The Legacy

Nike pays homage to the one of the greats, Ronaldo. I would go as far to say he is the best striker I have ever seen, and considering I've been about since the late 80's, that is one heck of a player.

Keys To The City

Nipsey Hussle - Keys To The City from Nipsey Hussle on Vimeo.


Clean. Off Nipsey's impressive free offering, The Marathon.

I was banging this mixtape on many bored hot afternoons in Ghana, especially during powercuts.

The Life and Times of Albert Heijn

Myself and a bunch of others went to Amsterdam not too long ago, to see Young Khalifa perform. DJ Motive was on the bill that night and there was bunch of us out there. 3/4 of the Trapstar Collective were present, Skits, Shadez The Misfit and Its Nate- Henry Houdini, JC Adams, Jack Cannon and countless others. The concert was alright, and Amber Rose is something else. Good times were had. And then some. Pics below.

When Fish Ride Bicycles

I have been following these kids since my little sister told me to listen to Gone Fishing. That was some two years ago, anyways, Mikey Rocks and Chuck Inglish's first LP, is due to drop July 12 in the US. Not sure about a physical release over here, as they are signed to Mountain Dew's Green Label Sound. If you don't understand imagine Oasis or Powerade had a record label, fingers crossed it works out for them. Nice artwork though.

 The Cool Kids - "Bundle Up" by greenlabelsound

First single, Bundle Up is up above.

Oh and yes I am alive, until the next time.

Thursday Thoughts - Rolling Paper or Toilet Paper

Around this time last year I found myself chilling to the sounds of Wiz Khalifa's "OJ & Kush" and even a few times engaging in that "Taylor Gang" lifestyle. I even woke up extra early, the day his tickets were going on sale to make sure I got one.

He followed up with "Black and Yellow" which increased the anticipation of the album, then the bootleggers got it a week or two before it's official release and the report was negative, I thought I would hold out and purchase the cd like my partner Kwarmz. He then told me it was one of his worst purchases. I then proceeded to download (don't judge me)

I couldn't believe what my ears were hearing, it was a sound completely different to what I was expecting. That being said,  the album performed well commercially speaking as it came in at #2 on the Billboard Charts and in it's first weel shifting close to 200, 000 units off the back of a multi-platinum selling single. But as an original fan (well the first wave of OJ & Kush listeners) I feel like Wiz dissed me, I feel like an Everton fan when Rooney lifted his shirt after scoring and it had the message "once a blue, always a blue" then went to Manchester United the following season., as you do.

Before

After

Maybe I'm being over dramatic just a little, but hey thats how I feel and I guess with 'fans' like myself choosing to download, whereas 'die hard' fans since "Black and Yellow" would have been happy to hear the same sort of sound. Just happier, poppier and something that also ends with 'er' at the end.

I really do hope at Young Khalifa's show he doesn't perform too many tracks off the album or it will be a long night., and an appearance from Amber wouldn't hurt nobody or maybe thats just wishful thinking.

Till then I'll keep playing the songs which made me a fan.

Shouts to my brother Nomes on the title.

Pusha T - My God

The second video to drop from Pusha's latest mixtape "Fear Of God"



Fear Of God 2: Let Us Pray is slated for a release in June.

Enjoy

Thursday Thoughts- We're So Appalled

The latest internet phenoms, all have one thing in common, despite their musical styles appearing like night and day. One is a shirtless rapper from Los Angeles, that has gathered a lot of die-hard fans, over one video, in which he tops himself. The other is a 13 year old girl, that cannot sing, sings badly written songs, in which she details the interesting tidbits of her day, events such as eating cereal and waiting for the bus stop. The last, is from these shores, a young girl from Birmingham, bragging about how sexually prolific she is, this being made more sensational by the fact she is 17 years old. Now what has made Tyler, The Creator, Rebecca Black and OG Niki overnight YouTube sensations, is nothing to do with their musical talents, in Rebecca's case, its her actual lack of it, the three of them have achieved internet notoriety because something about their song/freestyle has been so outrageous.

Tyler, because he appears fully clothed at the start of the video, rapping about everyday things (threesomes with triceratops) by the end he has eaten a coakroach, his eyes have turned black, and for his finale, after taking off his shirt, revealing many gold chains, the young rapper ends up hanging himself. Rebecca Black's laughable but bankable 'Friday', people check her video to actually laugh at her, not realising they and countless others are racking up millions and millons of views (over 100 million in fact and two million downloads for the song), which naturally results in a bidding war, because hungry label execs are in search of a YouTube monster they can make a lot of money off. I'm talking Euros, Dollars, Pounds, Yen heck even Cedi's.  OG Niki, the young girl from Birmz, now has a verified account status on Twitter, usually stated on the profiles of mega celebrities or tweeting politicians. Word around the online watercooler is, that she is holding several meetings with important people in the industry, her rise to fame might be the most shocking, a girl bragging about her sexual exploits is nothing new, but being so graphic and talking about taking on six men, I am pretty sure this is brand new. Not even the Notorious K.I.M. or Ill Na Na herself (that's Foxy Brown, for the uneducated) were talking about things the way OG Niki does.

A still from the shockingly bad yet humorous video. Check out the grammar as well.

Which led me to thinking, if an aspiring artist wants a whole load of YouTube views, and to be a #hash-tag trending topic on Twitter, they might have to shock us, not blow us away by musical talent. Even look at a certain Ms. Minaj, before people started listening intently to her, the talk was whether her asset's are real or not, and how everybody wants to hit it, many girls included.

The real shame is not that OG Niki and Rebecca Black may end up being exploited and scribbling newly developed signatures on many papers, not knowing what they are signing on the dotted line for, but as of writing this, I am watching a Cyhi Da Prynce interview on The Monique Show, someone with great potential, but may not realise it, because he could be too 'ordinary' for us to tweet or update our Blackberry's about him.  Tyler's line about picking Steve Wonder as a running back in American Football is pretty darn cold, but the drones off Tyler 'fans' who had only heard or seen him when the Yonkers vid dropped, but now rep Odd Future (his team) like they have been with them during the Myspace age, really annoys me. If the video wasn't out there, most of them probably still wouldn't have heard of him.



Peep the Tyler vid if you haven't (above), and you know where to go see Rebecca and the young OG. (YouTube folks, those videos are not being embedded anywhere around here).

Finally, any aspiring artists out there should intentionally make a bad song, have a video with a lot of T+A, or just be outrageous, that's the quickest way to gain the most amount of follwers or views on the ol' Tube. Maybe Tyler, Niki and Rebecca aren't so night and day after all, perhaps they met in the afternoon, and with plans to make the netboyz go crazy. I believe, it can be claimed they have. And then some.