Thoughts on Kano feat Craig David - This Is The Girl

Jesus what happened to Craig David? He seems to have aged ten years since he was last in a video.

Kano really could have chosen a better first single to follow the street single Buss Dat. This is better than Nite Nite but really is a third single at best.

Is Craid David going to lean in a more garage direction now? One or two tracks really won’t hurt.

With Dizzee working with Lily Allen & Joss Stone, Lethal with whoever is in the NME that week and now Kano with Craig David & Kate Nash, shouldn’t Wiley really have reached out to Beth Ditto or something?

But seriously, have these two years been real hard on Craig?

Old Skool

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Bad Boy Tune!!

I admit I slept on the talents of Soweto Kinch and his fusion of Jazz and Hip-Hop. His album A Day In The Life needs to be checked out but you would be forgiven for not hearing of this album or his name any sooner than now. The album and artist has been pickin up acclaim from Giles Peterson, Ras Kwame et al but despite this, Soweto has been having trouble getting his product out to reach people. Now this sounds nothing new, artists are always talking about not having their product marketed right and plenty of copies being left on the shelf, but this story is important as it raises the age old topic of UK black music acts being neglected for american Hip-Hop/R'n'B by numbers acts backed by big record companies.

Earlier in the year the always outspoken, but always valid Ty raised some important points on this topic and it's worth checking out what Soweto has to say on his myspace blog on being blackballed by music retailers who want to pigeon hole his music to the Jazz section and not double rack his CD. This has stalled his second album Basement Fables. He goes onto mention his thoughts on:

The spin the music industry puts on things that make it sound like it's all rosey.

The term 'urban music'

The youth market

The term intelligent Hip-Hop

It makes for angry and at times depressing reading when he shares an opinion of many, yet the big people in their record label offices don't have a clue. Record labels, TV and Radio stations seem to use the excuse that UK Hip-Hop and Grime is not something that they want to be associated with, yet they pump millions into making 50 Cent household names with 5 year olds. Yet it's hard even if these record companies listened to what these artists had to say and had the time to understand more about the UK scene when they can point to spreadsheets of money made recycling tried and tested types of artists. Young kids are now brainwashed into excepting acts like 50 Cent and T.I represent all that Hip-Hop is and don't want to know about a Ty or Soweto Kinch. Will we ever see a change?

Forget the haters, put aside the length of time it's taken for them to come together, this footage finally shows the boys getting back together for some reunion gigs. The documentary was put together by GZA after originally filming his own solo adventures. The footage mainly consists of the guys conducting business round the kitchen table as their manager gets reprimanded by Raekwon about joing the guys on stage and some dispute Ghostface has over money. As yet there is no release date and more talk about recording an album than actally recording taking place, but it all looks very positive.

Above is a clip from Nick Cannon's new sketch show, Short Circuitz which airs for the first time on MTV UK this thursday at 9pm. Being that it's MTV and not HBO, Chappelle's Show this ain't, but from the clips I've seen you could watch a lot worse.

The third single from a fantastic album.

Lethal gets his shamrock on, make mine a Guiness and a potato salad. Ok enough with the stereotypes.

For years Red Bull has owned the energy drink market despite the fact that it tastes like the horrible medicine you used to have as kid and the taste is left in your mouth for hours afterwards. While cheapskate bar owners stocked poor imitations of the drink it's taken until now for Red Bull to be challenged in this market.

Relentless is Coca-Cola's take on the energy drink but instead of some slimline can they go the whole hog and pack a whole pint of caffeine tasting goodness for you to consume. Not only that but it tastes nicer and is better value for money than red Bull, with some supermarkets selling it for as low as 89p!!

For those that haven't tried it, you get a bigger buzz than Red Bull and it makes you think that it has to be illegal to serve that much caffeine in a can. This drink can only be described as legal crack. Before long you are wondering where your next Relentless kick will come from. The fact that it's only sold in a few places at the moment as well adds to the addiction. I heard someone say recently that they hadn't seen any in three supermarkets, perhaps there is a dry spell. These conversations don't happen for energy drinks, only drugs!!

What I've noticed though over the course of consuming plenty of the stuff, is that some cans seem to have more of a kick than others. I think at the factory where they are made the standards are very poor for qaulity control and so sometimes you get a can with extra caffeine than the standard amount. It's like a game of Relentless roulette with the uncertainty of what sort of kick you're going to get.

It seems to have become an underground, cooler thing to drink and is already being co-singed by the likes of JME and Example. The latter mentioned the drink in his blog and was sent crate loads by their PR company. Don't be fooled by the terrible, unreadable design, Relentless is not to be taken lightly!

Big Dada have got their special effects people working overtime on the Wiley project. Just when it loked as though there would be no video promo action for his album we get two videos. The first is for 50/50 and the second for My Mistakes with a clip of Gangsters thrown in at the end.

The best thing I’ve heard so far from the duo Blood Red Shoes. Good live too.

This is the US version for the Smiths cover of Stop Me which actually features both Mark Ronson and the tracks vocalist, the hotly tipped Daniel Merriweather. Not sure about the cartoon tears though.

Commercially Dizzee is going to take this one, but I think we would all be happy if half the people buying Maths & English picked up a copy of Playtime Is Over.
Because of the more commercial sounding tracks, big name guests and well known samples Dizzee will be labelled a sell-out, not in touch with the grime etc. from some quarters.

Despite this, the album doesn't sound as bad as people have made out who are well into their grime. After two albums and exposure around the world, can a person be begrudged for switching up their styles?

Wiley made the cohesive sounding, full on grime effort we knew he could do without any label interference. But after finally getting with a label who understands artists that offer that something a little different and understanding what a difference it makes if you put in the promotional effort, has he relinquished any chances of doing what Dizzee has done now, in a few albums time?

I’m not going to choose one over the other, but I will say these are two excellent albums from two excellent artists in music, not just in grime.

From the BHHF website...

BHHF NEEDS YOUR HELP!!! Brighton Hip Hop Festival (BHHF) is the UK's largest celebration of Hip Hop Culture.

Now in it's fourth year, the annual 2 week festival is attended by 100's of artists and 1,000's of people from all over the world.
Launched in 2004, the festival has gone from strength to strength and is recognised as a must attend event for all Hip Hop enthusiasts, as well as anyone with an interest in the many art forms that are comprised within Hip Hop culture.
Organised by KALA PHOOL, a multi-arts diversity led development agency, the BHHF exists as 'not for profit' to celebrate the richness, strength and diversity of Hip Hop culture, with many of the planned events free to attend.
Building on the success of previous years, the 2007 festival has programmed a fantastic line up of high profile events, designed to appeal to audiences new and old, it promises to be bigger and better than ever.

However, we've just found out that our major funder is NOT supporting us this year.

This is extremely bad news. Without these funds, BHHF will not happen. 100's of UK artists won't get the support and exposure they deserve, leaving a huge gap in the region's creative artistic and cultural landscape.

WE URGENTLY NEED YOUR HELP to realise the exiciting and varied programme of events we have planned.

OUR PLANNED EVENTS AND THEIR ASSOCIATED COSTS ARE AS FOLLOWS:

INDUSTRY EVENT - £500
FRIEZE BOX (live public art installation) - £3,000
DARKDAZE COLLECTABLE PHOTOGRAPHIC PRINTS - £500
GRAFFITI LEGENDS SHOWCASE - £3,500
FRESH STYLES FILM FESTIVAL (x3 film screenings) - £3,000
RAW (spoken word event) - £150
THE LIVE DAY - £23,000
INSURANCE / ARTIST & VOLUNTEER SUPPORT / DOCUMENTATION - £7,500


We will accept donations directly or if you prefer to deal with our suppliers this can be arranged. Donations of materials and loan of equipment is also required.
If you think you can help in any way please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Please email or ring Indy Hunjan (BHHF Director)
with your support:
E: indy@kalaphool.com T: 07977449052

BHHF07 hopes to run from THU 28 JUNE - SAT 14 JULY.

BHHF NEEDS YOUR HELP IF IT IS GOING TO SURVIVE.

Calvin Harris - The Girls


Kate Nash - Foundations


Example - I Don't Want To


Hadouken - Liquid Lives


Pharoahe Monch - Body Baby

In no order...

Wiley
Dizzee Rascal
Example
Kate Nash
Hadouken
Jamie T
Jack Penate
Ben Westbeech
Robin Thicke
Remi Nicole
Calvin Harris

When I was growing up and first started seriously getting into my music, it was all about R’n’B. This was around about 99/2000 when I would start to put my pocket money towards buying singles and any magazines that would feature the beats I stepped to. As R’n’B relied more and more on Hip-Hop to add a little something extra to the music in way of more Hip-Hop sounding production and the addition of a guest verse here and there, I too started to seek out these artists. At first it was those rappers who leant towards the more commercial sounding and MTV played Hip-Hop. At the time this was all Base was exposing me too! But I developed a wider taste and soon fell to the words of a Mos Def and a Common, rather than the barking tones of DMX and Ja Rule. While those commercially sounding and skillfully lacking rappers provided an early introduction to Hip-Hop for me, I wasn’t some souped-up Nova driving billy boy and as such these weren’t an essential soundtrack to my life and were listened to less and less. I wouldn’t say I had turned into some backpacker as the term goes, but I was soaking myself up in the sounds of those Okayplayer namesakes. I would still nod my head to a 50 Cent song, in fact in my circle of Hip-Hop fans I was the only one who could see the point of a 50 Cent song when in a club full of girls on some Saturday. I’m not going to say the guy is a genius, but there is a time and a place to hear a Fiddy record and a time and a place to listen to Illmatic. This open-minded approach has never ringed truer than in the last two years when I’ve been listening to and going to gigs where the speakers don’t bang to the urban beat. Whether this is down to age or the fact that a lot of urban music has hardly been hitting the great heights of late I’m not sure. But it has meant I’ve listened to a lot of different music for the better. I could drive to work listening to the Arctic Monkeys but be rushing home reminiscing with some New Jack Swing, playing Black Milk while on my laptop but getting ready for a night out to some Soulful House mix by Wookie. Expect this to be reflected in the music I’ll be writing about from now on. There will still be plenty of helpings of urban music, but I’ll also be writing about other music too. Basically the philosophy is if it’s good music, it’s good and I’ll more than likely write about it. Never has there been a better time to be into music with so many ways for an artist to be heard. You don’t have to wait for Top Of The Pops or rely on daytime Radio 1 to hear who is big at the moment, you can log on to myspace and find out who is going to be big. Now all you need just a few songs and a myspace page to be known. This directness with music listeners may mean some of the mystery is lost, but the benefits are there for all to see. For me it means there will be plenty of updates to this blog for starters and hopefully I’ll have even designed a new layout by then. Stay tuned, it’s about to get real interesting…

How old does Grime have to be, to be considered classic?