The N. Period

We’re just giddy waiting for the release of Bill Cosby’s upcoming hip-hop album. What’s that you say? Everybody’s favorite poppa of the puddin’ pop is gonna drop some verses? Well, not exactly. While Cosby has said that he will not be rapping on the project— perhaps some spoken word-type stuff will be going on — he has divulged that the unifying theme of the album is aimed to counter the misogyny and negativity that are so prevalent in today’s popular rap.

I just heard Jason Kidd’s 1994 attempt at rapping — a sad song called “What the Kidd Didd” that features Digital Underground’s Money B. It can be said with no hesitation that Kidd and B. have recorded one of the sorriest songs in the world’s history. I have done my best to transcribe the lyrics here, but there were a few nonsensical parts that I could not comprehend. Jason Kidd, if you read this, please leave a comment and fill in the gaps. Enjoy!

The rapper Jay-Z has teamed up with fellow African-American enterpeneur Steve Stoute to launch Translation Advertising in New York City. The company’s aim is to create advertising that caters to multi-cultural consumers without alienating them. Given his popularity, Jay-Z may very well be onto a new trend in advertising: marketing intelligently to groups who have previously been either misunderstood or ignored altogether.

Bay Area producer AmpLive has a remix album of Radiohead’s In Rainbows that’s recently became available. Includes tracks with verses from excellent Cali rappers Too $hort, MC Zumbi of Zion I, Chali2na of Jurassic 5, and Del the Funky Homo Sapien.

Saw these this morning on the Illseed Blog —>> THE BARACK OBAMA AIR FORCE 1 [via Illseed Blog]…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUfyu-RFWYs&rel=1]

Also available hi-res here.

This amazing video is the coolest use I’ve seen yet of the trend of light graffiti that has been in vogue over the past year or so.  The creators of this great video have published an amazing instructable of how they did it here, which they parlayed into a $15,000 laser engraver in a contest from the folks over at Instructables.…

photo by Bryan Daniels - Express Yourself Imaging

Long-time Dallas DJ Fran Erck, who spun as DJ Frantic and was one-half of the Clever Monkeys collective, has passed away in an auto accident over the weekend. This guy was a tremendous talent and he will be sorely missed by the community. Condolences to his family. Here is a link to the NBC 5 story. Following…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fq8a7L0WvA]

Full tour schedule after the jump. 

Caught these guys at the House of Blues Dallas Saturday night and I must say that they were amazing.  They played an eight-turntable set and each of them had a foot pedal for sampling.  And they played nothing but original 45s.  All of their activities were recorded with cameras…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSS_DY_z-Dc]

Snoop Dogg has created perhaps the finest music video of all time.  If there was ever any doubt that Snoop was a pimp, this gem will alleviate all doubt.  As a matter of fact, this video should be used as visual aid to illustrate the definition of the word should anyone ever wonder what a pimp is. I cannot believe that this video was made…

Pimp C, one-half of the Houston-area rap duo UGK, was found dead at his hotel room this morning in West Hollywood. LA County Fire responded to a 911 call from the rapper’s sixth floor room at the swanky Mondrian Hotel on the vaunted Sunset Strip. No cause of death has been determined at the time of this writing.

The performer, whose real name is Chad Butler, has been a staple in the “Dirty South” genre of rap since his…