R.I.P. hip hop producer and DJ Mark "The 45 King" James, 1961-2023

Sadly, Flavor Unit hip hop producer and deep digging DJ Mark The 45 King has passed away at age 62. He'll be greatly missed.

Drake producer Noah "40" Shebib tells his story in Toronto Rising doc

Check out the 14-minute short film on Toronto producer and OVO Sound co-founder Noah "40" Shebib directed by Alim Sabir.

Bacao Rhythm & Steel preview Expansions with "Raise It Up"

Listen to Bacao Rhythm & Steel's version of the Slum Village classic "Raise It Up" off their new Expansions LP. 

Here's the scoop...

Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band, the mysterious steel pan outfit hailing from Hamburg, Germany have amassed a cult following around the globe. With a slew of classic 7”s and two critically acclaimed full length albums, they set a high bar for themselves, one they clearly intend on pushing even higher with this new offering. On their third album, aptly titled Expansions (out July 16), BRSB are back with more of the same, but more of the same with them is inherently different. Covering songs that span genres and range from mega hits to album cuts, they make them their own with their unique approach to the traditional steel pans of Trinidad and Tobago. 

Part of the allure of a new record from Bacao is finding out what covers they chose. However, die hard fans are also waiting to hear the original numbers like the stellar album opener “Tough Victory”. Its airtight rhythm section, brass arrangements, and layers of steel pan melodies make the term “cover band” a shoe that could never fit Bacao. Within the next three songs they go from Jazz (Galt MacDermot), to Hip Hop (Slum Village / J Dilla), to a dance floor classic (Grace Jones) taking them all on with their signature style, expanding on the originals. An easy crowd favorite is their gritty, gully, and neck snapping cover of the Timbaland produced Jay-Z club hit “Dirt Off Your Shoulder”. The infamous crushing Bacao drums start the show and the moment they start playing the top line on the pans, all bets are off. Sure to become a dance floor filler is their bottom heavy, four on the floor version of Sylvester’s classic “I Need Somebody To Love Tonight”. They venture into some gutbucket funk with Ike Turner’s “Getting Nasty” and bring the steel pans to Minnie Riperton’s Jazz classic “Les Fleurs”. Digging deeper in the modern canon and paying tribute to a tribute, they cover Erykah Badu’s homage to the late great J Dilla, “The Healer”. This is the type of thing to make Spice Adams jump on his kitchen counter and scream. From the second the beat drops they give the original Madlib production a run for its money, shaking subwoofers with the eerie tremolo bass while the pans play E. Badu’s vocal melodies. 

By the time the album is through Bacao has taken the listener on a journey that spans a myriad of energies, tempos, and moods while somehow managing to keep it all under one umbrella. For all that, these songs are alive, and they will be taken out of the context of this album and sewn into the fabric of DJ sets around the globe for many years to come. Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band is breathing renewed life into the originals and continuing to push the boundaries of steel pan music, or, as the title suggests, expanding on it. 

You can pre-order a copy of Expansions via Bandcamp right here. Check out "Raise It Up," "My Jamaican Dub" and "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" followed by the track listing.  

Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band - Expansions

1. Tough Victory

2. Space

3. Raise It Up 

4. My Jamaican Dub 

5. I Need Somebody To Love Tonight

6. Dirt Off Your Shoulder 

7. Getting Nasty

8. Blow Your Cover

9. Represent

10. The Healer 02:50

11. Les Fleurs

12. Squaring The Circles

CD bonus tracks: Juicy Fruit, Kaiso Noir, Look Out Baby (Here I Come)

Talib Kweli dishes on new book and album with Diamond D

Talib Kweli wisely enlisted Diamond D to produce his new Gotham album. His book, Vibrate Higher: A Rap Story, is out Feb 16. 

AGO's Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibit oddly overlooks groundbreaking 1983 "Beat Bop" project

You'd think Rammellzee vs. K-Rob's "Beat Bop" would be a key part of the AGO's Basquiat retrospective. Nope.

LINKS
SPIN: Jean-Michel Basquiat's Beat Bop – An Oral History
NY Times: Jean-Michel Basquiat – Hip-hop finds an artist to believe in
CBC: The Rapper's Painter – Why Jean-Michel Basquiat is your favourite rapper's favourite artist
AGO: Jean-Michel Basquiat – Now's The Time (February 7 – May 10)

Bruno Spoerri Versus Jay-Z

See if you notice any similarity between Bruno Spoerri's On The Way and Jay-Z's Versus.

Earl Sweatshirt @ Sound Academy Friday

Kanye West's second favourite MC Earl Sweatshirt aka "Mocha Desire" hypes his new album

Adrian Younge on being sampled by Jay-Z

Magna Carta Holy Grail was bolstered by samples from Adrian Younge's Something About April

Menahan Street Band preview new album

The Menahan Street Band, best known as Charles Bradley's backing group – whose song Make The Road By Walking was famously sampled for the track Roc Boys by Jay-Z thinking the Brooklyn ensemble's 2008 recording was some obscure funk 45 from the late 60s (d'oh!) – has announced their new album is finally finished and coming out in October.
In advance of the release of the forthcoming instrumental set called The Crossing, group leader Thomas "TNT" Brenneck has thoughtfully made available the album's title track which he describes as "music to an unreleased Sergio Leone western starring the Wu Tang set in 1992." Or conversely, like an El Michels Affair tune for a planned Wu Tang collabo shelved after a disagreement between the principle members. In any case, you can check it out right here

Happy Birthday Gladdy Anderson

Kanye makes a Monster with Justin Vernon

A brand new joint from Kanye West has appeared on his site. It's another banger called Monster, this time involving Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj and strangely enough, Bon Iver's Justin Vernon. Evidently the track is slated for commercial release as part of Watch The Throne a five-song Jay-Z collabo EP that will also include the Swizz Beats remix of Power although no date has yet been announced. According to a recent Kanye tweet, the plan is to put out a new song each week until Christmas as part of his ambitious GOOD Music Fridays initiative.



Monster by Kanye West 

A thoughtful gift from Kanye

The release date for the final chapter in Kanye West's college series – tentatively titled Good Ass Job – is now set for November 16 but he must be close to finishing the recording sessions since he's working hard to build the buzz.
Evidently our man Yeezy couldn't bear to be the only person rocking See Me Know in his ride this summer so he thoughtfully decided to share it's epic goodness – prominently featuring Beyoncé and the Gap Band's powerhouse belter Charlie Wilson – which you can momentarily get for free right here. There's a good possibility that a remix of Power featuring Jay-Z may magically appear in the next couple days.