When Worlds Collide

Wow . . . 

M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes", seemingly launched into the upper-echelons of mass commercial consciousness w/ the recent help of Pineapple Express movie, has been sampled w/ arguably the top 4 rappers in the game dropping verses.

Kanye West, Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, T.I. - Swagger Like Us

I really dunno what to say about this.  

Mark my words, next sample Kanye uses is gon be Santi!!

First On This: Radioclit

Franki Chan preaching the gospel back at the hotel post-show.

Super-cool Swede, Johan from Radioclit, just sent me, and i'm assuming everyone else he met here on this past tour of theirs, an email w/ a bunch of new goodness.

When we met at Money Shot last Thursday (which was super-slammed!), he reminded/told me that we had met while I was on the road w/ Maya -- but you know how 'that' goes.  Regardless, after talking to him for a good deal of time before the show; he pretty much confirmed my long-standing belief that Swedes (probably, all Scandinavians in general as well), are the best people in the world.

Also, not being all that familiar w/ their work until that night, I was really into what they were doing --- a heavily traditional African-influenced hybrid of then-and-now.


Heres a vid of them working in the studio spliced w/ other ish:




And then, via YouSendIt, you can get their single "Secousse", as well as all of the remixes so far for the track.  Including efforts by Crookers, Mumdance, Qoso, and Bablee!

Jag Lskar Dig!

p.s. We got our 1st(?) first; what's up now Hype Machine!?!  Jake, make it happen!

Santish

This happened a bit ago; but the blog's been slowish, *ahem*...

Anyways Hot 97's DJ Enuff interviews Santi on Hot97.com.




Also, I got an email today saying that Santi's not doing the Rock The Bells tour anymore; instead:

I'm not quite sure what to think about Coldplay's new album -- which I haven't heard aside from that iPod commercial which seems to be perfectly targeted at my tv-viewing habits, .  . . hmmm? -- but I'm all for meaningless conjecture.  Therefore I'll go ahead and guess that the album will lend itself to allowing Chris Martin to pull a bunch of those 'I feel the spirit' moves that Thom Yorke has pretty much ran with for 6 albums.  

Anyways, its probably a better match than pairing her w/ most hip-hop acts -- and for that matter, it can't be much different/worse than djing for M.I.A. when we were opening for Gwen Stefani!

This was one of the few photos i managed to snap from backstage while she was performing.  

Gwen would be the one glowing white.

Apparently I wasn't allowed to take any photos, and Gwen's personal bodyguard made that abundantly clear when he caught me. That dude sucked!

When we were in LA(?), the rapper Nump, who had that hit(?) "I Gott Grapes" which M.I.A. jumped on for a remix, was stopped by Gwen's bodyguard forcibly in the hallway when he noticed he didn't have his backstage sticker on -- even though he had just been in Maya's room with all of us in there. 

Whatever.  I'm rambling and have to go to Oh Hell Nah!  

Dude also had a "Stop Cupcakin" t-shirt.

Nump - I Gott Grapes

Woo Hoo! Happy Anniversary China!

Today commemorates the 19th anniversary of the violent end to the Tiananmen Square 'incident'.

"That night, the Chinese government turned its troops and tanks against its own citizens, slaughtering hundreds to stop a coalition of students, a handful of workers, and a few academics, writers, and journalists from seeking more control over their own lives and for a pluralistic political system."

According to Human Rights Watch, there are still around 130 people in prison for their involvement in the protests. Bummer, eh?

Speaking of genocide, well, not really, but it still made me think of this track, and want to post it up, and its got a story, and a run-on sentence to boot . . .

I should be a photographer, cuz I made her look gooood.

This following track M.I.A. put me up on when she was down here recording. It took me a while to wrestle the track id from her - so you're welcome.

The tune has got such a HUGE sound. It opens with a classic breakbeat melting into a warm spacey melody that was a staple of the early-90s big-room sound. But the song doesn't really start for me until around the 4-minute-mark. That peaceful bliss fades to nothingness as the hypest guy i've ever(really? maybe.) heard on a mic just rips the shit on the ragga-dancehall-stylee for 2 minutes with barely a breath.

This is the stuff I imagine being played at a 90s warehouse rave in East London. I've reserved playing it until I find the perfect room of sardine-packed-just-don't-give-a-fuck's; and as of yet, it has remained silent.

Genaside II - Narra Mine (OG Version) (1991)

* Listen to it on your headphones at home; your laptop speakers will NOT do it justice.

Paper Planes Live Video - Exclusivish!

Maya just sent me the link to this video; and lets just pretend i'm the only guy w/ a blog <*insert air horn here*>.  



M.I.A. (ft. Rye Rye & Afrikan Boy) - Paper Planes (Remix)


Rye Rye - Wassup (Crookers Remix)



p.s. Hey Hype Machine, can we get on now?!

It's finally over!

Last time I was in Canada was w/ M.I.A. -- but we really didn't get much of a chance to 'experience' the cities we played in.  It was pretty much: Sleep in bus, wake up at venue > Sound-check > Eat quickly > Perform > Sleep in bus > Repeat.  

This time around, w/ Huggs, I had a completely different viewpoint.  

Things I learned in Canada:

1) They drink a lot.  

Miamians tend to restrict themselves to nightly hours unless you've got a bbq or WMC in town.  In Canada any hour is fair game.  People even plan out their daily schedules accordingly: 

"Mimosa for breakfast, then I'll get drunk for lunch, take a nap, maybe finish that report, and then go to the club/bar to get wasted."  

2) Drinks are super-expensive.

If you ever find yourself about to complain about the price of a drink, just picture a freezing-cold Canadian, all wrapped up in a parka, dropping almost twice as much dough on that same drink.  And yes, the exchange rate is pretty much equal.   

I bought an 18 pack for this hostel/hotel place I was staying at; it cost ~$48!!!  Yeah, I can't believe I bought it either.  Depending on where you are in Canada, you could be paying 3-5 different taxes for that sweet nectar of the Gods. 

3) Canadian hipsters are:

a) 3-10 years younger than those in Miami.  

This may have something to do w/ the fact that the legal drinking age is 18 or 19 (depending on where you are).

b) Way more open to whatever music you're playing.

During the course of the tour I found that I could play anything from Creedence to Blaqstarr to Justus Köhncke and the crowd would respond equally well.  'Responding well' is code for shirts off, hands in the air, jumping/dancing on the stage insanity.  

At the Ottawa show in particular, I was completely impressed with the party!  500 thumbs up to the Jokers of the Scene boys who were throwing it!  Super-evident that they have put in work (~5-6 years) in crafting such a refreshing party.  Granted most of the music can be found on the innrnet, but 85% of it i've never heard played out -- especially not in Miami!   

That said, most of the clubs/parties were heavily focused on hard and new dance (read: internet) music.  They were also not particularly into 'extended' mixing.  By 'extended' I mean, keep the song under 2 minutes, and don't bother running a mix longer than 8 bars.   

c) Into partying and not just 'being there'.

Maybe its just my jaded outlook, or maybe its that they're a bit younger, or maybe its the truth, either way Canadians love having fun.  Using just my fingers, I could count how many people, throughout the duration of the trip, came to the club to stand in the corner(takes one to know one).  Even when you've got a half-full club, everyone is either dancing or arm-thrusting. 

4) People from Quebec can find something bad to say about the USA no matter what the topic.  

Hey, funny guy, i heard you the first time; now, let's not get you hurt.  

5) When someone tells you its 'sweatshirt weather', bring a coat.

6) Bubble tea is set to sweep the nation.  

I had never heard/had this concoction before this trip.  Not that amazing, but I found places serving it everywhere we went.    

7) DJ Sega has the best work-ethic ever.

This kid cranks out tracks everywhere he goes; constantly working.  Not the most depth ever, but who needs depth when you're dropping dance-floor bombs every 1.5 minutes?

8) Facebook rules Canada.

That said; here are some random tracks you need in your life.

MGMT - Electric Feel

I heard good things about this band for a minute.  My connect for all things emo/hipster/indie-dance sent me this a while ago.  Into it.

During the last couple days of the tour my k'd version of Aibltun decided to catch me; and now prevents me from reopening earlier projects.  So here's something that's still playable, but not what I wanted as a finished project.  

Quality control?!  Never heard of it.

Take a listen for yourself.

Genesis - That's All (Contra Unfinished Remix)

Divshare is acting up, so I'll upload more later.

still bloggin

man, a good 24 hours later -- and i'm still bloggin. so impressed. usually i give up pretty quick on these kinds of 'projects'.


especially now that i'm doing edits etc. I'll come up w/ the idea; which is amazing. i'll maybe even put it into ableton; realizing that this is turning into a legitimate 'project'. then, if i'm lucky, i'll start setting up some markers.

and then, maybe after 10-20-30 minutes of marking up, slicing, redrawing this one audio file, i'll get so tired/bored that i've got to stop. and you know that whole notion of "picking up where you left off"? m'eh. overrated.

anyways, somehow i get some things done, sometimes. By "done" of course, i mean that I just stopped at an agreeable spot. So here are some "would've been something, but i'd rather move forward with not finishing other things" song-things.


First is a killer cover of the Temptations song "Cloud Nine" by Mongo Santamaria that I tempo'ed, extended, effect-ed, and otherwise worked with:


*Edit: Also, here's the OG Temptations song --- but the INSTRUMENTAL(well, its got some vocals on it)!

Second is my first mash/blend/edit thang from forever ago (like way before u got her leaked advance song). Franki Chan posted it up a while ago; a couple days later he posted an edit up that Franki & Jake did. I still believe that their edit beat out mine in downloads just cuz of franki's photo.

So here's my attempt at a 2nd wind. Thought process for this one was: Diplo(docus) = dinosaur. Maya = zany.