Fader

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"

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

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)

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"

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

To celebrate Busta's return from the depths of whisper and/or mumble rap, we broke out a bunch of songs from his post-LONS, pre-thuggery days like the 8-minute "Flipmode Squad Meets Def Squad" posse cut where everyone (including Redman and Busta) raps like they are in a computer game from 1997. We sorta have a soft spot for rappers in the '90s that were willing to get weird on a song (we see you Cella Dwellas!) so Busta's performance on that as well as on "Head Banger" is a welcome return to over the top sounding like a cartoon lion Bussa Bus. Also, he references like four heavy metal bands in a couple seconds, and raps like he did on this which we feel is very notable for some reason, probably because we listened to that song for half of one summer. Is Alfamega a thing yet? He sounds like a slightly less grimy Bumpy Knuckles.


Download: Alfamega f. Busta Rhymes, "Head Bang"

Other than "Iron Man sequel", "hadron collider," and "jam", the buzzwords in FADER HQ these days are Pour Les Filles. Cuizinier's new mixtape comes out in less than a week and we are gassed (Wait, are we gonna have to pay for this thing?). We put up "Quand Tu Maimes" from it a couple weeks ago and RCRD LBL just put up another teaser with guest spots from the Rock Brothers, Spank and Pase. It's a sassy homage to Sesame Street and profanity—two things which remind us of our childhood.


Download: Cuizinier f. Spank Rock & Pase Rock, "Lettre F"

Every week resident FADER selector Eddie STATS runs through dancehall riddims and other artifacts from the ghetto archipelago.

You need look no further than the pages of the current issue of FADER to know that Demarco is straight caning it back a yard right now, both as a producer and as the reigning auto-croon singjay. So it seemed destined he was finna get his own column and it seemed doubly destined it was fittin to start out with a run of the “Shoot Out” riddim which he a) produced and then b) killed by voicing the biggest tune of the set on "Duppy Know Who fi Frighten." more...

If you've paid any attention to Atlanta over the last decade and a half, you might get the feeling there are a lot of guys down in the A like Bohagon—dudes whose raps you could listen to all day, who enter your orbit once a season, but there's just never enough time to champion them all. But Bohagon finally has a solo album coming out someday soon, and this single illustrates exactly why we decided to put him in FADER #53. Read that after the jump and uh set a Google alert for "bohagon who am i?" for the album release.


Download: Bohagon, "Been Gettin Money"
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England remains a constant source of entertainment for the FADER staff. From "Cockney Boy" to terms like "chav" and "jammy bastard" to our very own wildly entertaining style editor Chioma Nnadi (source of said terms), THIS COUNTRY NEVER STOPS GIVING. And it's with this in mind that we are now enjoying another import from Leamington Spa known as the Post War Years. "You And Me Both" is the b-side to their new Chess Club single "Black Morning" and we are giving it constant rewind presently. It's sort of a mix of prog and rave and jazz. Doesn't that sound awesome? No it is. You can pre-order the "Black Morning" single from Rough Trade and watch the video here.


Download: Post War Years, "You And Me Both"

Noz put up "Welcome Back" yesterday and lamented Roscoe's lost album Hazardous Life, and while we commiserate with him on that one, there's no doubt that because of the internet we do not have to suffer Star Trak's bad track record in silence. The other newish song on Roscoe's MySpace is just as good, if not better, than "Welcome Back", so we're giving you that too. "Story Joint" is, wildly enough, a storytelling minor masterpiece with Roscoe rapping like the James Joyce of North Philadelphia. So crazy and so good and maybe a reason to, oh we don't know, LET THE DUDE PUT A RECORD OUT.


Download: Roscoe P Coldchain, "Story Joint"


Download: Roscoe P Coldchain, "Welcome Back" (from Cocaine Blunts)

Bradford Cox posts approximately one kajillion free new songs a day on the Deerhunter blog, and by our extremely precise mathematics that means he's recording four songs a minute. Now he's got a new four song EP (which apparently means he recorded the whole thing in one minute) about homesickness while on tour. Most of these are instrumental, so basically they are ultra conceptual with really literal titles about things he misses, like "My Car," and "My Bed," but that's how Bradford rolls.

Download: Atlas Sound, Things I'll Miss EP

If you'd like to meet a FADER editor in person this week, you can find us all at one of Lykke Li's two shows in New York on Wednesday and Thursday. We will be draped in Swedish flags and our breaths will have the sweet pungency of pickled herring. That's how we do it: FULL SUPPORT SQUAD. For, you see, Lykke is in the next issue of The FADER (F54) and we are all not-so-secretly in love with her. RCRD LBL just put up this exclusive download of Lykke's "Everybody But Me" remixed by Norwegian favorite diskJokke, who we spoke to back in February. It is härlig! Next month we'll hit up someone in Denmark and it'll be a wrap for FADER Scandinavia.


Download: Lykke Li, "Everybody But Me (diskJokke Remix)"

This is exactly how all mornings should begin, with a woozy and spare yet happy times dancehall jam. Should we stop saying jam? Guess what? We can't! We also can't encourage Warrior Queen enough to photoshop more crowns onto her head because she is amazing. Thanks to Paul Devro for making our day so far.


Download: Warrior Queen, "Things Change"

It's kind of disorienting these days to hear Wayne not disoriented. On this true duet from Bun's II Trill, debuted on Nah Right, Wayne and Bun split the vocal duties in half and surprisingly, on his first verse at least, Wayne sounds almost as calm and collected as Bun. We're not saying that's good or bad, it's just that sometimes we need to be reminded that Wayne is not certifiably insane. And then there's Wayne's last verse.


Download: Bun B f. Lil Wayne, "Damn I'm Cold"

Every so often Trae (who is apparently no longer on Rap-A-Lot) drops some new songs on us and they are always great, yet dude still gets no love from the general public. Can you still call someone underrated if everyone thinks they are underrated? Trae is one of those dudes that has total longevity and we will be listening to him even when we are 80 and complaining about the state of rap. Seriously though, he does wistful tracks like "Watch Ova Momma" better than any other rapper except maybe Scarface, but since Scarface is perpetually about to retire, Trae might be the next gravelly-voiced dude to take the crown. "Wrist Out Tha Window," is technically a Rich Boy song with Shawty Lo (sounding especially like a tiny Young Jeezy) and "Watch Ova Momma" is all internet, but either way, Trae is now touring, so check him out if he comes through your area.


Download: Trae, "Watch Ova Momma"


Download: Rich Boy f. Shawty Lo & Trae, "Wrist Out Tha Window"