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Nerdcore Hiphop

This video is nerdlicious.

DJ Format featuring Abdominal & D-Sisive

And the mefi post responsible for bringing this to our attention (lot's more goodies inside).

Update: Even more NERDCORE (it's real hip hop, it's just smart)

Go here for more fun videos.

Especially look for "Vicious battle raps".

And for heaven's sake, check out MC Frontalot. Nobody fronts more than MC frontalot.

The Grey Video

So I'm scrolling me blogroll while attending the blogging bloggers and the blogs they blog foolishness.

By the way, if you're a blogger, add your blog to the blogdex now. Help a librarian run metrics on the community of making blogging.

Add your blog to blogdex

So, I'm scrolling me (what am I a pirate?) blogroll while attending the blogging bloggers and the blogs they blog foolishness.

And I come across this at boing boing.

I'm kinda surprised it took this long for the video mashup to follow the audio.

Here's another good mashup post from boing boing.

The Thinkin' Man's Rap (Nerd Hop)

Okay, Check it, two rap websites. One Old Skool, the other decidedly New.

First, The Foundation

The history of Rap's Old School as told by interviews one Jayquan conducted with the artists themselves.

Especially check the Kool Moe Dee interview.

I've currently got Kool Moe Dee, KRS-One and the Getto Boys on heavy rotation. Gotta go get me some of that Mellie Mel.

And, now for something competely different.

The World's First HCI Rap: "We Got It", courtesy the guys at OK/Cancel.

Warning: Smart people wrapping, with like words and stuff, like written down and everything.

The mp3's okay, the lyrics are better than they sound.
Gotta check the comments.
You just gotta.

Handgame and Gourd Dance

So whilst you alls wuz gittin ya ski on, and ya bored on, Kenj and I were making a very important, spiritual journey back to my homeland <!-- cue after-school special music -->.

We attended the 50th anniversary doings for my Uncle Lorenzo and Aunt Eva Stabler. We played handgame, I broke my mourning for my mothers death and we gourd danced. We also talked to my Dad's family about coming out for the wedding.

And we've got video! So enjoy. Home video watching being the favorite pasttime of the Fu Crew, at some point we'll bring the whole tape to Marlon's and you'll all have to sit through it.

More on the Music Industry

Links to a couple of articles from John Dvorak at PC Magazine.

Lies! Lies! and Suckers

Ode to Napster, Music's Last Hope

I can provide a data point to verify Dvorak's conjecture regarding the real reason for the downturn in music sales.

During the Napster and Kazaa heyday I spent $40/month on music. I learned about all the music I bought from these file sharing programs. I then went and bought cds because I didn't like the quality of what was available, and I couldn't trust the information associated with the song. I used to find a song and then verifying the album and artist info at Amazon (to check all the possible remixes). Sometimes I would then purchase the album from Amazon. When the RIAA started suing people, I stopped using all file sharing software and subsequently stopped buying music. I can't remember buying a single music album in the entire calendar year 2003.

Recently, the legal digital music sellers have actually produced a service worthy of interest. I use Itunes. Why? The interface. Apple just makes things that are easy and fun to use. But the selection at the music store sucks. Despite the limited availability of stuff to download I still find music that interests me. How? The shared music feature. People on a local area network can share the contents of their Itunes libraries with each other. This is exactly what Napster was, access to music other people burned of their purchsed cds. Smart move Itunes. Living in college dorms I learn of groups like Manu Chao and then find myself back in brick-and-mortar music stores, back on Amazon looking for more information and buying cds again. I've spent more in the last two months on music than I have in the last two years. All thanks to Itunes, thanks to the sweet interface and the reasonable allowance of music sharing.

For those of you who follow this log on a regular basis, I'd like to tie this explanation to two earlier discussions, Do You Live the Dijalog Lifestyle? and Grey Tuesday. The problem is one of information access, something with which those of us living the digital media lifestyle are intimately familiar. The big five labels of the RIAA have established channels for disseminating information via hype and know what's going to happen when they rev up their marketing machines. This creates a controlled situation in which they can make their money. They're slow and unwilling to recognize and take advantage of new mediums for the dissemination of information (which file sharing really is, it's not primarily about dissemination of product) because they lose control. They have a harder time hedging their bets that new talent will sell. Hence, the ridiculous response to DJ Dangermouse's Grey Album. If they were to take the money and run, they would be admitting that money could be made without the need for the bloated production, development and marketing budgets that allow artists to make $1 per cd that costs the consumer $18.

It's just a sad, sad state of affairs when Apple knows the future of the music industry better than the RIAA and builds a compelling, revenue generating product. At least the RIAA can be dragged kicking and screaming into the digital music world. Now if they would just stop the completely pointless exercise of suing people for helping them generate profit.

Grey Tuesday

An update on the Grey Album from DJ Danger Mouse (via boingboing)

Seem's I'm not the only one in favor of the addition of compulsory licensing for sampling to Title 17 of the U.S. Code.

Grey Tuesday, (press release here) scheduled for the 24th of February will be a 24 hour flood of sites that will mirror (that is make available for download) DJ Dangermouse's critically acclaimed marriage of Jay-Z's Black Album and the Beatle's White Album.

You really should check the album out, it's pretty amazing.

Random fun/cool shit

Alright, alright, alright, hey ladies, what's happenin'

Here comes the good stuff.

If you're not already, you should be checkin' out the Gothamist blog on a regular basis. Three recent posts.

• Dave Chappelle is way cool (from gothamist) Dave Chapelle is probably my favorite comedian. Unfortunately, living in the dorms means no cable! So I can't watch his show on comedy central. I'm just gonna have to get the dvd, <hint>maybe even for my upcoming birthday.</hint>
• Let's all hope the Chinatown buses don't go away (from Gothamist) Apparently they're no longer flying under the radar (and I mean that literally, less than 3.5 hours to New York!).
• DJ Danger Mouse: The Gray Album (from Gothamist) Especially check out the wired article. I'm checking this out today, I expect big, big things. This is the kind of cool shit that we should be able to look forward to from the current artistic scene and its wonderful new tools (heheh, tools). <rant>Instead we have major record labels subverting the copyright protection to try and control artistic output. A copyright owner should be paid whenever someone samples their work, but they should NOT be able to stop that sample. They shouldn't be able to say no. That's not what copyright is for. Copyright is supposed to encourage artists, both the originator and the sampler, to do their things because they know they will be able to make a living off of it. The only way you should be able to control the use of your music is by not making it public, never performing it. Do you see now what copyright is intended to do? To make it safe to make your music public? To make it so you don't have to jealously keep it under lock and key? Dumbasses want to be able to predict every big seller so that they can make sure they're gettin' their millions right from the start. This is why we get huge labels putting out schlock, cryin' over the cost to hype the damn thing, stiffin' the artists and tryin' to shove the digital music genie back in the bottle. Their own hype machine they can control. They know how to get 12-18 year olds to go buy a cd. They just haven't figured out how to take advantage of the file-swapping/remix-makin'/word-on-the-street hype machine yet. There's no reason they can't. I am unable to fathom their resistance to the new distribution/creation medium. It's not any different, its still all about what's cool and what's good. It's the same kids, just new toys. Get with the freakin' program here.</rant>

More freaky shit to come.