Any 80’s Pop music fans out there?
Stay tuned, i have a nice surprise set on the way. Music from Phil Collins, Level 42, Pat Benatar, Bryan Adams, Duran Duran, Billy Joel and more..
Category: Music News
On Tracy Chapman’s sampling lawsuit against Nicki Minaj…
Probably the only time you will see a Nicki Minaj post up here. No disrespect…
To understand what’s at stake for hip-hop, Okayplayer spoke with Karl Fowlkes, Esq., a music lawyer and music industry professor at Rowan University, who has gotten samples cleared from artists like Donnell Jones and Roger Trouman.
What are Tracy Chapman’s chances of actually winning this lawsuit, and why?
I don’t think Tracy Chapman’s chances are too good because Nicki Minaj never commercially released the song. This is a weird case because no one is actually fighting the validity of the interpolation. Here, Chapman is challenging whether a song even has to be commercially released by the artist or label to be held liable for infringement involving a sample. That is an extremely dangerous notion. Imagine having to clear a sample before even playing around with it — that just doesn’t make sense. Creativity would be stifled.
How do you envision this lawsuit playing out?
I think that it will ultimately result in Nicki Minaj’s favor. An opposing ruling would severely undercut the essence of creation because of the nature of hip-hop. People send uncleared records to others all the time to get feedback and perspective. If those songs leak, should the artist be held liable? Did the artist really commercially distribute the work? No and no.
Why didn’t Hot 97 or Funkmaster Flex get hit with the lawsuit?
I would think that they are just as at fault as Nicki. But Nicki Minaj is probably the easier target and they probably think that Nicki told the station to play it. Hot 97, in my opinion, should be targeted in this case.
What do you think is the reason that artists don’t like to clear samples for?
I still don’t think that hip-hop has enough respect. Some people cut against the genre when it comes to sampling requests, and also just want to leave their work alone. The reality in this situation is that Tracy Chapman could have sat tight and made thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands more dollars by accepting the sample clearance.
On Nas new album…
Nasir always finds a way to disappoint me. I do like ‘Kings Disease’, which I posted earlier, and ‘Blue Benz’ so it ain’t a total L for him.
Arrests in unsolved murder of Run-DMC’s Jam Master Jay…
Took them long enough…
Via ABC7NY…
‘Karl Jordan and Ronald Washington have been charged with the murder of Jam Master Jay while engaged in cocaine trafficking, according to an indictment unsealed in the Eastern District of New York that also charged the two with drug offenses.
Washington is currently imprisoned on a prior robbery case. Jordan will be arraigned this afternoon.
The 36-year-old Jordan was taken into custody on Sunday. Washington, 56, was already in prison on a prior robbery case.‘
DJ Blendz note…
One thing i WON’T DO is post up music i don’t like or whatever is popular at the moment. All my posts or mixes are records I co-sign to the fullest because they’re great records that are overlooked by the masses. That’s why you will never see or hear rainbow-haired rappers with no substance on this here site. Save that for the other blogs. Even the blogs and sites that started out with great content are now falling victim to that mentality. With that being said, I hope that if you’re a regular to this site, that ya’ll continue to support me whether through a like, comment, share or a subscription to my mixtapes. That subscription does help me in these rather difficult times.You can trust me to bring you that “new rap that don’t suck”.
Hip Hop stamps that might save the post office…
Via Mic…
Finally, some good news for the cross-section of hip-hop and USPS fans: the post office is commemorating the genre with a new line of Forever stamps. The Postal Service has teamed up with the Bronx’s Universal Hip-Hop Museum to release a pane of 20 stamps that “features four elements of hip-hop: MCing (rapping), b-boying (break dancing), DJing and graffiti art.”
…
There’s always reason to be skeptical of snazzy branding moves, especially in the wake of calls for change much more significant than branding. But also: it’s the post office! The USPS is having a tough time of it right now and more or less fighting for its life, so they’re allowed to be corny. We don’t want to imagine a world without the post office, and independent artists in hip-hop and all other genres would suffer immensely if the government allows it to die. Nothing wrong with some cringe in service of the greater good.
Snooze-fest in the world of battle rap…
Haven’t rocked a Eminem record in years. As for Nick Cannon, let’s just say the less said the better?
A DJ Blendz PSA…
A quick reminder: In case any of my readers are interested, I do still have a few of these custom designed USB/flash drives for sale/ mixtape subscription. Just click on the ‘Contact Me/Subscription’ to purchase and/or get more information. The USB/flash drives all have one of my mixes in it so you won’t only be getting a nicely designed USB, you will be getting a DJ Blendz mix. All custom designs are in picture up top. Don’t sleep, get it while these particular ones last!
On the making of ‘Ms. Fat Booty’…
A portion of an article from Micro-Chop’s Gino Sorcinelli on the Aretha Franklin-sampled track by Ayatollah…
The pain she channeled into the love-lorn music and vocals on “One Step Ahead” inspired Ayatollah to craft several renditions of the “Ms. Fat Booty” beat before deciding on the best version. As was the case in other Franklin-sampled 90s cuts like Onyx’s “Last Dayz” and Mobb Deep’s “Drop a Gem On ‘Em,” her voice makes the “Ms. Fat Booty” beat unforgettable. Her singing provides the perfect vocal elements for the hook and is also prominent throughout every other section of the song.
Around the time Ayatollah finalized the instrumental, he started developing a relationship with Rawkus records. The label’s A & Rs avoided listening to his beat tapes at first because of their busy schedules, but they changed their tune when he continued to show up at their offices on a regular basis with music to share.
One fateful day, Ayatollah arrived with a beat tape containing “Ms. Fat Booty” and earned himself a seat in the Rawkus conference room. Mos Def was so impressed by the work on this tape that he purchased the instrumentals for “Ms. Fat Booty” and “Know That” from Black on Both Sides, as well as six other productions that have yet to see the light of day. “I don’t know what he did with them, but if you thought those two were some great records, you have to hear the other six,” he told Nodfactor. “The other six were amazing, like really amazing.”
The spiritual successors of the Wu-Tang Sword Style…
Bandcamp does a drop on the new breed of Wu-inspired emcees. Here are a couple you might’ve heard on one of my monthly mixes…
Supreme Cerebral
Prior to his rise an MC, Supreme Cerebral was a talented college football player with dreams of an NFL contract. But after an injury put an end to his pigskin aspirations, he decided to pursue music. The New York-born, Cali-raised artist has adopted both Ghostface’s cadence and his fondness for abstract imagery, as well as the poetic license of Raekwon—which makes sense; when asked what Wu album impacted him most, he states, “It’s a toss-up between Supreme Clientele and Only Built 4 Cuban Linx.” His track with Ralphiie Reese and Eloh Kush titled “All” is the perfect showcase for that reverence. When Cerebral spits, “Venomous dialect / The Wallys is violet / Acquired the flyest / Suede Bali the side shit / Battle designers / Paid thousands of dollars / Rambling nonsense / Now they channel our concepts / Conscious context,” he both shows respect to the Wu in his freewheeling imagery, and knowledge of their tropes with his reference to Wallabees. He even closes the verse by claiming the trio are the “Wu revision.”
Eloh Kush
Eloh Kush grew up in a hip-hop family. His older brothers John Robinson (aka Lil Sci) and ID4Windz made up two-thirds of the late 1990s rap trio Scienz of Life. The group’s involvement in Dr. Malachi “Dwight” York’s Nuwaubian Nation—a religious group incorporating Islam, Kemetism, Judaism, and Native American belief systems—clearly rubbed off on the MC; his songs reference teachings from the ancient Egyptians and Hebrews, amont other esoteric topics. As he puts it, “I was taught to seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave, so I travel through many schools of thought.”
The New Brunswick, New Jersey MC—or “versifier,” as he likes to call himself—started out rapping in a crew known as Angelz Inc. more than a decade ago, but he’s mainly focused on solo material for the last few years. Kush is on the verge of dropping a collaborative project with the Supreme Cerebral titled Clarks Connoisseurs, referring to the footwear Raekwon and Ghostface popularized on Only Built 4 Cuban Linx. It’s an homage to Wu-Tang’s dynamic duo by some of the sharpest swordsmen in the game today.