buffaBLOG - The Buffalo music blog: bflake

Showing posts with label bflake. Show all posts

ab-soul, action bronson, alchemist, bflake, childish gambino, drake, El-P, killer mike, run the jewels, straight dope — 0 comments

Straight Dope: October 28th

The Alchemist ft. Action Bronson - "Diagnosis"

Fashion designer Dr. Romanelli is not a doctor. We know this because he is a fashion designer and not in any way associated with the medical profession. He is known primarily for collaborating with popular brands to create articles of clothing carefully priced at the lower end of abject madness. His impressive resume includes collaborations with Nike, Converse, Pete Wentz and his penis, and now Coca Cola.

To showcase the symmetry between fashion, marketing, and hip hop, Dr. Romanelli has enlisted the help of dope producer Alchemist to construct a beat comprised entirely of Coke jingles. You will recognize some of these from your childhood and immediately crave McDonalds. Action Bronson, a man who surely knows a thing or two about high fructose corn syrup, drops in to spit a few bars and then quietly exits. The result falls somewhere between grotesque and inappropriate, which puts it in the vicinity of "fun" on my scale.

Run the Jewels - "Get It"

When you logged into your Myspace page back in August, you were no doubt excited to learn about 'Music Video Collaborations With Artists We Like', the new program designed to produce music videos with handpicked artists and labels.

My top eight are huge fans of El-P and Killer Mike, having been big supporters of Definitive Jux back in the day, and won't stop blabbing about the new visuals for the "Get It" single released earlier this year on Fool's Gold Records. It was shot on the road during their recent tour of North America that definitely didn't have a stop in Buffalo and looked like a great time none of us got to have. Look for special cameos from Despot and Kool AD who still owes me an apology for breaking up Das Racist.

Ab-Soul - "Dub Sac"

New one from 25% of Black Hippy leading our weekly Top Dawg Entertainment Round-Up. "Dub Sac" lacks a single line as brilliant as "I'm a fucking genius/gripping my fucking penis" from his early work, but there are some Tekken references in there. It's also refreshing to hear him using cuss words again. Not a lot of meat on these bones, honestly, but the beat from Tae Beast and Dave Free goes hard.

Put your eye meat on the new video for Schoolboy Q's track "Banger" when you're done.

Childish Gambino - "Worldstar"

Mr. Glover's new record Because The Internet is scheduled to hit December 10th, and here's a rather appropriately titled leak to get you in the mood. Worldstarhiphop.com is, of course, one of the worst places on the entire internet, an aggregate of shitty music and videos of people committing acts of felony assault that celebrate the darkest parts of human nature. Naturally, I read it every day.

"Worldstar" doesn't delve as far into blatant mockery as I'd have liked, but I think Gambino would shoot me a knowing wink if I asked him about it before having me removed by security so I don't kill his vibe by being poor within fifty feet of him. Homie gots that TV money.

Drake Being Drake

Drake the type of dude to shove birthday cake in his own face. So soft.

Aaron and the Burrs, bflake, big ups, black dots, space wolves — 0 comments

Tonight: Big Ups, Aaron & the Burrs, and Space Wolves

You can continue the grand tradition of getting hammered in a basement with free beer and free cookies this evening at independent record store Black Dots, but only if you want to deal with the hassle of three great bands sharing the same space with you.

Big Ups are on tour from Brooklyn, NY and should be ready to punk your beautiful faces off after thoroughly inspecting their van for any Williamsburg hipsters hiding in their seat cushions.

Local surf rock homies Aaron & the Burrs and Space Wolves are also expected to be in attendance, but as I am taking Space Wolves at their word and literally expecting a pack of wolves from the distant edge of our galaxy to play this show, we can't assume anything. I don't know what the nearest spacefaring analog to a beat-to-shit tour van is, but it's probably not making the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs.

Doors are at 6pm and that gives you a solid two hours to stock up on fantastic records to boast about in front of your dearest friends. The suggested donation is a piddly $5, so feel free to help Big Ups fill their gas tank as much or as little as you want. If you're mathematically inclined, you may even decide to make a game of it, calculating exactly how much they'd need to only get so far from here that their van hits empty at the precise moment they pass by a decrepit farmhouse, in the middle of nowhere, full of bloodthirsty cannibal rapists.

It's almost Halloween, after all.

ab-soul, archie bang, asap rocky, bet, bflake, eminem, isaiah rashad, jay rock, kathy griffin, Kendrick Lamar, my name is my name, pusha t, quelle chris, SchoolBoy Q, straight dope, top dawg entertainment — 0 comments

Straight Dope: October 21st

Has Pusha T made more money selling cocaine or selling records? It’s a question worth asking, particularly when you consider all of the success he’s had as an artist, first as one half of the duo Clipse with his brother No Malice (which must look awesome on a birth certificate), and later as a disciple of Kanye West. My Name is My Name offers an answer, but it’s hard to discern if a line like “I sold more dope than I sold records, you niggas sold records, never sold dope,” is hyperbole or a straight up lie.

Eliminating the use of a time machine to go back and actually watch Push move powder, we’re just going to have to take his word for it. Even if he’s spinning a yarn, it’s a compelling story, and there aren't many emcees in the greater rap topography as indelibly street as Pusha T. People seem to be responding to the sudden hustler injection, with MNIMN selling somewhere in the area of 75,000 first-week units. That’s good enough for second place on Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop albums, placing him just behind Wheelchair Jimmy, a dude with the entire Young Money empire behind him. It’s also two spots ahead of indie rap all-star Danny Brown, another emcee of remarkable ability blowing up as a result of his ability to write songs instead of pop rap radio hits.

Sales are perhaps not the best indicator of success, but there’s clearly an audience for this kind of dealer-as-rapper storytelling. It would be too easy to write Pusha T off as a one-trick pony, no matter how frustrating his coke metaphor laden raps initially seem, because the alternative is sixteen bars of bullshit. Push knows who he is and what he represents, and he raps his ass off all over MNIMN to make sure you know, too. You can’t ask for more from a solo debut, and his singular focus on the drug game has left plenty of room for growth. If he fails to meet those expectations going forward, who knows, he might still be dealing.

Top Dawg Entertainment - "2013 BET Hip-Hop Awards Cypher"

King Kendrick, Schoolboy Q, Ab-Soul, Jay Rock and recent TDE signee Isaiah Rashad could probably level a city block based solely on the ability of their rapping alone. This cypher is a goddamn wrecking ball, and high fiving hasn't looked this good since Top Gun. BET should create a new award specifically to honor it. Kendrick Lamar has a couple of the year's best verses already and has two full months to round out the top five.

It's hard to imagine an emcee even attempting to match Kendrick's firepower at this point. We're one more diss track away from Drake releasing a full-length consisting entirely of his desperate sobbing.

Peep the shitty censored youtube embed, then go check it out at BET.com. Their video would appear in this space if it didn't refuse to autoplay in an enraging act of unrivaled stupidity.

Eminem - "Rap God"

It’s fashionable to talk shit about Eminem, because when you grow up you put away childish things. Slim Shady is a reminder that you used to guffaw at a dude who made his money rapping about killing his wife and whoever occupied the top spot on Total Request Live. In spite of a few bright spots in his recent discography, Em hasn't done much to advance this conversation in the direction of credibility. “Berzerk” didn't do the job, and “Survival” sure as shit didn't help things. Is Eminem, as frequently cited, one of the best lyricists of all time or an emcee who got boring around the same time he got sober? “Rap God” does its best to convince us it’s the latter, and he spends over six minutes showing off his world-beating rhyming ability to great effect. If you’re flatly tired of his shit, you aren't going to like this track. But when you look at the hip hop landscape, with Drake at the top of the charts and Jay-Z falling way the hell off, this is maybe as good as it gets for rap’s elder statesmen. Good enough, in this case, ain’t bad.

Quelle Chris - "Loop Dreams"

Isaiah Rashad ft. Jay Rock & Schoolboy Q - "Shot U Down Remix"

As a wholly owned subsidiary of Top Dawg Entertainment, Straight Dope is obligated to post about any new releases until Kendrick Lamar becomes so powerful he undergoes fusion and engulfs the globe in burning hellfire. He’s not even on this track, but that didn’t stop it from being dope to nth power. This remix pulls double duty, showcasing Isaiah Rashad’s preternatural rapping talents, while also showcasing Schoolboy Q’s ability to deeply hurt me by sneaking in an admission that we might not see Oxymoron until next year.

Archie Bang - "Apollo Creed"

Kathy Griffin terrifies me. I don’t know why this happened, but it will ruin your day. I could actually feel my lifeforce circling the drain the longer I watched it. Recommended for any diehard Lisa Lampanelli fans out there, it’s more or less twenty minutes of these two talking about their fictional-yet-no-less-disturbing sexual relationship. Always good to end on a high note.

bflake, chance the rapper, eminem, future, james blake, main attrakionz, pusha t, shaqisdope, shaquille o'neal, straight dope, tynethys — 2 comments

Straight Dope: October 14th

This interview with Eminem, supposedly his first, is one of the worst goddamn things I've ever seen. Can you imagine what type of human being he must have been in 1998? He obviously knows he's about to be famous, which is the only possible explanation for his decision to act like a caricature instead of an actual rapper. It's like he binged on a few seasons of Yo! MTV Raps and this was the most reasonable approximation of an emcee he could come up with. "This is real. I put my feelings on wax!" He's also wearing exactly the kind of thing a cop would put on to blend in, infiltrate the club, and taze the hell out of a drug dealer. Shit looks like a disguise. 1998 Slim Shady was a buffoon.

Shaquille O'Neal ft. ShaqIsDope - "Karate Chop"

Oh yeah, this is happening. Big Aristotle has returned to rapping. While Shaq was never very good at it, his massive size offering no clear advantage in the studio, that didn't stop his first record from going platinum. Shaq Diesel was followed by Shaq Fu: Da Return in 1994 with contributions from both Method Man and RZA, because the universe is random and unfair. His third release, You Can't Stop the Reign, even featured appearances by Jay-Z and The Notorious B.I.G in a hilarious mockery of established laws and traditions.

Biggie Smalls is dead now, so you get Toronto rapper ShaqIsDope instead. I'm told he's a real person.

Main Attrakionz - "International"

Oakland cloud rap geniuses Squadda B and MondreM.A.N. have a new mixtape set to drop this month, a collaboration with Sacramento producer Tynethys that promises to do something good to your earholes. Main Attrakionz last collaboration with Tynethys ended disastrously when their completed material was lost in a hard drive crash, likely an indicator that one of these dudes looks at weird stuff on the internet. Instead of re-recording the lost tape they decided to write a new one, an inspiring decision shrouded by terrible inefficiency.

At just over two minutes in length, "International" is the fun sized candy bar of rap songs. If you haven't sampled Main Attrakionz yet, now seems like a pretty good time.

James Blake ft. Chance The Rapper - "Life Round Here"

English OG and electronic music king of men James Blake has a fresh take on his single "Life Round Here" from the album Overgrowth released earlier in 2013. He's recruited Chance The Rapper for some hot rhyming action, and that's damn sensible. Chance is beating rap's ass like he just finished a video game and got to start over with all of his special abilities and inventory intact. There are few up-and-comers as promising as Chance, having been featured in XXL and Complex as a rapper deserving of your unwavering affection and eternal devotion. Probably.

I don't read XXL or Complex.

Pusha T ft. Future - "Pain"

Your weekly reminder that My Name is My Name is out now, going hard for hip hop album of the year.

ace hood, asap ferg, asap mob, asap rocky, bflake, super mash bros — 0 comments

Tonight: A$AP Rocky w/ A$AP Ferg, Ace Hood & Super Mash Bros.

Former drug dealer/dope rapper ASAP Rocky (stylized as A$AP Rocky, because money) will be bringing his act to the Lake LaSalle Lot at UB this evening for Fall Fest 2013. He will be joined by Ace Hood, known for his hit song “Bugatti,” which I imagine is about a car or possibly a pasta dish. Mash-up DJs Super Mash Bros. and fellow ASAP Mob emcee ASAP Ferg (stylized as A$AP Ferg, money) round out the bill.

Established in 2007, the ASAP Mob is unlike a real mob, united by a similar preference in music, art, and fashion instead of a pronounced desire to incite violence. This is good news for anyone in attendance hoping to hear music and not get murdered. This is terrible news for anyone in attendance who may have taken constant lyrical allusions to gun-related felonious acts seriously.

ASAP Rocky dropped Long. Live. ASAP earlier this year to reviews generally considered positive, building on the success of his previous mixtape Live. Love. ASAP and the nine or ten thousand guest appearances he made on everyone else's records. Long. Live. ASAP likewise featured contributions from every rapper you've ever heard of in beautiful rap reciprocation, so don't expect him to suddenly stop being famous as hell. The current Undisputed Rap Champion of the World, Kendrick Lamar, even lovingly annihilated him on his devastating "Control" verse.

This show costs dollars unless you're a University at Buffalo student, in which case you will be getting rapped at for free with your UB identification. Non-UB students can expect to spend $35 out of their ramen fund, general admission is $45.

Doors at 5pm, music at 6pm. Please take all references to questionable sexual encounters and drug use as a guideline, not a rule.

bflake, broadway joe's, del paxton, mallwalkers, Punk N' Tots, the hunky newcomers, the plurals — 0 comments

Tonight: Punk N' Tots

It's Tuesday, so you don't need me to tell you about all of the debaucherous shenanigans you can get into at Broadway Joe's starting at 10pm ($5). You're probably in line already, braving the harsh elements and quizzical glances from dangerous Main Street pedestrians all in the name of furious counterculture punk music.

Helping you bring down the establishment this evening will be a couple of Lansing, Michigan bands you've probably heard while drunk, The Plurals and The Hunky Newcomers. They'll be joined by our sweet sweet Buffalo boys (and girls) Mallwalkers and Del Paxton. You will all journey into a hovel of bloodthirsty, iniquitous, leather jacket enthusiasts together.

Six dollar pitchers and free tots to stuff your frigging face with should make this a night to remember, but you won't, because the pitchers are only six dollars. Have fun puking in the subway terminal kids.

azealia banks, barefoot contessa, bflake, drake, nelly, straight dope, straight nope, t.i. — 0 comments

Straight Nope: September 16th

Look, I'm not going to sit here and pretend I didn't just pre-order Grand Theft Auto V and I don't have other shit on my mind right now. Drake's got a new song called "Wu-Tang Forever" we could be kicking around, but I'm having a hard time going in on the dude when I've got complex murder fantasies playing out in my head. When I can bomb Wheelchair Jimmy in a stolen military fighter jet I might be more open to having that conversation. Drake is the kind of dude that would give your kids the rest of his tickets at the fair so they can go on the bumper cars again. So soft.

Azealia Banks - "Count Contessa"

I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about this track, which I guess represents a sort of success, because there's no way they put this out expecting anyone to have a good time listening to it. The best thing it has going for it is the beat, and I don't want you to take that as an endorsement. I simply mean that if you ever wanted to hear a usually decent female emcee spit over what sounds like a beat from a level in a Japanese fighting game that they cut during the development process, here you go. It also sounds like there was probably some hardcore vougeing going on behind the scenes, and I'm pretty sure I've seen montage cooking shots on the Food Network playing this exact same track. Azealia is on some Barefoot Contessa shit and, oh my god, the song is called "Count Contessa" and I am only now putting this together. We'll now pause here for a shot of the hardest liquor within arm's reach.

Nelly ft. T.I. - "Rick James"

Nelly has undergone a spectacular transformation from a chart-topping radio success during the early aughts into a man who thinks it's okay to rap like Country Grammar just came out, like, yesterday. You know how some of your friends still make Rick James jokes and you laugh out loud every single time because there's no expiration date on pop culture references? Well, now Nelly is that friend, and he's seemingly built a song around the premise that you probably watched a pretty funny episode of television almost ten years ago.

I don't even know what T.I. is contributing here other than to remind everyone he isn't in federal prison anymore. This song ticks every box on the terrible rap single checklist. Are they in the club? Check. Are they rich? Check. Are they drunk? Check. You'll have to listen to it yourself to find out if they're drinking vodka, Hennessy, or Patron.

Damn it. These two are the worst.

bflake, eminem, freddie gibbs, kanye west, katie couric, kim kardashian, lil wayne, madlib, meek mill, straight dope — 2 comments

Straight Dope: September 9th

Boy, there’s just so much to talk about this week. Football is back, DMX has been wielding his penis in a threatening manner, R. Kelly’s got a release date for his new album (it’s November 11th), 2 Chainz is releasing a goddamn cookbook, and Lil Wayne sits down with Katie Couric again later this afternoon on daytime TV.

RE: Lil Wayne and Miss Katie, I must confess to some seriously hardcore ambivalence. I think if you see Lil Wayne during the day you should get some kind of prize, or at least a handshake from a supportive father figure to remind you that life is tricky and it does get better. For a long time, I wasn't sure he actually existed. I thought of him as a type of ghost story a bunch of rappers would recite to each other as a cautionary tale with each emcee adding their own personal embellishments to try and scare the shit out of everyone in the room. Like, if the Scooby Doo gang were chasing Lil Wayne, they’d pull the rubber mask off and it’d have been Kanye the whole time.

I eventually found out how wrong I was and had to come to terms with the concept of filthy rich adult men mixing prescription cough syrup with Sprite for recreational purposes. Remember when people would just get drunk as hell? On a more positive note, this is not the CBS Evening News’ Katie Couric of years ago. As her star continues to fall, we inch that much closer to these two eventually dropping a single together. Matt Lauer diss track? Matt Lauer diss track.

Alright, let’s listen to some rap.

Freddie Gibbs & Madlib - “Deeper”

Freddie Gibbs really is the best rapper from Gary, Indiana. Deeper (the album) is the third collaboration between Mr. Gibbs and his presumptive BFF Madlib, and here you have a title track to pass through the canal of your ear directly into your brain. What happens next is up to you.

Deeper (the album) comes out 9/14. Their next collaborative effort, Cocaine Piñata, is expected 2/14/14 with guest spots by everyone good.

But really. A cocaine piñata. I just… Man.

Eminem - “Berzerk”

And then Eminem came back on some vintage Slim Shady shit. I’m not saying it’s good or bad, but it does make me feel like it’s 1999. I could do without the extended Kevin Federline diss, but Em more than makes up for it by insulting both Khloe Kardashian and her disturbed husband Lamar Odom. I know the song was recorded before Lamar Odom’s awesome drug use was made public, so yeah, I guess, suck it nerd. Shady got yo’ ass with that perfect timing.

I never thought Khloe looked exceptionally terrible; however I learned a valuable lesson about how the public feels about her appearance when I told an ex-girlfriend I thought she kind of looked like her. I get that she’s clearly the Kardashian sister still in beta, by which I mean that someone did not work the bugs out before they released the software, but goddamn. Apparently she’s the Jack’s Links Beef Jerky Sasquatch and I had no idea.

MMLP2 is out 10/5.

You only get two songs this week, because when I go on hiatus apparently so does the entire rap industry. You don’t want to hear Eddie Murphy’s new single with Snoop Lion, Weezy’s 29 song Dedication 5 mixtape, or Meek Mill’s soft as hell Kendrick Lamar diss track. During a national survey, 9 out of 10 Charmin bears chose Meek Mill’s track as their preferred toilet tissue over other leading brands.

By the way, did you hear about Kim Kardashian wanting to pose for Playboy again? Kanye West is reportedly enthusiastic about the prospect, and I don’t even have a punchline for this joke. I just really want his ego to lead him to take over the shoot, eventually throw out all the pictures of Kim, and become the first male entertainer with an issue of Playboy showcasing his nude body on every page.

You're next, Hov.

bflake, big sean, Danny Brown, earl sweatshirt, eminem, frank ocean, Kendrick Lamar, straight dope — 1 comments

Straight Dope: August 19th

Big Sean ft. Kendrick Lamar & Jay Electronica - "Control"

I'm usually homeboys with the same niggas I'm rhymin' with/But this is hip-hop and them niggas should know what time it is/And that goes for Jermaine Cole, Big KRIT, Wale/Pusha T, Meak Millz, A$AP Rocky, Drake/Big Sean, Jay Electron', Tyler, Mac Miller/I got love for you all but I'm tryna murder you niggas

Kendrick Lamar basically shit on everyone last week and took over the world with his extended verse on a Big Sean track that won't even make it to his album Hall of Fame. The official story is that clearance issues with the sample forced them to cut it, but if I were Big Sean and Kendrick Lamar put me on blast on my own song, I'd keep that shit as far away from my record as possible. The only reason he released it at all probably has as much to do with typical hip-hop hubris as it does with the dread hanging over him while considering what K-Dot might do if he threw it out.

Threatening to murder his peers (in a non-violent rap way) is just the tip of the iceberg, so terrible is Kendrick's fury. The entire song is a critique of modern hip-hop culture. Offer Kendrick pills and he'll pop you. No more designer clothes. No clubs. No pictures. No Instagram. We're not listening to a diss track, this is coliseum music. The emcees that should take the greatest offense to this song are the ones he didn't mention. Everyone else should step their game up.

Having his verse book-ended by Big Sean and Jay Electronica is a perfect illustration of that notion. Big Sean's bars are like the unskippable FBI warning on a DVD. Then you finally get Actual Rap Music and have to sit through the credits as read by Jay Electronica hoping your favorite character will pop up again at the end. When he doesn't you've officially listened to "Control" from start to finish for the last time. Jay Electronica's career might already be over. At this point, he doesn't even get a syllable out before I hit stop.

To date, a handful of emcees have released response tracks dissing Kendrick. They are mostly terrible but indicative of the current level of competition in hip-hop. Call yourself the King of New York when you're from Compton and people are going to get upset.

All the rappers mentioned by name in "Control" have remained silent.

Eminem ft. Liz Rodrigues - "Survival"

Eminem is back with a new anthem to listen to while kicking open your ex-wife's front door. This is not the best song you'll hear all year, but believe me when I say that you will hear it. This has sporting event playoff banger written all over it. Even when Em is dropping irrelevant "ain't never gonna' stop me" radio hits, the man still has flow. Give it a listen but skip the hook.

Danny Brown - "Hand Stand"

New Danny Brown is new Danny Brown, even if it's a relatively low quality radio-rip of a song that would comfortably fit into a genre of music we can safely refer to as twerk rap. That is, music to twerk to.

We are still waiting for an official release date on Old, Brown's follow-up to the masterful XXX, but all signs indicate it happening in the future. Like all things do.

Earl Sweatshirt ft. Frank Ocean - "Sunday"

Young rap prodigy Earl Sweatshirt will at last debut Doris, his first album after returning from the foreign shores of Samoa, on August 20th. That's tomorrow. If the anticipation is corroding your flesh as though a delicate acidic mist is drifting through the corridors of your ancient castle by the sea, you can stream the entire thing over at the Odd Future Tumblr. And you should.

"Sunday" is a straight up relationship song and features fellow Odd Future world-beater Frank Ocean actually rapping, a secret talent he's been suppressing since he last spit on OF track "Oldie" a hundred years ago.

The next time you think about putting off writing the next great American novel or finally learning how to play the guitar, recall that Earl Sweatshirt is only 19 years old.

And Kendrick Lamar is watching you.

all of them witches, bad people, bflake, mischief brew, sugar vault game room — 0 comments

Tonight: Mischief Brew, All of Them Witches, and Bad People

Having existed in some form since the year 2000, there's a solid chance you or someone you know is a fan of Philadelphia punk rock troupe Mischief Brew. You should thusly find yourself incredibly excited for their appearance at the Sugar Vault Game Room tonight at 7pm with the Buffalo math-rock duo All of Them Witches and "pissed off punk band" Bad People. They'll probably bang on metal and stuff. There may even be a vibraharp.

The show is all ages, but leave the kids at home. With a line-up like that, someone is going to get punched in the face. Doors are $8 and no one should have to deal with severe physical trauma after spending their whole allowance.

aircraft, american wolf, bflake, dbgb, sleepy hahas — 0 comments

Tonight: Sleepy Hahas, Aircraft, and American Wolf

At 10pm this evening, you've got one shot at helping Buffalo acts Aircraft and Sleepy Hahas, with the help of Chicago indie rockers American Wolf, turn Duke's Bohemian Groove Bar into a steaming pile of rubble. American Wolf is making one stop here as they roll through town in support of their new album, Myriad. Feel free to thank them as you pull the wounded from beneath large piles of debris side by side.

This might also be your last chance to run around Scooby Doo montage style while listening to one of Aircraft's '60s-inspired tunes for a while as they hit the road with The Malones at the end of this month. For the more liberally inclined attendees, you can bet your ass the self-described wife stealing Sleepy Hahas can hook you up with some good, old fashioned cuckolding.

I'm saying it's going to be a great time.

bflake, quiet country audio, the malones — 1 comments

Absolute Punk Debuts QCA Session feat. The Malones

Remorseless Buffalo rockers The Malones, kicked a pair of music videos out of their nest to see how much of their audience's spare time they can gobble up without a second thought given to the catastrophic loss of productivity this would cause at local businesses this week.

It’s up to you guys to make sure these videos can walk and hunt on their own without the careful, incubating presence of a mother’s love. So unless you like watching falcons snatch up baby rabbits on YouTube, keep the predators at bay and watch the video for "Dirty Soap." After your 400th viewing, remember to grab a glass of water before you dive back in, and if you absolutely can’t pull yourself away from the computer, your employer probably deserves an hour or two of notice before you call in sick with Malones Fever.

Be sure to catch these guys at the buffaBLOG Summer Party on August 10th, and do yourself a favor by popping open a new tab to check out the video for "Lie Straight" on Absolute Punk. They did get the premiere, after all.

action bronson, bflake, childish gambino, Danny Brown, e-40, hip hop, rjd2, SchoolBoy Q — 2 comments

Straight Dope: July 29th

Childish Gambino - “Centipede”

If you’ve got forty seconds to spare listening to Gambino wail unintelligibly over the sound of dogs barking, you’ll discover there’s actually a dope song waiting to reward your patience. Donald Glover will be a love him or hate him rapper literally until the end of time, and fifteen years from now it’s going to be so exciting to witness the arguments born out of that premise when Community is airing in syndication on Nick at Nite. The first person who says they loved “Freaks and Geeks" will get a drink thrown on them and forfeit control of the television.

But let’s go back to that first forty seconds. Does Donald Glover’s voice naturally infuriate animals? Perhaps the barking represents the haters on the internet, and Gambino’s singing is his way of telling them he ain’t never gonna stop. Maybe it’s a field recording from the middle of an animal prison during his latest One Night Only concert engagement for wayward and lonely creatures of poor moral constitution. There are so many possibilities someone could write a thesis on this shit.

However, I’m still deducting points for calling the song “Centipede” and not once subverting the well-known Human Centipede concept by rapping about threesomes for seven straight minutes.

RJD2 - “Her Majesty’s Socialist Request”

Instrumentals all day. RJD2, best known to folks everywhere as the fella’ who made Mad Men worth watching before the opening credits were even finished, decided to go and do this for all of you. I hope you’re happy.

In a perfect world, this would be used as the theme music for a Mad Men spin-off following Don Draper’s daughter Sally doing every drug in the world during the 70s and 80s. Doesn’t even matter that it won’t happen. I’m already watching it in my mind.

More Is Than Isn’t, Mr. D2’s follow-up to that last one he did, will be out at some point. October 8th, probably. But you know how they lie!

Action Bronson - “Water Sports”

Flushing, Queens’ favorite fat boy and rap game Dom DeLuise is back to talk about sex again. Be advised, when he repeatedly mentions dunking on former 7’2” NBA center Dikembe Mutombo, he’s lying. Maybe that’s a dealbreaker, I don’t know.

For a track called Water Sports this song is surprisingly light on R Kelly references, but if you want to imagine this guy totally naked getting laid on the regular, cheers, this one’s for you.

E-40 feat. Danny Brown & Schoolboy Q - “All My Niggas”

This track’s only contribution to the cultural zeitgeist is somehow managing to be incredibly obnoxious and also kind of good at the same time. I am also reminded that Danny Brown’s XXX follow-up Old, and Schoolboy Q’s Oxymoron, still haven’t been released. I am now passing that sad news on to you, dear reader, so that you can share in my pain.

E-40’s been around just this side of forever, and is probably even old enough to have been in the same room as Tupac at some point. Good for him, I guess, but we all know you should be listening to this track for the featured artists. They both sound totally pissed.

Straight Dope will return next week. Let’s hope Kanye West does something stupid before then.

bflake, mr. goodbar, preview, the malones, the tins — 0 comments

Tonight: The Tins and The Malones

Tonight, Buffalo bred acts The Malones and The Tins descend on Mr. Goodbar to collect as much cash as possible before the crowd turns on them and the entire venue transforms into an unstable killing field. Staring down the barrel of a full length album and a lengthy tour, The Malones should be in rare form, proving to the last few stragglers that they mean business and all of Buffalo should be on alert. The Tins, a staple at this point, should almost certainly kill it--they’ve been in the scene so long their songs have white hair.

The festivities kick off at 11pm($3), which leaves you plenty of time to pre-game and do your makeup so good no one from the high school you left behind ten years ago will have a chance in hell at recognizing you. Rage out to your heart’s content and fully abuse the merch table. I don’t personally want to get arrested but I’m more than willing to have someone step up to the plate on my behalf and offend the local populace by throwing down to fan favorites “Dirty Soap” by The Malones and “Please Be Kind” by The Tins. Of course, there’s always the possibility that you hate those songs and aren’t predisposed to violence, so feel free to stay in doors if that’s the case. We’ll fill you in the next time we see you.

bflake, hip hop, straight dope — 5 comments

Straight Dope: June 17th

Kanye West is in the news again this week after his record Yeezus, set to hit shelves tomorrow, mysteriously appeared on the internet for everyone to steal. I suppose this would be shocking if we weren't living in 2013 and I didn't just teach my dog how to torrent, but we are and I did. Even 'Ye appears to be taking it in stride. The usually brash MC was reported to have been seen handing out copies of the album from the trunk of his sports car over the weekend in Chicago with the help of a beautiful phoenix from the far edge of the galaxy. There has been no word from the Kardashian camp regarding West's alleged infidelity, and since very little of what you just read actually happened, that is expected to remain the case.

Elsewhere in the Wide World of Hip Hop, Jay-Z (Kanye's friend from that one song) has announced his 12th studio album with an anticipated July 4th release date. The title? Magna Carta Holy Grail. We are fast approaching the dual reveal of Kanye West and Sean Carter as angels of the highest choir, wielders of terrible power and boundless compassion, nurturing whole worlds from their breast while destroying others in the same instant with their flaming swords. Expect them to throw back the curtain on their next joint album, No For Real, Though. We’re in the Bible sometime soon.

Chris Brown feat. Aaliyah - “Don’t Think They Know”

Chris Brown has a song with Aaliyah, the singer best known for her work in the vampire masterpiece Queen of the Damned. Unquestionably one of the finest movies of the last twenty years, Aaliyah’s turn as the vampire queen Akasha proved to be the film’s greatest achievement, somehow outshining the contributions made to the soundtrack by Korn’s Jonathan Davis.

Of course, she’s dead now, so that makes her the perfect candidate to put out a song with the undisputed champion of remorseless dickheads, Chris Brown. If you’re a woman and you absolutely have to make a song with this guy, it’s probably in your own best interest to make sure you’ve already died before you do it. Good on her, I guess. I listened to a very respectable ten seconds of this song before I threw my laptop to the floor in a fury. Let me know your personal score in the comments section. If anyone can get through the whole song, find me and I’ll apologize to you in person.

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis - “Stay at Home Dad”

I was going to savage this song. Reading the title, I could smell blood in the water. I was so excited to type “Macklemore takes his first steps toward irrelevance,” but this track is Officially Not Bad. It’s actually pretty funny, and Mr. More (not his name, probably) has done a fine job building on the success of "Thrift Shop" in a way that hasn’t made me want to uppercut him a single time.

Pusha T feat. Big Sean & 2 Chainz - “Who I Am”

If you want to know who Pusha T is without listening to the song, spoiler alert: he’s a drug dealer. Which is too bad, because Pusha T would be a hell of a rapper if he could ever stop talking about selling drugs. There’s no hope at all for 2 Chainz, however, and it’s always nice to hear Big Sean rap down to everyone else’s level.

Freddie Gibbs - “Freddie Soprano”

I’d be willing to bet Freddie Gibbs doesn’t really brush his teeth with Hennessy. The 30 year old Gary, Indiana MC (thug life) has a new one coming out on July 9th and in the grand tradition of Getting You Hyped, here we have one of the better tracks to feature a seamless Die Hard reference only seconds before rapid-fire murder threats and bit of fun at the expense of Kobe Bryant’s achilles tendon. You may find yourself involuntarily nodding your head to the ID Labs production on this one, what with the going hard and all that, so I strongly recommend avoiding the corners of coffee tables if you’re listening to this as a toddler.

Joey Bada$$ - “95 Til Infinity”

Remember when I said Joey Badass’ Summer Knights mixtape would be out on the 12th? I was wrong! Due to reasons I actually don’t know or care about, we should see it pop into existence on July 1st. Unless it doesn’t. As a consolation prize, "95 Til Infinity" does just fine. When Badass spits “I’ll do your girl like this beat, straight fucking it up/Ya’ll niggas nothing to us/This feels like nothing to us/Son, taught your daughter how to bust a nut for fun” you realize the rumors are true and he really is quite popular with the ladies. You have to figure that’s about as gentle a come on as can be expected from a young man who partially spells his name with dollar signs.

Schoolboy Q feat. Kendrick Lamar - “Collard Greens”

This dude is going to be so rich so soon. Schoolboy’s album Oxymoron fast approaches, and with “Collard Greens,” Q reminds us why he’s poised to blow up and have sex with our girlfriends. In fact, that’s basically the general message here. Kendrick Lamar has an extended verse with a few bars in Spanish, the essential point of which being that some sweet little thing is getting the D because her boyfriend sucks. Bummer! Listen to it fifteen times and then buy your lady a present. It may already be too late.