Fader

For a long time we were lamenting the dearth of lady rappers in our social consciousness and then BOOM, they were everywhere, and we became stoked. We have been TiVo'ing Miss Rap Supreme on el regular, and when Lil Mama can get a video in heavy-ro that looks like it was filmed in Boot Camp Click era Brooklyn, wearing a hoodie on a rooftop no less, we know something is hella hella RIGHT. Some of our fave-faves are Bmore's Get 'Em Mamis, who are some of the realest chicks we ever interviewed (FADER 53!) They are dropping a new mix every week this summer with freestyles over the hottest classic female MC's (whoever says "femcees" first gets a shank in the eye) tracks. The first two? Salt n Pepa's "Push It" and MC Lyte's "10% Dis," obvs our request is that Yo-Yo's "You Can't Play with My Yo-Yo" is next, considering it is literally one FADER staffer's favorite song of all time, and is played at least once a week on her iPod, but usually more than that because she likes to put it on repeat it is so awesome. But anyway. Power to the chicas.


Download: Get Em Mamis, "Push It"


Download: Get Em Mamis, "10% Dis"

There are very few artists who can put out a new video for a five or six year old song and get us to post it. Ariel Pink is one of them. "Gray Sunset" is a song off The Doldrums, an album which Ariel explained as "really weird in the sense that I don't know of anything—historically speaking—that is predicated on a generation of mistakes that led the course to a final product," in Issue 27 of The FADER, and we gotta say that it still sounds as strange and mistakenly great as the first time we heard it. The video was shot and edited by Travis Peterson in LA last week on a 1983 Sony tube video camera and debuts Ariel's new androgynous look which oddly looks like a genetic splicing of a couple people in this office.

When it comes to justifications for jocking DJ Harvey, where do we start? His legendary mixes and club residencies since he was an Acid House young'n? The lysergic boogie he creates today as one half of Map Of Africa? The fact that dude named his vinyl-only edits label Black Cock?!?! All are perfectly valid, but only goofballs (and lazy journalists—we see you!) talk up DJs for their resumes. We've been fortunate enough to enjoy Harvey on the decks a couple of times, and each night was chock full of disco surprises—so history aside, we recommend him because he's fun NOW. Check the capo di tutti capi of space bump play the latest edition of his Sarcastic Disco party on May 10th in Los Angeles, venue to be announced once it gets closer to the weekend, keep hitting refresh or call the mysterious number on the flyer.

How did we never post any of these videos before? They are all actually fairly old, but for whatever reason amid all our TTA gushing we've only posted a live version of "First Class Riot," where you can't really see anything except maybe some shots of a guy in a cape. Here's the real video, which makes us appreciate that dolphins are really weird if you think about it and also What the hell we saw The Tough Alliance live and it was one of the most epic concert performances we have seen and this video is the closest we've seen to anything capturing that. Check out a bunch of old TTA videos that we've been watching for a million years that we never posted. more...

Just as we were posting the triumphant return of Maino last week Enuff dropped this into his Friday afternoon slot on Hot 97 and the office went slightly bananas, partially due to the song and partially due to writing drink reviews for the magazine. And just as we were about to put its piano-plinking knock up, dudes started jamming "Road to the Riches" across the hall. It's like an episode of Rap Lost in here. Get "Getaway" and some other GTA IV goodies over on Xclusives Zone and don't feel too bad for the pilfering. That game made half a billion dollars already.


Download: Maino, "Getaway Driver"

See, this is what we miss most about Dipset. We don't even have to explain what's going on here. Coogi cardigans and Swag Splashes. Pure entertainment. Courtesy of SmackTube via Smarten Up Nas.

Ahhh, Friday morning. Take a slow, deep breath. Smell those flowers? Yeeaahh. Harmony. Serenity. Look, there's a ladybug. Don't crush it. Awww. Nature! So great. If the rest of the day is this peaceful, it might just be the beginning of something new. Oh what's this? A new Crookers mix? What a lucky break. Maybe it will be good for a nap. OR MAYBE IT WILL MAKE ME WANT TO CHUG REDBULL AND PUNCH MYSELF IN THE FACE.

Download: Crookers May Mix

Did you know we put Love is All on our cover? (Issue 37!) We gotta be honest and say that they never really took off like we clearly hoped, but they did gain a cult following (especially among FADER-staffers. "Busy Doing Nothing" is our shit on Saturday mornings when it's raining and cold but we still want to wake up and not feel like we are wrapped in like seven blankets of gauze). Annnyyyyywayyy, We thought the band fell off the face of the earth for a minute, but it turns out they didn't! After a date in DC, they're hitting New York for a show at Cake Shop on June 12th, then hopping on over to Philly for a night before coming back to NY on the 14th for a show at the Market Hotel. Both New York shows will be stifling hot, but we'll be there regardless because we love Love Is All. Check out a video of them performing for Hand Held Shows outside with a really loud keyboard above.

We can pretty safely file this one in the Things We Should Have Paid More Attention To folder (thanks to Daniel Arnold for making sure we didn't overlook this one any longer), because Pepi Ginsberg is making some excellent Joni Mitchell-esque piano folk that also sounds like Dr Dog with a female singer. That's probably not even a coincidence considering they are on the same label and have done songs (including this one) together. Seriously though, this is music for summer morning subway rides to work and walks in the park, both things that we plan on doing constantly. Happy Times dudes!

Depending on where you sit in the FADER office, you are likely to be lapping it up with a gigantic fan of ELO and ABBA orrrrrrrr Anticon b-sides. We are a diverse (and forgiving) crew. If the former is your shit, then so will be "Light of Love", the first in a series of 12" single releases on Secretly Canadian by LA band Music Go Music, who remain somewhat of a mystery but whose 12" cover has mountains made of stockinged legs on it.


Download: Music Go Music, "Light of Love"

There are very few, if any, labels as committed to bizarre rap tangents than Stones Throw, but this new dude James Pants is something else. It's almost like they don't want to sell any records and yet they do because their oddities are just genius enough to be worth blowing a couple cheeseburgers on. Pants barely makes songs at all, just weird synth journeys that are probably kind of frightening to listen to if you're not in a stable mindstate. "Cosmic Rapp" (above) is the shyest electro ever, "Ka$h" is like Timberlake if he grew up in an orphanage and this "I Ain't Trippin" remix makes $hort Dog sound like a grandnana with a broken keyboard.


Download: Too $hort, "I Ain't Trippin (James Pants Remix)"

Bonus Cut: James Pants, "Ka$h" (from Stones Throw)

No one in grime bothers with pirate radio sets anymore, which is maybe the reason why the scene has been so boring and lacking life this year. So, just as the music press were penning another round of obituaries and preparing to make way for a new electro-influenced, chart friendly replacement, along come Boy Better Know and friends with a stupendously good studio set (the next best thing to a radio set) to bring back all the naysayers. It's got classic old beats, amazing new beats by people like Rude Kid, excitement, brand new bars, energy, Jammer screaming and making retarded noises—everything that is good about grime. I don't see why MCs continue to put out rushed mixtapes, when they could much more easily bang these sets out with all the best new beats and their best bars and sell them as downloads. They'd be a lot better quality and probably sell a lot more too.

Download: Boy Better Know, Microphone Champion
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We had a mental debate with ourselves over whether or not to post this, but then we decided we should because we've never been ones to keep Akon from the people. At this point, DJ Khaled has almost single handedly resurrected the large posse cut, overdone it and then destroyed it. BUT! Like clockwork, as we're approaching summer he's getting ready to drop another album that will probably make us continue to envision Miami as one huge production line of smiling rappers stacking money from a conveyor belt on a yacht. Also in this vision DJ Khaled would be the foreman of the whole operation and he'd be a really unfair boss but as long as you were getting money he'd be cool.


Download: Akon, Ace Hood, Trick Daddy, Boosie, Lil Wayne, Plies & Rick Ross, "Out Here Grindin'"

Chief Boima dropped this in our inbox this morning asking how one goes about getting a song on the FADER blog. 1. Remix "Love In This Club" because we apparently are posting every version of that song that comes out. 2. Reference coupé decalé because we are steadily trying to hear that too. But we've actually seen Boima bouncing around before this, posting on Benn loxo du taccu and putting up Obama mixtapes, so he was already a step ahead.


Download: Chief Boima, "Love In This African Club"

DJ Mr Singh has been throwing parties at Django's in Atlanta for a hot minute now, helping import Washington DC go-go music to the A by pairing the likes of Killer Mike and Sleepy Brown with live go-go bands. We even sponsored one. Y'know, because we are regional pop culture fetishists. And LOVERS OF MUSIC. This Friday (5/9), Singh continues his hot streak of pairing FADER faves with cranking live percussion by inviting the unbreakable DG Yola to take the stage backed by the XO Band. How ill is their congo-ed out version of "Ain't Gon Let Up" from the rehearsal sesh?!? Flyer after the jump. more...

We were distinctly non-plussed the first time we heard the original "Girlfriend", and despite Annie being great in general, we haven't budged all that much. However, Discobelle just put up this Get Shakes remix that has re-piqued our interest. First of all, it's a lot more fun. Second of all, it's a lot more fun. Third, it's fun. And finally, it jams. If we weren't aware of Richard X's previous achievements, we'd recommended Anne enlist Get Shakes on her next album.


Download: Annie, "I Know Your Girlfriend Hates Me" (Shakes Remix)

It's funny when you welcome the words "You are listening to Ibiza-voice.com" into your life. "You are listening to the sounds of tears on the 13th floor because it is so late and we will be here forever working with runny noses and ineffective Claritin and spicy Thai food wafting and the music of Black Israelites and overdue rent checks." Maybe if you combine those two sounds you come out somewhere good in the middle. Or maybe we lost our minds. Who cares? We're expendable. Cassy Britton made a mix for Ibiza Voice, a paper we have never read (their motto is "hype, lies and gossip"). There's no tracklist but it was recorded live in Paris and word is Frenchies are picky so don't worry about it.

Download: Cassy Britton, Live at Rex Club, Paris, April 18, 2008

When we first heard Whalebones, one of the first things we thought was that they would sound great making rough and intimate lo-fi acoustic songs. They must have been reading our minds, because just recently they hit us off with "The Beach," which, besides sounding like an empty beach on a grey morning, also has someone blowing on a jug in the background. If there's anything we've been missing in music it's jugs. We would normally make a suggestion that the band should release a lot more of these acoustic demos, but since we already know that they are going to, we're going to hold off and just wait patiently for that.

Okay, you can't make two songs that are totally different and call them the same thing, Vybz. Even George Foreman named his kids George 1, 2, 3, etc. and those things were separated by time. Your two songs named the same thing came out at the same time. It doesn't make any sense. It leads to total praise anarchy. Because if we go, Hey Vybz, we love your song "Money Fi Spend" and you're like Thanks, Fader. Yeah, that song "Money Fi Spend" is one of my best works, you're not only not getting a real appraisal of your work but you're robbing yourself of the sense of pride in completing a piece of art. Man, these songs are both awesome.

Exhibit A: "Money Fi Spend"
Exhibit B: "Money Fi Spend"

Update from Contributing Editor and Ghetto Palms columnist Edwin 'Stats' Houghton:

"Welcome to Jamrock."