Our buddy Juse sent me this link to a hot new band out of Philadelphia called Sweatheart. It’s his recommendation and I bear no responsiblity for it. Furthermore I would like to warn you that the video for Juse’s favorite song “Fingerbangin’” is crude and immature. And funny.
Aaaaahhh, mixtapes. If other genres of music were to adopt this form of promotion, we might not forget about certain artists in the few years between their major album releases. I believe Hip Hop is so popular today because there is a lot of it, and mixtapes certainly help that. Be it remixes, collaborations, diss tracks, hearing your favorite rapper over someone else’s beat etc… , mixtapes have you covered. Actually, some mixtapes are better than some albums, or better than the album that they are there to promote. Since mixtapes are vaguely illegal and primarily for promotion, you end up with some exclusive material that is not overly thought out, with or without hooks, scrapped from albums and even some official album songs. If you can overlook some of the dj’s who scream all over the tracks, you end up with some decent stuff.
I’ve compiled some mixtapes from over the year that are worth a second listen. Some are old, some are new, but overall pretty good. Listen or download.
GREEN LANTERN- ALIVE ON ARRIVAL- Real good.
GHOSTFACE- FISH N CHIPS- Can’t get enough Ghost!
BIG MIKE- SUN STILL RISES IN THE EAST
JAY-Z/B.I.G- BROOKLYN- A lot of random material.
CLIPSE- WE GOT IT FOR CHEAP 2
BIG L- BEST OF- Now you can sound like you know what you’re talking about if you meet up with the Animal crew:)
J-DILLA- LEGACY
MOBB DEEP- WELCOME TO G-UNIT- Some keepers from a somewhat lackluster recent showing (and since signing to g-unit).
DJ MELLO- HURRICANE GAME 3
DJ TRIGGA- HIP HOP IS DEAD- Some of these should have been on Nas’s album.
DJ XXL- 20 GREATEST DISSES Why not? Some history in there.
PAPOOSE- No one Papoose mixtape stands out completely for me, so click the link and compile your own.
Click the pic to check the new Subrosa site.
Check out round 2 of the Defgrip top 5’s of 2006. Thanks to everyone who contributed to the list!
I keep checking back waiting for one of the guys to break the Defgrip holiday silence, but I guess it will be me. I’ll just let you know that we’ve got some good stuff coming your way. Part Two of the Top Fives is coming soon, featuring a lot of people you know, and some you will get to know.
I’ve also got a Quick 15 with Jason Enns ready to post, as well as an interview with Will Smyth of Dig BMX Mag, who has some pertinent opinions to share regarding the recent discussion we all had in response to Nuno’s “Rant” post–good stuff concerning the continuing relevance of our favorite print magazines in the face of the Digital takeover.
On an unrelated note, I’ve been feeling Nom De Guerre lately. Check the Online Lookbook to see their progression since last year–Autumn/Winter 05 is kinda homosexual, Spring/Summer 06 is boring, but Autum/Winter 06 is on point; a nice mix of dressy/outdoors/urban.
For this years top 5 list we took a little different approach. Instead of just doing it with the Defgrip crew, we wanted to see what everyone else had to say. Between the the six of us at Defgrip, we compiled a list of our friends and people who are down with Defgrip and asked them what their top 5’s were for 2006. The criteria was very vague… The top 5 could be anything, so it’s pretty cool to see everyones different approach. We will be updating this feature in stages. This is stage one containing about half the people we asked. The order is really random… It’s actually alphabetized by first name because that is how the files were in my computer…
We hope you enjoy the first installment of the top 5’s of 2006 and look for round two soon.
Photo Gorm, December 2006
So this has come of a bit of a surprise, I saw some plans for a plaza being put together on Kingpins site a while ago and had forgotten about it until this flickr account surfaced on Streetphire. The people responsible for the project are the same skaters behind the Side Effects of Urethane exhibitions and have received some art council funding for the project. The predictably bad news is it’s skate only, looks amazing though and with the redeveloped Cantelowes doubles the number of skateparks in central London.
I’ve always wondered what some of The Beatles’ songs would sound like if Metallica sang them. Now I don’t have to. Have a listen.
The Come Up has a some good posts as always. Check out a little Q&A they did with Mike Ardelean as well as a dope road trip video from Federal.
DataBMX is looking good. Especially if you read French. If not, you can at least see the interviews in English, and there are a couple good ones with Ian Schwartz and Bruce Crisman up right now.
