Wednesday 31 October 2012

A Psycho White Halloween! Push Em and Whistle Dixie by Travis Barker & Yelawolf

 
 I've been hearing a few tracks off Yelawolf's and Travis Barker's new joint cd Psycho White and so far I've been digging em. Even if it's not your kinda thing I like the original sounds coming from the pair. Both these songs have a feel I haven't heard from anyone else recently and I dig it. The first track is just some crazy quick fire drumming from Barker with some good screaming and shit from Yela. Song makes me wanna jump in a mosh pit or flail my hair around but unfortunately it isn't long enough.


 
This second song was released just today and the video, although quite confusing to me, is more creepy in the spirit of Halloween. I really liked the beat providing the chorus with the whistle. The effect on Yela's voice with the short verses made a cool song in my opinion too. Got Yelawolf and his gang rockin some facepaint in this too, gotta love it. Don't know why the hell Danny Trejo was in the video though haha.

Tuesday 30 October 2012

Live From The Streets: "Tent City"



If you follow us regularly, you'll know that we keep up on Mr. Green's "Live From The Streets" series. This morning I found a new addition to the series, with another interesting use of a sample. This time, Mr. Green visits a small village called "Tent City", where around 40 people live together in tents. He meets up with one of the citizens, gets his story, and a recording of him singing. Later, the recording was sampled into a beat that Mr. Green would proceed to get two emcees to spit over. This video is the making of the song, but if you would like to listen to the song in its entirety, click here.

"Severed Heads of State" by ILL BILL ft. El-P

"We're all guilty as charged, or just simply involved/
Often brainwashed by quick money, loose women and cars/
But maybe that's the way we're meant to be, Ignorant mutants for nukes/ 
Trapped in a matrix ruled by shooters in suits/"

With what I've heard from ILL BILL lately, when I seen that he released a new track today, my expectations weren't very high. On top of that, the video starts off really weird. But once the beat dropped, and he started spittin', my whole perspective changed. I've been spoiled by his album, "The Hour Of Reprisal", and most of what I've heard from him since then still can't compare. But I was surprised with how this track turned out, and he ended up killin' his verse. This is the first released single from his upcoming album, "The Grimy Awards", which drops on the 29th of January, 2013.

Friday 26 October 2012

"URALYA" by Tech N9ne


 "Don't do your job like you oughta, I'm gonna beat ya like a pinata/
Better yet I'm givin the Devil a stigmata, hit you with a hell of a Afrika BamBaataa BOOM/
Layin' on the ground, that's what you get for playin on the clown/
Sayin that my sound they don't wanna hear, it missed em, but I gave you money to get THE SHIT DONE/"
 
So right on the heels of Tech's EP E.B.A.H is another EP called Boiling Point. It will be released the day before Halloween and in tune with the season Boiling Point is another taste of Tech's well known dark side. This first release URALYA starts it off with a bang. This song has some really badass sound going on. Tech could've been the lead of some hardcore rock band. He's rockin some pretty badass facepaint patterns, the little stripes in the beard are a cool touch lmao. Welcome to his boiling point mother fuckers!

Thursday 25 October 2012

"Anything Goes" by Classified ft. Saukrates & Skratch Bastid



"Life's a journey, not a destination/
People wanna try to burn me with no hesitation/
Can't change you, can only change me/
I ain't losin' any sleep, we ain't in the same league/"

HELLL YEA. This is that feel good music that this shitty world needs more of. The recently released single from Classified's upcoming album has already reached #2 on the iTunes hip-hop charts. The video for the catchy song was released today, which helps accommodate the mood of the track. And the part of the video near the end where he pushes the bitch in the head was jokes. It's crazy how many albums Classified's made, and stayed consistently sick with. Anyways, check out this dope shit straight outta CANADA muhfuckas!

"Imagining" by Intuition & Equalibrum



"I feel guilty, I'm pursuing different paths so far away/
We never used to talk but now "hello" is hard to say/
When you got back from absence, I felt things start to change/
I let it breathe as memories slowly start to fade/"

This shit right here is touching. I've never heard a track outlining the complications of Alzhiemers before, but Intuition did an amazing job at venting his feelings regarding how it's affected him. He doesn't have the disease himself, but it's his father who struggles from the disease, causing a shitload of negative feelings to arise. The video and beat were perfect for the topic, and shouldn't be displayed any other way than this. This is some real shit.

"Bad Man's World Remix" by Jelly Roll ft. Rittz & Shawty Fatt


"They say insanity's doing the same thang/
Over and over again and still expecting a change/
But ain't nothing changed but the price of a ????/
Like a boxer outta shape, I'm living life on the ropes/"

As our blog description states, this is "our recommended choice of hip-hop". As of late, there hasn't been much to recommend to y'all, in our eyes. However, this morning on Facebook, Rittz shared this new track that he's been featured in by Jelly Roll. I donno much about Jelly Roll at all, but this beat is fuckin' cool, and both Jelly Roll and Rittz killed it. I didn't really like Shawty Fatt at all, but fortunately his verse is last and I can switch the song after Rittz! But yea, this song takes you through 3 different perspectives of the struggles comin' up in a "bad man's world". Check it!

Monday 15 October 2012

"Flammable" by Ransom

"Hit every pothole on the road to riches/
Must've took a wrong turn, wonder why I'm so suspicious/
And why the flow is vicious/
I went through hell and back, just so I could pose in pictures, call a couple hoes a mistress/"

I'm kinda disappointed that Ransom keeps making songs over beats that have already been used. His emceeing skills are too ill to be displayed as remixes or remakes. But that's his decision, not mine. And regardless of it all, he manages to kill everybody else's beats, so I can't complain lol. This one's over an old CNN beat produced by the Alchemist. I've just recently started following Ransom's music and I keep getting impressed with his lyrical abilities. Check out our other Ransom posts, and you might feel the same way!

"The Oracle" by Vinnie Paz

Official JMTHipHop Link: CLICK HERE

"I'm tryna make the same money that Madonna make/
Eyes never lie, I'm surprised that you not with jake/
Rhymes in one take, record an album in an hour straight/
You a pile of waste, I see a sucker and salivate/"

With only 1 week away until Vinnie's next solo release, "God of the Serengeti", JMT fans worldwide are impatiently waiting. To ease the pain, Vinnie Paz released a brand new video for another track from the highly anticipated album. This one's called "The Oracle" and is produced by the legendary DJ Premier. Which I'm really thankful for because this beat is fuckin sick! Vinnie kills it too, despite having like 10 bars ending with the word "shit". I've grown used to this pattern though so I can handle it lol. The official link for this video disabled the option to embed it onto another site, so if this link doesn't work, I'ma provide a link below where the video should be. Peace.

Friday 12 October 2012

"Sucker Freestyle" by Rittz


"Emcees can't see me like invisible, double timin' I'm rhymin it's like I'm fictional/
But listen I can teach you, I should start an institute, I'm on the blogs daily don't nobody mention you/
Nobody rockin your merch, nobody's coppin a verse from you, it's obvious your a dummy, you thinkin' you killin it but you're really just an imbecile/
The way I spit they say it's whimsical, you sleepin on me time to wake up!"
 
So just recently BET showed a huge host of cyphers with all kinds of different rappers from young to old. There was lots I had no expectations for, but there was a lot of artists I was excited were present  that kind of dissapointed me. I don't know, it just wasn't exciting. Maybe it was the format of it, with a lot of artists spittin' such short little verses, so many different styles that it all got kind of diluted, but I digress. Since that shit kind of dissappointed me I figured I'd post Rittz recent lone freestle from MTV to show how it's done. I've been reppin Rittz since the beginning of this blog and I'm still watchin this guy go up. He's ridiculous in this, he plans out a lot of his bars almost mathematically and just when you think a rhyme was done with he still had a whole plan to continue. His country accent allows for a lot of sick rhymes too that I wouldn't necessarily gravitate to but it comes out sick for him. I can't wait for his first album off Strange. Check it out!

Thursday 4 October 2012

"I Need A Dollar" (Live) by Aloe Blacc


 
Alright, so our blog says "our recommended choice of hip-hop music" but me and K Brenton love all kinds of music. The reason we formed a blog for hip-hop is cuz it is the particular kind we are most passionate about and it's also the genre of music filled with the most bullshit. This blog is supposed to be sort of like a flashlight shining through the fog of all the commercial, mainstream bullshit that people are fed by the media. But occasionally I see something too awesome to not share with you viewers who check out this blog. For example, this amazing live performance by Aloe Blacc with string instrument accompaniment. Aloe Blacc is filled with soul and his original song "I Need A Dollar" is fricken awesome too but this live perfromance gave it a special kind of flavour that I really enjoyed. Check it out!

Wednesday 3 October 2012

"Yuck Freestyle" by Ransom

"You chase hoes.... I chase dough/
Nobody's perfect with that roc but my J Cole/
Close to facin' death, I seen the face of death/
Now I'm back to fuck the game up like a replacement ref/"

I'm not an avid listener of Ransom's music. But it seems like every time I hear a new freestyle by him, he murks it. I don't know the original song. I haven't heard it, but I have a funny feeling Ransom spits sicker over this beat than 2Chainz does. Even though a lot of Ransom's substance revolves around cockiness, ballin', and materialistic shit, he makes up for the bullshit by using the perfect words to describe it. This is a random find, just like all of the tracks I find by this guy. But it's sick nonetheless. Yuck.

"Feet On The Ground" by Saigon

"Fuck whoever don't understand, I'm a man/
A man with the courage to take a stand/
I might run in the precinct with a gage in my hand/
Be front page with a grenade in my hand/"

With a sequel to Saigon's last album on it's way, "The Greatest Story Never Told 2: Bread and Circuses" has me eager to hear what he's been workin' on lately. The chorus sounds really similar to his song "Bring Me Down Pt. 2", but it's still sick. Saigon always has some cool shit to rap about, and does it flawlessly. The guitar beat along with the distorted chorus make the song have a sort of deranged feel to it. The lyrics of the chorus are fuckin sick too. Check it!

Tuesday 2 October 2012

"Sidekick" (Funk Volume diss) - The Jokerr


 "It's gotta be so, so hard to be a sidekick, stuck living in the shadow of a giant/
So, so hard, with everybody watchin when you know they'll never understand/
It's gotta be so, so hard, to be a sidekick, it doesn't matter how popular you might get/
When your whole identity's defined by the efforts of another man/"
 
Lmao! Oh my god, Jokerr hyped up that he was making a music video for his song The Maestro which disses Tech N9ne and when the time came for it to drop, it turned out to be a huge diss to Funk Volume, specifically SwizZz. Lmao I honestly felt bad for SwizZz watching this cuz Jokerr does pretty much rip his career apart. Not only did he probably really hurt SwizZz's feelings this was a very, very well produced song and a great video. I loved getting to see Jokerr actually tearing up the drums. There is a small part at the end where Jokerr is apparently discussing with Hopsin how hypocritical he is and if it really was Hopsin it was a pretty weird conversation and I have to say I agree with Jokerr's opinion. But besides all that bullshit, just on a musical level this was a pretty cool song, lots of shots at different people but unlike his other diss tracks I heard recently, I could listen to this again and again. Check it out!

"Strange $" by Kutt Calhoun

"Stayin' up on my toes, like a midget peein' at a urinal/
But back when I sold dope, I envisioned people at my funeral/
Found out that I had flows, then I started livin' at the studio/
And that was all that she wrote, now my living room is so beautiful/"

Here's another release from Kutt Calhoun's upcoming EP, "Kelvin". It seems as if Kutt's focusing on making his sound a little bit more on the mainstream side, which kinda sucks in my opinion. But I think he was pretty sick on this song and the beat was cool. This song takes a shot at anybody who ever doubted his financial state working for the Strange Music empire. I donno why the fuck anyone cares how much money he makes, but if you were hatin' before you should bring that shit to a stop. Lol Check it!

"Cherry Wine" by Nas ft. Amy Winehouse

"She done been there and heard all the rumours before/
She love art, she ride out with me on my music tour/
She like the herbs, natural medicine, she cookin' good/
She tell me everything is cool when it ain't lookin' good/"

Once again, Nas proves why he's legendary. I haven't heard many songs off his new album, but the two or three that I have heard are fucking sick. I really like this track, and the Amy Winehouse chorus made the vibe of it feel so sick. Reminds me of some shit The Roots would've made. But Nas describes his dream woman with perfect rhythm and rhyme. The classy video also adds to the effect of the song. Dope shit!

"Left Me Hanging" by Hopsin [Unreleased]

"How come it's always about bitches, and talkin' about riches?/
and walkin' it out, This is me chalkin' em out, witness/
Provocative sound, disses I'm tossin' around, mission/
Is knockin' em down, this shit is causin' a drought/"

Tonight, Hopsin and the Funk Volume team are gonna be in Toronto as part of the Funk Volume 2012 tour. I wasn't disappointed about not going until I realized that it was happening tonight, and one of my friends is attending the sold out show. Anyways, I found this unreleased track by Hopsin which I thought was really sick. The vibe of the beat is different for him but he managed to kill it, and add a sick chorus at the end. I wish he woulda finished the whole thing because it seems like it would have quickly turned into a new favourite of mine. Since I ain't gonna be in T Dot tonight, Imma have to put this on my iPod and jam to it at work from 3-11:30. Lame, I know.

Monday 1 October 2012

"Stupefied" by Wax [Live Performance]

"Simple questions are unanswerable/
And the hard truth becomes much less durable/
How can I tell you that I'm working at a grocery store/
You probably dated stock brokers before/"

Man. I really like the direction that Wax is taking with his music. It has some crazy soul/funk/r&b flavour mixed in with flawless rapping, every time. I'm not sure if this song's new or not, but it's my first time hearing it. I think a concert like this would be really cool to attend. I stated in the title that this songs by Wax, and I didn't mean to exclude the band because they're fucking talented as well. This is some next level shit that isn't seen very often. Check it!

"This Thing Called Life" by King Myers ft. Rakim

"A lot of beautiful women to whom beauty is given/
If I see them and I like them then I'm usually with em/
It be the, baddest ones with the mean demeanour/
The bad things in life always seem to please us/"

Once again, I've never heard of the guy who holds ownership to the song. I just seen Rakim's name as a feature, and I had to check it out. Turns out King Myers is fucking sick, and was able to ride a track with The God without being outshined too bad lol. I like the idea of the song, both guys KILL it, and the beat has a sick feel to it. Unfortunately, I could only find a clean version of the track. But this shit still makes ya feel good!!

"Who Want What" by JR & PH7 ft. Freeway, Saigon & Ras Kass

"I came in the game with the aim to change it/
Everybody else is still doin' the same shit/
But I'll show you what the difference is/
So y'all know the significance/"

I'm gonna be honest. I have no knowledge of the production team, JR & PH7. I just checked this song out because Saigon had a verse in it. It turned out to be an alright track. I usually hate when I hear Freeway's voice, but he was alright in this song. Saigon's flow was a lil strange, but he was still killin' the rhymes, and Ras Kass was alright too. I really liked the beat, but yeah. Random find lol.

"Independent Living" by Dizzy Wright ft. SwizZz & Hopsin

"For really my niggy, they sayin' that Dizzy that nigga be goin' too hard/
But it's fuckin' a lie, it's fuck yo life, nigga, they will take yo art/
Uh, Can't do it if I'm not the man/
Sign me up and then lock me in, lot to learn but nigga I got the fans/"

With the FV 2012 tour in full effect, I haven't been hearing much from the Funk Volume team lately. But today, Dizzy Wright dropped the video for this collaboration with his label mates, "Independent Living". This track is from Dizzy's free SmokeOut Conversations mixtape, and it's fuckin' sick. The beat goes hard, and they all spit some sick verses. I didn't like SwizZz's verse much, but I didn't expect to. The video had really cool effects, and was different from the typical visual. Check it!

"Reach For The Sky" by Maestro ft. Classified

"I got the strength of a raging fire, flaming when I hit 'em/
Mazes I've been in got burnt down, blazing with the rhythm/
Display your precision, amazing with vision/
Priest hear my speech and re-evaluate their religion/"

I know you've heard of liquid courage. This track's a bit different. This shit is some audio inspiration. Comin' from two very talented and respected Canadian emcees, the message of this track is to try harder doin' whatever you aim to do. I really liked this song, because they both killed the verses, and they picked the perfect beat to shed light on the topic. Also, the video was done very well. A lot of cool shots of T Dot were depicted. Chiggy check.