photos by Dana (distortion) Yavin

"The WU TANG show at best buy theatre was jenkin like fuck 2nite..only thing was missing was @Raekwon @GhostfaceKillah the clan did it up doe" - LYVE1OH

Wu-Tang Clan recently played a few NYC-area dates including Best Buy Theater on Sunday (12/18). No Raekwon & Ghostface unfortunately, but Method Man, RZA, Masta Killa and others from the crew were in the house. Here are some pictures and videos from that show

In related news, Wu-Tang Clan revealed via facebook that Method Man is working on his "last album produced by the RZA." As HipHopDX points out, it's not clear whether they mean that it's going to be Method Man's last album or the last album that RZA produces for him.

More pictures and videos from the NYC show, and a recently-posted Ghostface vs Narduwar video, below...

Continue reading "Wu-Tang Clan played NYC sans Ghostface & Raekwon (pics & video), Nardwuar talked to Ghostface (video)"

by BBG

Havoc of Mobb Deep @ the kick-off in LA (more by Graeme Flegenheimer)

In addition to initially announced Rock The Bells lineup (Nas playing Illmatic? Mobb Deep on The Infamous detail? wow), the festival has made some interesting additions like Erykah Badu performing all of Baduism (on select dates), Common performing all of Be (on select dates), Killah Priest performing all of Heavy Mental, Slaughterhouse, and DOOM. More lineup details are below.

The NYC show on 9/3 at Governor's Island gets the Erykah Badu appearance, and tickets are on presale, password is "ILLMATIC". General sale begins Saturday, 6/11, at 10:00 AM.

LA and San Francisco are on sale now, and the only other date, Boston, still doesn't even have a venue announced yet.

DOOM of course is not to be confused with the crust band who just played MDF and Chaos in Tejas.

In other Hip Hop festival news, Brooklyn Hip Hop Fest's lineup has expanded too adding MOP (!), Torae, Random Axe (Sean Price + Black Milk + Guilty Simpson), eLZhi, Marley Marl, Roli Rho (5th Platoon), Grand Wizzard Theodore and Twilite Tone. Tickets are on sale for all Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival events, including an after-party at Southpaw on July 16th which proclaims to have "special guests invited including the entire BHF '11 lineup".

Full Rock The Bells details, alongside some videos, below...

Continue reading "Rock the Bells expands lineup, NYC tix on presale now"

photos by Graeme Flegenheimer

Cypress Hill @ House of Blues - Sunset Strip - 5/24/2011

The line-up for the ROCK THE BELLS 2011 FESTIVAL SERIES--presented by Boost Mobile in association with GUERILLA UNION and powered by BlackBerry--will feature an array of seminal and up-and-coming hip-hop artists on three stages. Headliners include Ms. Lauryn Hill, Nas,Erykah Baduand Cypress Hill. See the current line-up below and look for more performers to be announced soon.

This year's festival will head to four major North American markets. Kicking off in the Los Angeles-area on August 20 at the San Manuel Amphitheater, ROCK THE BELLS will then head to San Francisco on August 27 at Shoreline Amphitheatre. The festival moves to the east coast for a show in New York on September 3 at Governor's Island (co-promoted with Bowery Presents, Highline, Mad Dog Presents) before wrapping in [a TBA venue in] Boston on September 10.

ROCK THE BELLS featured a number of headliners performing their most influential albums in their entirety for the first time in the history of hip-hop entertainment last summer. The tradition continues this year with Ms. Lauryn Hill performing her landmark, multi-platinum selling, multi-GRAMMY winning album The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill and Nas performing his breakthrough debut album Illmatic with special guests AZ, Pete Rock and DJ Premier. Nas says about performing Illmatic this summer, "For years people have been asking me to do Illmatic in so many ways, from stage plays to movies to books, but the time wasn't right. Where music is going now, the time is right. This will be my biggest production and it only makes sense to do it on the best rap tour which also happens to be a brand I've built and am a partner in. Can't wait to kill it with my comrades AZ, Premo & Pete Rock!"

Full album sets can also be expected from: Cypress Hill performing their 1993 multi-platinum album Black Sunday, featuring modern rock radio mainstay "Insane In The Membrane"; Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star performing their 1998 self-titled debut album; Raekwon & Ghostface teaming up for critically acclaimed, platinum selling Only Built 4 Cuban Linx and more.

"I am excited that this year's Rock The Bells will continue its rich history and tradition by presenting the best and most ambitious festival programming in Hip Hop," says festival co-founder and Guerilla Union head Chang Weisberg. "The bar has been set high and this year's line-up will certainly stake its claim. With ten of the biggest records in the history of the genre and the freshest new talent bubbling from the underground, this summer's Rock The Bells is another dream come true."

ROCK THE BELLS will feature three main stages this year. The two returning stages are the ROCK THE BELLS STAGE and the PAID DUES STAGE, which will feature independent hip-hop acts that performed at the Paid Dues Festival this past April in San Bernardino and new artists-on-the-rise. Paid Dues Festival creator Murs says, "I am excited that I once again have the privilege of hosting the Paid Dues Stage. We will have the honor of showcasing some of the best talent in independent hip hop as part of the worlds largest and longest running hip hop festival... the Paid Dues stage is gonna be the one to watch this year."

The 36 CHAMBERS STAGE is a new addition to the festival and will primarily feature members of the Wu-Tang Clan as well as artists selected by stage curator and Wu-Tang Clan mainstay RZA. A fourth stage that will also be added to most markets is the GRINDTIME NOW STAGE, which will feature battle-style performances.

The Guerilla Union pre-sale for the ROCK THE BELLS 2011 FESTIVAL SERIES will go from June 3 at 10am PST - 10pm PST. The general on-sale starts on June 4.

The lineup was announced last night at a show at House of Blues in LA. Mobb Deep, Souls of Mischief and Cypress Hill all played and pictures to prove it are in this post. More of them below.

The full lineup is also below...

Continue reading "Rock the Bells 2011 dates & lineups announced, Mobb Deep & Souls of Mischief & Cypress Hills played the kickoff (pics)"

photos by Brook Bobbins

In the Stretch & Bobbito world, mainstream was a four-letter word.

...For the eight years it ran, from 1 to 5 in the early hours of Friday morning, "The Stretch Armstrong & Bobbito Show" gave early exposure to artists like Jay-Z, Nas and the Wu-Tang Clan, who eventually went on to mainstream stardom. But for every one who made it, there were several who remained in the underground, happily or otherwise.

Of the many guests on Thursday night [at Le Poisson Rouge, Feb 10th]-- including Raekwon and Masta Killa of the Wu-Tang Clan -- the underground stalwarts were the fiercest, and often the most visibly moved. There was the fantastically gravelly Rock, of Heltah Skeltah, who performed a bit of "Laflaur Leflah Eshkoshka," and Artifacts, who were the night's first guests, and whose "Wrong Side of da Tracks" was still sturdy, more than 15 years after it was released.

After solo sets, Masta Ace and Buckshot collaborated for an impromptu reunion of two-thirds of the Crooklyn Dodgers, the one-off group assembled for the soundtrack of the 1994 Spike Lee film, "Crooklyn." Nice & Smooth closed the night, and almost stole it, with vintage hits, a tribute to Guru of Gang Starr, who died last year, and boundless energy.-[NYTimes]

In addition to the above-mentioned artists, the Stretch & Bob reunion featured appearances from DJ Premier, The Beatnuts, Natural Elements and many many others (and is that Spike from Top Chef in one of the pics?). More pictures from the indie hip-hop star-studded event below...

Continue reading "Stretch Armstrong & Bobbito reunited w/ many special guests in the house (pics from Le Poisson Rouge)"

photos by Zach Dilgard

"Somewhere around 10 p.m. (give or take 5-7 minutes) the Wu Tang Clan finally takes the stage. Pretty much everyone who I could recognize (Method Man, Ghostface Killah, etc.) was there, though I don't know what each and every member looks like, so I can't say for sure that every key member made the show.

Wu made sure to perform a bunch of their most well-known hits, including "C.R.E.A.M.," "Method Man," and "Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nuthing ta F' Wit."

As I heard he tends to do, Method Man made sure to crowd-surf for a while.

The group also shouted out Old Dirty Bastard. And ODB's mom was at the show and came on stage, saying hello to the crowd for a second. They also did a bit of "Shimmy Shimmy Ya."..." [Inside Hoops]

Actually that recap is slightly wrong - Ghost wasn't there, but pretty much everyone else was - even RZA. There was also GZA (Genius), U-God, Inspectah Deck, Masta Killah, Cappadonna, Allah Mathematics, and Raekwon. More pictures and another review from last night's show (12/23), and a Christmas video featuring RZA, below...

Continue reading "Wu-Tang Clan @ Hammerstein Ballroom, NYC - pics"