Friday, February 29, 2008
NEW JOE BUDDEN VIDEOS
New videos from Joey. "Talk To Em" video and an Interview:
http://meccaofhiphop.com/joebudden/
Saturday, February 23, 2008
A PREVIEW....THE CARTER 3
Yesterday, Blender traveled to Atlanta to visit Lil Wayne — it was our second Weezyscursion in three months, the first being for this recent feature — and the wildly prolific MC was nice enough to play us several tracks intended for his forever-delayed LP, Tha Carter III. We didn't hear final mixes — and it's anyone's guess if titles (much less entire songs) will stick — but what we did hear was enough to convince us that the album will (almost) be worth the long, long wait. (It's currently set for an April release.) The rundown below is lighter on lyrics than sonic description largely because the internal rhymes, dazzlingly extended metaphors and references to food stacked up faster than we could write them down — a good sign for Weezy diehards.
>> "Lollipop"
"I'm not a lollipop rapper," Wayne told us, by way of introducing this song as the radio single, "but this track is cold." It's one of many new Wayne songs to feature T-Pain/Roger Troutman vocoder singing effects and it transcends its boner-as-blow-pop conceit on the force of its strangeness: Wayne's singing isn't just a run through the T-Wayne ProTools patch, it's chopped up and layered over itself in a dense, alien collage. It actually de-naturalizes the vocoder gimmick, which is as common as high-hats nowadays. "Dudes are gonna hate this one," he said. "Ugly dudes, that is."
>> "Beat the Block"
Hollowed-out and bleepy. The percussion approximates African hand drums, which is why Wayne refers to the track as "Kunte Kinte" at one point; he rides the Alex Haley reference, rapping that he eats "Roots for dinner," before adding that he's "In the garden, feeding fruits to sinners." He also tells us about a girl who likes "the Weezy F — I bad-grade her."
>> "Eat You Alive" [ft. Ludacris]
The T-Wayne effect is back and pushed to an avant-garde extreme: multitracked, demonic, paired with pained female vocals that intone "he's gonna eat you aliiiiiive." Wayne likes food, and this is about comparing rappers to food and then going Audrey II on them. The math here is simple: Wayne makes any track he's on better + Ludacris makes any track he's on better = A Möbius strip continuum of WTF?!
>> "I'm Illi"
This "street single" produced by "Bossy" beatsmith Bangladesh should be released to radio next week. There is no hook — just non-stop rhymes over a thunderously spare backdrop: a screwed-down vocal sample repeating "I'm Illi," pounding 808 drums and claps.
>> "Let the Beat Build"
Drums by longtime Wayne producer/engineer Deezle, ethereal soul sample by Kanye West. Structured something like Coldplay's "The Scientist," which is to say we start with nothing but melody for about 8 bars, and then 808 drum sounds are introduced glacially: high hats for four bars, high hats and snares for the next four, and so on, so that the song revs up in an excitingly disjointed, slow motion way.
Source - http://www.blender.com/Exclusive-Previewing-Lil-Waynes-Tha-Carter-III/Blender-Blog/blogs/1168/18751.aspx
Friday, February 22, 2008
WILL-I-AM IN THE X-MEN PREQUEL?
Black Eyed Peas front man will.i.am has landed a role in an upcoming X-Men prequel that focuses on the character of Wolverine. According to Daily Variety, the rapper and producer joins actors Ryan Reynolds and Taylor Kitsch as the newest cast members. All three will portray superheros based on original Marvel comic book characters, with will tackling the role of teleporter John Wraith in what will be his feature film debut. Hugh Jackman, who played Wolverine in the first three X-Men films, has also signed on for X-Men Origins. The film will reveal how the character of Wolverine came to exist in the X-Men universe and will introduce a number of characters that are yet to appear in the previous films. Filming is already underway in Australia and New Zealand and will eventually move to New Orleans. Twentieth Century Fox is planning for a release on May 1, 2009.
Story from http://www.xxlmag.com/online/?p=19636
THE CARTER 3....THIS APRIL?
Lil' Wayne took time out of his schedule to visit his old school, Eleanor McMain Secondary School on Tuesday (Feb. 19).
Before stepping on the schools' premises, Wayne revealed on his tour bus that April would be the release for his highly anticipated album, Tha Carter III. "I make it worse for Universal [Records]," said Wayne to MTV News, blaming the delays on the amount of music he creates. "I keep doing new songs every other day. I don't stop working, so I don't know when they gonna get that. Everything I do be better than the last, like, 'Oh, this gotta make the album!' "
He's made many songs for Tha Carter III that the guest list reads like this: Hurricane Chris, Jay-Z, Corey Gunz, Wayne's artist Tiger, Lil Mama, Busta Rhymes, Juelz Santana, Fabolous, Baby, Brisco, Dre (of Cool & Dre), and Ludacris. Alchemist, Swizz Beatz, Cool & Dre, Kanye West, Jim Johnson and in-house producer Diesel have all made beats for the album.
The first single is currently "A Millie," while the second one will be "Lollipop," which features songwriter Static, who has written for Aaliyah, Timbaland and Missy Elliott.
"That's me. I love music," said Wayne of the new tattoo on his face, which says "I Am Music" in red letters. "I found a love for music. I owe it all to a lot of people in the game. They don't even know."
When Weezy finally got around to visiting his Eleanor McMain Secondary, he sat down with an art class full of juniors and seniors. Wayne began at the school in seventh grade, and met his manager Cortez Bryant. Wayne discussed the impact his mother had in his life, and even said he hoped that one day he and his daughter could be lie Miley and Billy Ray Cyrus. Lil' Wayne was even asked to prom by a girl named Julie on April 19.
"I'll be out the country then. Sorry," replied Wayne with a smile.
"Coming back to speak to them is super-important," said Wayne of his visit. "It was my school. I went to that school. I attended that school. It shows them somebody from there made it. It makes them feel like you can do it. That right there was so important. I see it in their eyes, like, 'We can do something.' Not just doing what I'm doing, but, 'We can be successful.' "
Story from Allhiphop.com