The xx @ Coachella 2013 (more by Wei Shi)

As you may be aware, Baz Lurhmann's glitzy, big-budget adaptatation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel, The Great Gatzby, is out May 10 and stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Toby Maguire, and Carey Mulligan. That same week will see the release of its soundtrack which was curated by Jay-Z and features Jack White, The Bryan Ferry Orchestra, Gotye, Lana Del Rey, Beyonce with Andre 3000, and Jay-Z himself.

It's also got a new track by The xx, titled "Together," which was specifically written for the film. You can stream it, and check out the soundtrack art, full tracklist and a trailer for the film, below....

Continue reading "stream The xx's contribution to 'The Great Gatsby' soundtrack"

by Andrew Sacher

As mentioned, Big Boi releases his second solo album, Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors, next week (12/11) via Def Jam. His solo debut, Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty, is still my single favorite hip hop album of the new decade so naturally I've been seriously anticipating VLADR since Big Boi mentioned he began work on it. And admittedly, the album is a bit overshadowed by its predecessor, due in part to lacking a song as huge as "Shutterbug." But though the album never hits a moment as large as that one, it's still a winner in its own right.

Vicious Lies opens up like a classic OutKast album, with a short, slow and pretty intro track that leads right into a blunted headknocker, "The Thickets," which appropriately features Sleepy Brown of Organized Noize, who worked on a lot of early OutKast. The bar continues to raise on the next track, a rhythmic club track up there with "Tangerine" or the Big Boi-featuring Janelle Monae track from that same year, "Tightrope." The album plateaus a bit there but more standouts start appearing later on with tracks like "Thom Pettie," a dirty synth track with a great hook from Little Dragon and a characteristically abrasive verse from Killer Mike. Later on we get "Lines," which is probably the best track on the album thanks to a killer chorus from Phantogram that doesn't leave your head once its in there (A$AP Rocky is on the track too). But the most interesting moment of the album has to be "Shoes For Running," which is carried by a hook sung by Wavves dude Nathan Williams. The only thing stopping it from being a total head scratcher is that Nathan toured with GZA and Killer Mike (which itself was a head scratcher) and I still can't decide if it's one of those fun indie/rap collabs like Kid Cudi and MGMT's "Pursuit of Happiness that you'll be hearing all year, or just plain weird. But the fact that I'm still going on about it must say something.

Big Boi will be in NYC next week, the day before his album release for an invite-only Hot 97 show at SOB's (12/10). The only way you can get in though is to win them from Hot 97.

Before that, Big Boi will stop by Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on Friday (12/7) to perform "Mama Told Me" with Little Dragon, who were initially supposed to guest on the song's recording, but were replaced on the album by Kelly Rowland.

Since we last spoke about the album, Big Boi has (legally) revealed two more of its tracks, the Kid Cudi-featuring "She Hates Me," and the T.I. and Ludacris-featuring Atlanta boasting party "In the A," both of which you can hear below. In related news, TI just revealed his storied track with Andre 3000, "Sorry," which will appear on his upcoming Trouble Man LP and can also be streamed below.

Continue reading "Big Boi releases new 'Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors' tracks, playing Hot 97 show in NYC (streams)"

by Andrew Sacher

As expected, there have been lots of (dangerous) rumors floating around about Big Boi's upcoming sophomore solo album, Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors, which is due out December 11 via Def Jam (pushed back from November 13). He's now revealed what is (fingers crossed!) the official tracklist for the album and the guest spots are pretty exciting. Despite Little Dragon's initial guest spot having gone to Kelly Rowland a while back, the group actually appears on three other album tracks. The album's got plenty of love from the dirty south, like on "Gossip," which features veteran UGK and worthy newcomer Big K.R.I.T.; frequent Outkast/Big Boi collaborator Killer Mike appears on a track with Little Dragon; TI and Ludacris end up on a track together; and Sleepy Brown of Organized Noize, who produced a ton of Outkast back in the day is on one too. In more surprising (and also exciting) news, Wavves and Jai Paul are both on the album. As is A$AP Rocky, Phantogram, Kid Cudi, and others. You can check out the full tracklist below.

In related news, TI also revealed the tracklist for his much-delayed upcoming album, Trouble Man (due out 12/18), and it looks a bit different than the one we initially mentioned. The most striking difference is that the song sampling Gotye and featuring Kendrick Lamar is not listed anymore. But in more positive news, Big Boi's Outkast partner Andre 3000 is there on the song, "Sorry" (the one where he allegedly apologizes to Big Boi). Cee Lo Green, A$AP Rocky, R. Kelly, and more are set to appear too. The full tracklist is below. TI plays NYC on December 18 at Best Buy Theater (tickets).

Speaking of Big Boi and Little Dragon, they were hanging out together a bit before Halloween at a "costume party" (check out their costumes). A video of them together and those tracklists, are below.

Continue reading "Big Boi and TI reveal tracklists / guests for their new LPs"

T.I. at SXSW 2012 (more by Ryan Muir)


Atlanta MC T.I. is prepping to release Trouble Man, his eighth studio album, before the end of the year. Though not named after the the excellent Marvin Gaye soundtrack of the same name, as a recent listening party can attest, the LP does dip its toes into samples from that effort while logging guest spots from R. Kelly, Kendrick Lamar, Andre 3000, Lil Wayne, A$AP Rocky, No I.D., P!nk, Cee-Lo, Pharrell Williams and more. Gotye gets into the mix via a sample on TI's track "Somebody That I Used To Know". Stream some tracks below.

In the meantime, the promotional arm is in full swing for T.I. and you can look for the MC to play some live dates. One of those goes down in NYC on December 18th at Best Buy. Tickets are on sale now.

All known tour dates, those song streams and some video is below

Continue reading "T.I. is the 'Trouble Man', readies guest-filled new LP and adds dates (including NYC)"