Due to tonight's severe weather forecast, BRIC and Brooklyn Bridge Park announce that Celebrate Brooklyn!'s Old School Funk and Hip-Hop Dance Party featuring Zapp and D-Nice is moving to The Bell House (149 7th Street, between 2nd and 3rd Avenues, Brooklyn). The performance will start at 8:00PM/doors at 7:00PM. Please note space is limited.

by Andrew Sacher

Laurel Halo at Glasslands - 5/7/13 (via Impose)

Earlier this month (5/7), Brooklyn venue Glasslands hosted a great multi-genre bill as part of the Red Bull Music Academy NYC residency with sets from rappers Mykki Blanco and Le1f, arty electronic music from Laurel Halo, Crazy Bitch In A Cave, and Papercutz, and DJ sets from Venus X and Spank DJs. Did you go to that show? If so, how was it?

Red Bull Music Academy just posted a video of Mykki Blanco performing "Feeling Special" and Le1f performing "Wut" to their Youtube channel, and you can watch both videos below. You can also stream Venus X's set over at RBMA Radio.

"Feeling Special" appears on Mykki Blanco's new EP, Betty Rubble: The Initiation, which came out this week (5/21) via UNO. If you liked Mykki's debut mixtape, Cosmic Angel: The Illuminati Prince/ss, you'll likely be a fan of the new EP too. You can stream it in full at Pitchfork and listen to two of its tracks below.

Le1f also recently made a video for "Spa Day" off his Fly Zone mixtape. That video, and all other streams and videos below...

Continue reading "Mykki Blanco released a new EP, played Glasslands w/ Le1f, Laurel Halo & others (videos & EP stream)"

Warm Up 2012 (more by Leia Jospe)

The annual Warm Up summer concert series is returning to MoMA PS1 this year every Saturday from June 29 through September 7. As usual, they've booked an excellent lineup of forward-thinking electronic music, hip hop, and other related genres.

Artists playing this year include Majical Cloudz (who just played NYC and will play Northside), XXYYXX, Ryan Hemsworth, Liars (live), Kode9, Mr. Muthafuckin' eXquire, Caribou (DJ), Empress Of, J. Cole, World's Fair, IO Echo (live), Julio Bashmore, Ben UFO, Gobby, Kelela, Juan Atkins, A Guy Called Gerald, Pional, Kim Ann Foxman, Jon Hopkins, King Britt and tons of other names.

Advance tickets for each day will go on sale Wednesday, June 5 at noon via MoMAPS1.org. Full 2013 schedule below...

Continue reading "MoMA PS1 Warm Up 2013 announced (Majical Cloudz, XXYYXX, Ryan Hemsworth, Liars, Mr. MFN eXquire & more)"

Schoolboy Q at Best Buy Theater - 5/21/13 (via Kellen Dengler)

Thanks to TDE's recent success, Q found himself as the most established performer at the Freshman show. With no one to accompany him on stage, he fared better in the larger crowd as a solo artist, breezing through tracks from Habits & Contradictions and throwback collaborations with A$AP Rocky. At one point, he asked Kendrick Lamar to join him but laughed at the audience members who fell for his joke. Fittingly, he won the crowd back with his charisma by asking them the title of his upcoming album. "Oxymoron!" they screamed back. And this was done four times over. [XXL]

As mentioned in yesterday's What's Going On? post, Action Bronson made a video for his Harry Fraud-produced song, "Strictly 4 My Jeeps." If you missed it, you can watch that video below. Riff Raff stars in the video, and as discussed, he plays a Scion A/V show in Brooklyn at Coco 66 tonight (5/22) with Stalley and Smoke DZA. Entrance to that show had to be gained through Scion's contest which has since ended.

Schoolboy Q and Ab-Soul are both members of the group Black Hippy (which also includes Kendrick Lamar and Jay Rock), and that whole group is playing the traveling Rock the Bells Festival which hits the NYC-area on October 4-5 at the Meadowlands Racetrack in East Rutherford, NJ. Tickets for that festival are on sale now. The rest of the lineup includes Big K.R.I.T., Common, Danny Brown, Earl Sweatshirt, Tyler the Creator, Jhene Aiko, Juicy J, Rakim, Wu-Tang Clan, and many more.

Updated Rock the Bells lineup and videos below...

Continue reading "Schoolboy Q, Action Bronson (who has a new video) & more played the XXL Freshman show; Rock the Bells tix on sale"

by Fred Pessaro

Lets face it, I've always been more of an East Coast guy when it came to hip hop. In the classic 2Pac vs BIG (happy birthday Mr. Wallace!) discussion, I fall BIG every time. Wu-Tang was always more important to me than No Limit, the south or Cali crews like Freestyle Fellowship and Heiroglyphics. Yet there is always an exception to every rule, and that exception is Souls of Mischief's classic, 93 til Infinity:

93 'til Infinity is the debut album by Souls of Mischief[, and was] ...propelled into success by its title track and lead single, which reached #72 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also featured singles "That's When Ya Lost" and "Never No More" which reached the Hot Rap Singles, but never charted on The Billboard Hot 100. According to Allmusic author Steve Huey, "Although the title cut is an underappreciated classic, 93 'til Infinity makes its greatest impression through its stunning consistency, not individual highlights." Huey also goes on to remark that 93 'til Infinity is "one of the most slept-on records of the '90s". -[Wiki]

Full tour dates are listed, along with classic videos, below.

Continue reading "Souls of Mischief celebrating 20 years of '93 Til Infinity' on tour"

Kanye on 'SNL'

Kanye West has had a busy weekend. On Thursday (5/16), he played a private show at Roseland for Adult Swim where he performed a few new songs. He also, as is his wont, let loose one of his stream-of-conscious rants, this time mostly about celebrity culture. You can watch video of that below.

One of the songs Kanye performed at Roseland was new track "New Slaves." A video for that song made its debut on Friday night (5/17), projected at, according to maps on Kanye's website, 66 locations around the world. Nine of them were in NYC, including two in Williamsburg: one being outside the Bedford Ave L stop, and the second on the Wythe Hotel, and there's video of the former below.

The song, which features a sample of 1969 single "Gyöngyhajú lány" by Hungarian rock band Omega and vocals from Frank Ocean, will feature on Kanye's follow-up to 2010's My Dark Twisted Fantasy which is, according to Pitchfork, titled Yeezus and has appearances from Daft Punk, Skrillex and more.

This activity was all centered around Kanye's appearance on Saturday Night Live's season finale hosted by Ben Afleck. (The teaser videos are below.) He performed "New Slaves" and debuted another new song, "Black Skinhead," and video of those, along with the other clips mentioned in this post, are below.

Continue reading "Kanye West played new songs from 'Yeezus' on 'SNL,' projected new video on buildings Friday"

Zebra Katz @ BV-SXSW 2013 (more by Amanda Hatfield)

Zebra fucking Katz, about to spend some serious time in Europe, dropped a mixtape yesterday and you should stream that bitch. With dates below...

Continue reading "Zebra Katz touring Europe, releases mixtape (listen!)"

In addition to the previously discussed lineup of Pusha T, Redman and Dizzy Wright, Brooklyn Hip Hop Fest expands with the addition of EPMD, Soul Understated and a tribute to the late great MCA (Adam Yauch):

On the Final Day of the Festival, July 13th, The Festival will stop for a moment of silence for Yauch and then launch into a tribute curated by [BHF Executive Director Wes] Jackson and Bodega DJ, RawBeatz. Brooklyn Bodega will also release an exclusive mix of Beastie songs of remixes from the "Cookie Puss" days all the way to "Hot Sauce Committee".

As discussed, Pusha T's new LP My Name is My Name is due in July and features "Numbers on the Boards" which recently surfaced in video form. Check out that video, as well as a tour doc about Pusha T, below.

Continue reading "Adam Yauch Tribute, EPMD and more added to Brooklyn Hip Hop Fest"

Is Tim Dog still among us? Video news story and more info below...

Continue reading "Is Tim Dog alive? (watch the WREG report)"

Canadian R&B singer The Weeknd, who picked up two Juno Awards this year (including R&B Album of the Year for Trilogy), is getting read to release a new album, Kiss Land. There isn't a release date (though 8/27 is rumored) or any other details yet, but you can stream the record's title track, all seven minutes of it, below.

Continue reading "stream the title track from The Weeknd's new LP, 'Kiss Land'"