On Music


Get Kanye West — College Dropout

yes yes… one of the best pro­duc­ers alive, as well as some­one who brings more to this pos­i­tive ele­ment peo­ple call “hip-hop”… kanye west, has just dropped his “offi­cial” debut cd col­lege dropout. i say “offi­cial” because he had another release early decem­ber 2003. that “advance” release were re-mastered/re-mixed on his “offi­cial” from what i’m hear­ing. here’s the track list­ing from the “advance” cd:

01 intro [01:18]
02 self con­scious [03:06]
03 jesus walks (intro) [00:49]
04 jesus walks [03:30]
05 kanye west feat. mos def free­way & harlem boys choir [04:25]
06 kanye west feat. consequence-the good the bad the ugly [04:10]
07 breathe in breathe out [05:23]
08 kanye west feat. dirt mcgirt-keep the receipt [03:30]
09 kanye west feat. glc-heavy hit­ters [03:01]
10 kanye west feat. twista & jaime foxx-slow jamz [04:06]
11 my way [03:26]
12 fam­ily busi­ness [04:38]
13 through the wire [04:34]
14 kanye west feat. jay-z & saul williams-never let you do [04:30]
15 home (bonus) [04:02]

all-in-all, this album is some­thing dif­fer­ent. made myself lis­ten to it, as well as ana­lyze the damn song (lyrics and beats). i can truly say beats, rhyme, and reason—hands down, one of the best hiphop (solo-artist) debut CD i ever bought and enjoyed in a while (maybe even since wyclef’s Car­ni­val). as he said on mtv, vh1, and bet… go down­load it wherever/however you can—and if you like it, support…buy it! i guar­an­tee that you will.

music to my ears

well, got some r&r this past week­end. went on some­what of a shop­ping spree con­sid­er­ing i haven’t bought any­thing for myself except for a cou­ple of shoes and a old navy pant this past year. any­ways, finally upgrad­ing my computer—this baby should be able to rock steady with the new graphic/digital design tools i’ma about to get my hands on. hope­fully, i can play around with more artsy fartsy stuff and get cre­ative on that ass. besides the new com­puter parts, i got some loose fit­ting jeans from old navy…same one i had, but a dif­fer­ent “blue” color; which is pretty weird con­sid­er­ing the fact that it’s either looks dirty, “stonewashed”, and some funky color-looking ones. and oh yah, some box­ers $5 each—i know its a bit pricey for old navy ones but man oh man, my box­ers are loos­ing their elas­tic­ity (woah, big word…i have a headache now).

besides these mate­r­ial stuff, i got some food for the brain. sup­port­ing the RIAA and got some new CDs. not nec­es­sar­ily in any order but i got Da Band’s Too Hot for TV, Chem­i­cal Brother’s Sin­gles 93–03 [Lim­ited Ed.] and Slightly Stoopid’s Every­thing You Need.

some opin­ions about the CDs in my rotation…

too hot for tv

…da band. you saw them on tv, you heard their sto­ries, and now you can hear the end-product. i give it 4-headbobs (out of 4) for the beats—p.diddy got new ones, inte­grated some old ones, as well as wel­comed some of today’s hot pro­duc­ers like wyclef and track­mas­ters. i give it 3-headbobs in terms of a group-CD in general…’cause dylan didn’t really do much, so i guess it’s not really a com­plete group-CD … ‘kno mean?! but over­all i give it 3.5-headbobs in terms of beats, lyrics, con­tent, feel­ing, etc…they put their hearts into mak­ing it …now go sup­port them by buy­ing a copy of their CD (got it for $9.99 at bestbuy).

singles 93-03

the chem­i­cal bros…err broth­ers to be musi­cally cor­rect … “MC” (try­ing to start a new word…sorry for the corn). these guys are funky ass hell. i really liked their 1999 release, Sur­ren­der, which got me into their music. i saw them per­form at the first-ever coachella music fes­ti­val. i was there work­ing for staff pro try­ing to raise money for my uci cul­tural club—kababayan. it was soooo freakin’ hot and muggy—you know, river­side weather. but to make a long, flashback-story short …it was an awe­some expe­ri­ence. we got to see beck, rage against the machine, tool, etc etc. this girl offered me fifty bucks to let her in the vip sec­tion when beck was on the main-stage, but my old, fat area super­vi­sor stepped in and shit…bastard was horny—but umph…she was a hot­tie. any­ways, back to the CD…i give it 3.5-headbobs (cur­rently) …since i haven’t lis­tened to the sec­ond disc… i’m sure it will end up going to 4… they just inspire the ‘ish out of me (along with other astral­w­erks’ artist) when i do dig­i­tal art projects and sketches.

everything you need

…last but not least, sligthly stoopid’s CD brings you to a chillaxin’ place. well, you can’t go wrong with skunk records to give you that smooth, melodic groove with a lil bit of punk all-mixed-into-one; ahhh dubby dub…rock on with 4-headbobs. if you haven’t heard any of their songs, might i sug­gest lis­ten­ing to their Acoustic Roots CD fosho—these guys are awe­some musicians.

woah, haven’t wrote a lot ’till today. must be the glow… (whose the mas­tah?!?! sho-nah!! …damn, i gotta get that on dvd…one of my favorite movies as a kid). well, in other news, hendo and i are get­ting ‘ish done with our lit­tle startup-venture. i’ll let you get the down-lo on it as soon as we get every­thing ready (hope­fully soon). …good times, good times.

from my mind to yours, feed your brain…and sup­port he music indus­try by buy­ing some CDs once in a while—don’t be shady foo.

Get Razmatazzed by…

jason mraz

A lil some­thin’ some­thin’ from a dood whose music upbring­ings hails from the state of VA, and the county of sunny San Diego… inter­twined to make this funky, Soul, Jazz, R&B, Coun­try, Grass­root sound that will just get your feet tap­pin’ and your heads bobbin’.

You can catch more info about him and his new album Wait­ing for My Rocket to Come at JasonMraz.com

New DMB Album — Busted Stuff!

Check it out folks… Ff you are an avid fan of Music, then here’s some­thing for you. DMB (aka. Dave Matthews Band) has a new album out, Busted Stuff, which hits the shelves July 16th at 12:00am. Some of the songs where from the never realeased album, Lil­ly­white Ses­sions (02/2001). Over­all, I would say it’s another great DMB album—something to play every­day and relate to, from the first breathe you take in the morn­ing to the last words you pray with at night.