Big space with white walls on 16th St. with a weird vibe because it was half live dance music/half performance art with a schedule that switched between one and the other rather than have performance art the first half, dancing the 2nd. So that meant that you would get into ravey dance zones with lasers for an hour only to get pulled back into some bleak reality where you have to suddenly get very quiet because something very serious/weird needs to be watched. I shouldn’t even knock the performance art stuff really, it isn’t my thing, but it wasn’t bad by any means, but the presentation was fucked up.

Shady’s rapping is a welcome change of pace (literally, if you make it about halfway through the tape) from the recent solo Squadda offerings available. Meanwhile Squadda’s production is top notch as usual, but he really ups the ante with the most massive dubby bass I’ve heard from an American musician in a longtime. I had to crank down the EQ when I played this on my stereo to avoid blowing out the speakers.

What really stands out here is the similar sort of promise that dubstep offered before everyone in the U.K. got bored and started doing “funky” — creating emotionally deep music coming from a post-rave experience. Squadda’s production features all sorts of odes and nods to rave music, like the pitch-shifted, looped vocals, the stabby synth riffs, and the general feel of music that is very much fueled by ecstasy (which also had a huge impact on shoegazer, another sort of critical aesthetic point of reference). It’s hardly surprising you would see these sorts of shared cultural experience come out of Bay Area rap; when it seemed like hyphy might break out into the mainstream one of the strategies pursued was to change songs about thizzing to songs about drinking beer, or whatever. It all ends up reaffirming that line by Jean Baudrillard in America about how anything that Europeans are capable of imagining is going to inevitably show up in California.

So just set aside, for the moment, the rapping (over at Space Age Hustle there is contemplation of putting Jay Electronica on top of this, sounds like a great idea to me), and concentrate on that beat. Digital dub vibes aplenty. Appreciated. Also the chain in the video with the Boo ghost from Super Mario.

I needed to hear this

It’s been awhile since I’ve gone to the Tormenta Tropical night at Elbo Room, but this upcoming one promises to be great. El Hijo De La Cumbia is one of the greats!

This, of course, is another piece of evidence that Lil’ B is transforming internet success into real success, and it is pretty much the only working model in the music business game right now. Of course, we’re still in the process of figuring out what all that entails, but this is a great sign for people that are just interested in getting their music out there, and aren’t as interested in the usual path to success of touring relentlessly, releasing an album to critical acclaim and getting “noticed”, and then signing some terrible contract that leads to a multitude of problems. Instead, what we’re seeing here is that this old music industry model actually stunts growth, and generally makes it difficult to transform a music consumer into a diehard fan. Which is not to say that Lil’ B’s success is going to reinvent the music industry, he is still in the early phases of getting noticed by a wider audience, so it is too early to say what will happen from here, and also old habits die hard. However we can expect that this will be a path pointing the way to other young ambitious people trying to make a name for themselves with their music.

There is also a lot to think about how success for Lil’ B would change all sorts of ideas we have about rap, but I’m still trying to collect my thoughts on that one, so it will have to wait for another blog post.

Body Swap – Street Beverage Demo

There will be another show in September, also at the Knockout most likely. More details as they come.

Via Nation of Thizzlam

Definitely click the link as Willy has some sharp observations about how this song succeeds in borrowing Southern rap elements and combining it with the local Bay Area aesthetic. As he says the great thing about the Bay Area is how its artists don’t take themselves too seriously, and this track is a great example of that.