Brooklyn rapper Talib Kweli has been working on his new album, Prisoner of Conscious since before the release of 2011's Gutter Rainbows, and after continuously delaying it, he's finally set to release it for real this time. It comes out next week (5/7). The record features contributions from some pretty hot of-the-moment guests, including Miguel ("Come Here") and Kendrick Lamar & Curren$y ("Push Thru"). It's also got a track produced by Harry Fraud ("Upper Echelon"), one produced by RZA with a verse from Busta Rhymes ("Rocket Ships"), and a handful of tracks produced by Oh No. You can stream/watch videos for "Come Here," "Push Thru," "Upper Echelon," "Rocket Ships" and two other cuts from the album below, along with the full tracklist. That's the artwork above.

Talib's next hometown gig is this weekend on Sunday (5/5) at Union Hall, where he'll be providing "music and monologues" followed by improv comedy from Coal, Swag, and Sandino, which will be inspired by Talib's set. Tickets for that show are on sale now.

All dates are listed, along with song streams and the album tracklist, below...

Continue reading "Talib Kweli finally releasing 'Prisoner of Conscious' (Kendrick, Miguel, Curren$y, Busta, RZA & more included), playing shows"

by Andrew Sacher

Two hip hop producers, House Shoes and Dabrye, are teaming up for some shows together this month. They've got two shows in California this week, and then they'll come to NYC for a Bandshell-presented show on February 28 at Le Poisson Rouge with Lamin Fofana. Tickets for the LPR show are on sale now. At the moment, those are the only three shows announced for the two producers, and you can see them all in list format below.

House Shoes has been a mainstay as a producer in the Detroit hip hop scene for years, but it wasn't until 2012 that he released his "official" debut album, Let It Go, which features guest spots from Danny Brown, Roc Marciano, The Alchemist, Oh No, Guilty Simpson, Black Milk, Chali 2na and more. Like collaborator The Alchemist's 2012 album, Russian Roulette, Let It Go is a great showcase of the current indie rap scene, but it also works as its own cohesive album of retro-futuristic boom bap. You can stream the entire album and watch the video for the song with Danny Brown, "Sweet," below.

Dabrye hasn't released anything too recently, but like House Shoes, his albums feature a variety of great indie rappers (his 2006 release, Two/Three featured DOOM, Vast Aire, Beans, Guilty Simpson, and others), and his material has been taken on by some pretty great remixers like Kode9 and Flying Lotus. A stream of the instrumental version of his Two/Three LP is below.

All streams and a list of all dates below...

Continue reading "House Shoes released a guest-filled album, playing shows with Dabrye (dates, video, streams)"