Check the mobbed up clip for "Yacht Party" off the forthcoming Soul Assassins album Dia Del Asesinato due out today.
Legendary hip-hop producer and Cypress Hill founder DJ Muggs has released his highly anticipated album Dia Del Asesinato today via Soul Assassins Records. The album includes collaborations with MF DOOM, Raekwon, Freddie Gibbs, Kool G Rap, Meyhem Lauren, Mach-Hommy, Hus Kingpin, and Eto.
Dia Del Asesinato is a conceptual album with an underlying theme of hip-hop combating corruption in society and government. Muggs has already dropped visuals for album highlights "Yacht Party" feat. Raekwon (watch the clip below) and "Death Wish" feat. DOOM, which showcase the LP's overarching motifs. The dystopic new video for "Assassination Day (Trust Noone)" feat. DOOM continues the narrative depicting Kanye West as U.S. President.
Limited edition color vinyl pressings, cassettes, and CD's are available now on SoulAssassins.com, including a special version of the vinyl made in collaboration with Madlib's Rappcats website with a unique cover, in an edition of 400 with 300 to be sold online and 100 to be sold at a special Dia Del Asesinato x Rappcats album event in LA on August 19th.
DJ Muggs has kept busy; in addition to Dia Del Asesinato, Cypress Hill recently announced that they have signed with BMG and are releasing a new album Elephants on Acid produced entirely by Muggs, due out September 28th.
Outside of his Toronto hometown, MoSS may be a new name to some in the hip hop game, but if you've heard Ghostface Killah's "Kilos" off Fishscale, Raekwon's "Have Mercy" from Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... Pt. II or Obie Trice's Special Reserve album, you'll know his production work. Jason "MoSS" Connoy has been hard at work making others sound good for awhile now so he's overdue for a recording under his own handle. That album, Marching To The Sound Of My Own Drum, is now set for release on his own Moss Appeal Music label November 13 and features guest spots from Havoc (of Mobb Deep), Sean Price, Ill Bill, ONYX, AZ, Guilty Simpson, Inspectah Deck, Joe Budden & Joell Ortiz (of Slaughterhouse) and DJ Premier. Check out the track Boombastic w/ Slum Village below.
Initially breaking into the hip hop world with Obie Trice back in 2000, MoSS produced Obie's indie singles "Well Known" and "Mr. Trice" which eventually led to Obie's deal with Shady. Since then, MoSS has notably added a prog rock whump to tracks for Bounty Killa, M.O.P., Kool G. Rap, Ras Kass, Papoose, Boot Camp Clik, Big Shug etc.
Apart from the production skills which impressed DJ Premier enough to sign MoSS to his Works of Mart operation, he's also a serious record hound with a taste for esoteric psychedelia from far away lands. With assistance from his Toronto digger/dealer pal Gholam, MoSS reissued an Iranian psych curio from Tehran's The Jokers on the Fading Sunshine label around the same time that Now Again put out MoSS's excellent Southeast Asian 70s psych survey Those Shocking Shaking Days: Indonesian Hard, Psychedelic, Progressive Rock and Funk: 1970-1978.
The success of that massive project led to the formation of his own Strawberry Rain imprint to continue recirculating mind-melting psych oddities by such artists as AKA, Rictus, Blind Owl, Salty Dog, Benny Soebardja, ฅาราวาน, Leong Lau, Mar-Vista, Kelompok Kampungan, Survival, Keith Mlevhu and Abbhama with apparently more on the way. In the OnSMASH interview clips below shot circa 2009, MoSS talks about constantly growing vinyl stockpile and mentions that his debut album is "half finished" which suggests that Marching To The Sound Of My Own Drum has been in the works for at least six years.
Long before Adrian Younge fan club member DJ Premier released his PRhyme collabo with Royce da 5'9" exclusively using samples of Younge's recordings, the multi-instrumentalist composer, arranger and producer was already well-known to beatheadz for his brilliant work scoring Scott Sanders' 2009 blaxploitation salute Black Dynamite and the inspired Philly soul update Adrian Younge Presents The Delfonics. Here's a short documentary about Younge and his work that's worth checking.
Since releasing the amazing faux-giallo soundtrack Twelve Reasons To Die with Ghostface Killah and companion instrumentals set on Rza's Soul Temple label back in 2013, Younge has been hard at work building his own Linear Labs operation on the down low. To preview the four impressive albums he has slated for 2015, Younge assembled the Los Angeles label sampler now available on CD, LP and as a digital download.
Along with Return Of The Savage (listen below) featuring Ghostface Killah, Raekwon and Rza from the upcoming Twelve Reasons To Die II album, there's the Memories Of War collabo with Stereolab chanteuse Laetitia Sadier off the forthcoming 'Something About April II and a joint called Feel Alive voiced by Karolina and Loren Oden from The Midnight Hour concept album Younge created with Ali Shaheed Muhammad. Additionally, the vinyl version of Los Angeles comes with the bonus track Sirens II (which you can hear in a stripped-down version below) from Bilal's next solo album.
For those playing catch-up, the Los Angeles sampler also includes 1969 Organ from Younge’s 2000 debut Adrian Younge Presents Venice Dawn, Panic (Ali Shaheed Muhammad Remix) from last year's Souls of Mischief / Ali Shaheed Muhammad album, There Is Only Now Remix, The Sure Shot (Parts 1 & 2) which is an instrumental lifted from the Twelve Reasons To Die sessions, To Be Your One from the aforementioned Delfonics set and finally, there's Chicago Wind featuring Toni Scruggs from the Black Dynamite soundtrack. If your local record retailer doesn't stock Linear Labs releases, you can order Los Angeles directly from the label right here.
FYI: Raekwon returns to Toronto to present the music from his new album Fly International Luxurious Art – which could've greatly benefitted from Younge's musical input – at the Phoenix on Friday.
Ghostfunk 1 Make It N.Y.
2 Dem Back
3 Mighty Agho
4 The Same Girl
5 Three Lords
6 Danger 500
7 Astro Easy Love
8 Dear Psychedelic Woman
9 Breakthrough Kids
10 Funky Criminology
As you may have already heard, music biz mini-mogul Damon Dash of Roc-A-Fella infamy had this crazy Blakroc scheme to make an album bringing together the nasty jams of the Black Keys with the grimy rhymes of the Wu-Tang Clan's Raekwon, RZA and the late ODB, Mos Def, Pharoahe Monch, Billy Danze from MOP, Ludacris, Q-Tip, Jim Jones (ex-Diplomats) and NOE (ex-Dipset), sweetened up by soulful singer Nicole Wray.
You're probably thinking, "Oh yeah, just what we need – another lame high-concept rock/rap novelty album." But the reason why this unlikely collision between the rustbelt blues-rockers and the Big Apple's finest MCs could actually click when the self-titled Blakroc album drops November 27 (aka "Blak Friday") is because aside from whatever Dash's money-making, world-conquering ambitions may be, it's a truly creative collaboration at the core. Not your typical corny mash-up gimmick but more of a genuine musical hybrid sans samples.
With the Black Keys' Dan Auerbach and Pat Carney providing all the beats, there's a consistently rock-solid foundation throughout and perhaps most crucially, the Akron aces' level of creative input is matched by that of the hip-hop artists involved. At least, that appears to be what's happening from the revealing in-studio documentary footage shot by Jonah Schwartz and parceled into nine webisodes which you can watch below.
But before going any further, you need to check out a video clip of the first Blakroc track leaked from the sessions, Ain't Nothing Like You (Hoochie Coo) voiced by Auerbach and Mos Def with insightful commentary rhymed by Jim Jones. It'll give you a good idea of what the 11-day studio throwdown actually produced.
Ain't Nothing Like You (Hoochie Coo)
1. Coochie (with Ludacris, Ol' Dirty Bastard) – 4:10
2. On the Vista (with Mos Def) – 2:39
3. Hard Times (with NOE) – 2:38
4. Dollaz & Sense (with RZA, Pharoahe Monch) – 3:47
5. Why Can’t I Forget Him (with Nicole Wray) – 4:16
6. Stay Off the Fuckin’ Flowers (with Raekwon) – 2:31
7. Ain't Nothing Like You (Hoochie Coo) (with Mos Def, Jim Jones) – 3:23
8. Hope You’re Happy (with Billy Danze of M.O.P., Q-Tip, Nicole Wray)
9. Tellin’ Me Things (with RZA) – 2:39
10. What You Do to Me (with Billy Danze, Jim Jones, Nicole Wray) – 5:14
11. Done Did It (with Nicole Wray, NOE) – 3:29
