New Music from Pete Rock, LouieVon & Young Cam plus Herrotics repping for Blah Records

    

Pete Rock releases a free download of "Heaven and Earth" a gorgeous instrumental as you may well come to expect; if you're not familiar get to know the man's back catalogue ASAP, true hiphop legend. Watch out for the full length coming from Mellow Music Group coming 23rd June.  

The Blah Records camp is in full effect at the moment with Herrotics releasing "Fathead" alongside two videos documenting UK city life to the sounds of some immensely hardcore lyrical rap...Get involved with this and pick up some tasty Blah Merch here, Not gonna put my geographical knowledge neck on the line; if you know which city (ies) are being repped by Herrotics get at me solocypher@gmail.com.

New track "Come Up" gets analytical on the trap situation many increasingly are struggling to escape from. "Praying for a come up" appears to depressingly be the only way out for LouiVon & Young Cam as they get serious over a nice beat from Enlighten. Check the Memorial Day Mixtape Out Here. 

Cambodian B Boys, K'Naan, Nas

After my dissapointment in Thailand its pretty cool to see some not bad throw ups on the wall of a local night club here in Siam Riep...also I have heard some definite rap type music blasting out of a few speakers round here. The vocab even seems to have influenced an author to write the worrying sounding "Pol Pot - Brother Number 1"

In international news its so encouraging to here that DMX will be setting up a Christian ministry after his release from prison...what a role model :)More encouraging musically is news (Allhiphop.com) that Nas is going to hook up with Pete Rock once again to rekindle some of the magic that resulted in classic Illmatic recordings. Whet your appetite for this by reminiscing with this.

On the home news front it's great to see our scandolous ass politician's expenses bullshit posted all over the globe, makes me proud to be British! More positive news is that the Love Music Hate Racism Festival looks cool; I can't make it but if you have 30th May free get down to Stoke on Trent for the event.Eddie Izzard is now confirmed to compere a line up of Reverand & the Makers - N-Dubz - Kano - The New Beautiful South - Get Cape Wear Cape Fly - Jerry Dammers - DJ Ironik - VV Brown - Helsinki (Drew McConnell Indie Supergroup) - The Beat - Beverly Knight - Bashy - Roll Deep - Kieron Leonard...apparantly tickets are selling fast get yours now at www.scfcdirect.com, www.seetickets.com or www.gigantic.com. New dude on my hip hop Radar K'Naan is appearing at Cargo on the 26th May so get involved if you feeling the dude, a definitive positive from an authentic African perspective.

DJ Daredevil

Like your 90's hip hop, those classic braggaocio flows, neck snapping beats and the whole lot flipped together with some dope scratches and juggles? Click here for DJ Daredevil;s (a 3x world DJ finalist) tight mix. You can also check his blogspot for future mixes.

Ice T and CL Smooth flashback

Just bumping the Golden Age mixtape from the Spin Doctor (available from Certified Banger blog) and a CL verse just popped out, a bit about putting wack rappers on a boat and letting it sink...the dude is mad smooth dropping science, punchlines and real stuff for days. He always seems to be presented in Pete Rock's shadow so thought I'd large him up for a moment!

Another golden age banger I just revisited while driving down the rain invested slow infested tarmac of the A12 was Ice T's Home Invasion set; the album cover and concept of injecting black rage into suburban white kids could have used me as a model haha! A shame the movement Ice was adovocating has been so squashed by the corporate machine...listening to this today it sounds fresh; the foul language of today is present (but done much better - check the "If you are offended by words like bitch, ho, shit, fuck...take the tape out now, this is not a pop album") unfortunately the acidic social and political content is sadly missing from most of todays music.