown – Not That Way.

Che Grand – Brown Study.

Che Grand, off of his upcoming Official Bootleg Import EP. Expect an interview or feature soon, because this shit is important. From a conversation with the producer: what up dex: is “brown study” about having sex with white girls? westcoastbadbuoy: i honestly have no idea, what up dex: i’m pretty sure it is. westcoastbadbuoy: apparently brown study is some intellectual term in the dirctionary, but i’ve never bothered to look it up what up dex: from google: “The expression is old, dating at least from the sixteenth century.” what up dex: where the fuck did this kid go to school? westcoastbadbuoy: lol. what up dex: well. what up dex: it’s about fucking white girls, anyway. thanks for clearing that up for me. Che Grand at LoudMinorityMusic.com.

What’s up, EV? Back to the East Coast again. Has anyone actually heard the Color of Money mixtape? Honestly that joint was hotter than a lot of fucking records that came out this year. This joint is technically just Numbers, but really it’s sort of hard to pick a “best” song since there’s a handful on here that I like a lot. This one goes with the vibe of the show, though. I think you can listen to, and cop, the mixtape here: Smoke and Numbers – The Color of Money..

Smoke and Numbers – 5A.

K’naan – Struggling.

I love reading press releases about this dude because they always bold and underline the fact that dude is Somali-Canadian, as if that’s all he has going for him. Hopefully this joint lays that notion to rest. www.thedustyfoot.com.

This one came to me on a 3-track radio promo in an unmarked package, no CD case, just a printed CD cover in a paper sleeve. Anyone that listens to old DJ Shadow should recognize the beat, which was pretty much just waiting for someone to rip it up. Had to close the episode with this one. Peace to Frankie Lewis for clearing this one. www.strong-quality.com..

Black Market – The Wall.

So that’s what it do. If you want to get at me for any reason, including track placement or interviews, get at me on the contact page. Or kucrdex [at] gmail [dot] com. wizzone.

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