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Johnson & Jonson is our boy Blu from LA and producer Mainframe, and their new self-titled album coming out September 23rd on Tres Records has actually "been out" for almost a year as the leaked Powders & Oils, initially meant as a mixtape but turned out too good to not be properly released. It's full of soul-sample-heavy production and Blu's dependably entertaining raps, and, if we didn't think it would wrinkle our Steven Alan shirts, we would absolutely go buy a new Jansport and wear it everywhere, even on dates, assuming we could get one. Okay, we're digressing into pasts we'd like to forget, but this shit is too excellent! As it turns out, Blu and friends are celebrating the release of Johnson & Jonson tomorrow night at Grand Star in Chinatown, Los Angeles, and we happen to know firsthand that dude rocks a party and that Grand Star gets nuts. And to get ready, enjoy "Up All Night" from the album and the video for "Bout It Bout It" above.


Download: Johnson & Jonson, "Up All Night"

It's funny how sometimes you listen to a song you love and envision what the video for that song might look like, and then the video comes out and it's a total piece of crap and ignores your vision. Fortunately, that didn't happen with this clip for "Buy Me Lunch", one of the songs already firmly planted in our summer music garden. C.R.A.C. (pronounced crass) aka Blu and Ta'raach, with the help of directors Noni Limar and Adam Tillman-Young, put together the ideal mix of little kids pretending to be adults, pranks in the park and general shenanigans that a song like this demands, and we would like to offer our general support of fun videos for fun songs.

If Blu keeps rapping this focused-ly over semi-weird psych-rap productions, we might have to cut up our last remaining copy of Electric Circus. SIKE WE ALREADY DID. Just kidding. But this kid is good and prolific and we will definitely be keeping an eye on him. For more, check out him and Ta'raach's C.R.A.C. album on Tres Records.


Download: Blu, "Departing Flights"


Download: Blu, "Up All Nite"

Our boy Blu is putting out 763 albums this summer—all collaborations. He will make 1,892 videos and is planning on vinyl singles with unreleased b-sides and rare videos for every song on every album to be released every minute until September 21st. I.E. The dude is summer. His name is even the same as the sky's color. That's dedication. And this is his latest video with Exile off their Below The Heavens album which actually already came out so it doesn't count against the 763 total.

If you haven't been listening to The Let Out on EVR, you probably don't know that we played "Buy Me Lunch" a couple weeks ago, freaked out, played some El Guincho after it and have been checking for dudes every day since. Actually, you wouldn't know all that even if you had listened, so there it is. And technically we've been checking for them since they both played our Issue 43 party in LA last year. We have been checking is all. And now is our time. Individual C.R.A.C. members Blu and Ta'Raach have each put up a bunch of new tracks from their forthcoming album The Piece Talks, some of which are free for the downloading, including "Buy Me Lunch," which is the song we played on the radio, and "Like Life," which is just really good. The Piece Talks, which is shaping up to be a pretty weirdly awesome and unconventional album, will be in stores on April 22nd, but in the meantime, pilfer all that you can.

Download: C.R.A.C., "Life Like"
Download: C.R.A.C., "Buy Me Lunch"