After introducing us to his new R&B group in back in October, No I.D. and his group Cocaine 80′s drop a couple dope tracks the past couple days, which many speculate are of an upcoming project… Deep down I’m a huge R&B head, and groups like this, along with the many other new R&B acts to come up in the past year or so (The Weeknd, Frank Ocean, etc.,) have really got me excited for the future of the genre…

Queen To Be:

Take My Keys:

The homies at Fuse just unearthed some rare footage of my favorite hip-hop artist of all time, Sir Christopher Wallace aka Biggie aka Notorious B.I.G. aka Bigga Tha Condom Filla. The scene is set at hip-hop pioneer “Uncle Ralph” McDaniels‘ 1996 birthday party, where the stage is filled with the crew, including a bald hype man by the name of Jay-Z.

To put it all in perspective for those of you in my age bracket, this footage was taking place at a time when Reasonable Doubt had yet to drop, the Bad Boy squad was runnin’ tings and Coogi sweaters were the threads to be in (well, they still are but even more so then). Oh and if you notice, Biggie wasn’t lying when he said, “and now we sip champagne when we thirstay”. Big ups to B.I.G.

The internet is a beautiful place, where else can you get a free project featuring dope raps from the dirty south and dope beats from France?

To Paris With Love is 8 tracks of Atlanta emcee Kal-L‘s smooth southern drawl over the elegant jazz-sample-heavy sounds of Parisian beatmaker Keor Meteor.

Available for free download and stream below. Also, both Kal and Keor have collaborated with BeScene’s own Art Vandelay, check those out here and here.

Skywlkr, best known as the bruiser brigade’s in house dj and Danny Brown’s touring dj, came out with a release of his latest instrumentals set. Posting many popularized instrumentals through Danny Brown rapping over them and many hidden in the bruiser’s vault, this is definitely worth the cop for you all to get your bars up. Available for download via soundcloud.

I was going to start this post by saying, “check out this unofficial video from Blu” – but then I remembered that NOTHING Blu drops is exactly “official”. THe track, “K E E P U S H I N N .”, was featured on one of Blu’s latest projects, No York!. THe video for the track is actually some white-out animation from an artist named Jake Fried and is part of his latest series of “moving paintings”. Check out some of his other pieces here.

…attention deficit got the kids playin hooky, lil rookies, for the lunch the public school serves slim jims and cookies, tryin to find loopholes, high glucose, corn syrup high fructose, bye putos..

Soundset ’12 performers Villa Rosa (Muja Messiah x Maria Isa) are joined for a slick guest verse by Dodi Phy to rap about what else, but the ills of our food system.

Make no mistake, food is the best medicine, and we’ve putting up with this foul ass medicine for way too long. Get your head out of the drive thru and cook something.

Video directed by Greg Grease. Catch Muja Messiah tonight at Honey with Audio Perm, Mike The Martyr and AG of DITC.

No figure quite represents the divide in American consciousness like Ronald Wilson Reagan.

Those who seek to bring the ugly truths of American history to the table or those that were directly affected by the consequences of Reaganomics, tend to view Ron in a not-so-positive light.

While those that continue to believe in the mythological version of our country’s history, declare Reagan as one of the greatest human beings to ever live.

You can make an educated guess as to what camp Killer Mike is in…  R.A.P Music (entirely produced by El-P) is out now and according to Mike its the finest work of his career, check out Mike’s recent interview with Pitchfork about the album as well.

Last week I posted a video by emcee/producer extraordinaire Oddisee from his new remix project Odd Renditions. Yesterday he dropped the four song EP complete with aforementioned Marvin Gaye remix, along with remixes of songs by Bon Iver, Metronomy and K-os. Check out the project and be sure to check out Oddisee’s “debut album” People Hear What They See on June 12th.

Being that we missed a couple days on the Meta May tip, here’s the catch up!

The first of these two tracks he dropped on monday, with a banger featuring local artist Tek, produced by Bobby Raps and Mr. French, by the name of “Cab Calloway”:

The next track is Meta’s best rendition of some good ol’ fashioned Jack-Music with his track “Kane & Lynch”, featuring Sti-Lo Reel produced by Dimitry Killstorm. So if your ridin’ round your hood looking for your next lick to hit, I suggest you keep this song in the deck.

As I traveled the country last year, scouring for undiscovered hip-hop talent, I ran into a reoccurring theme whenever I told someone that I was from the Twin Cities. They would tell me that all hip-hop music, from Minnesota, sounded the same; sample-heavy beats with depressing lyrics about girlfriend problems or heavy snowfall crampin’ their style. Well, I think we can shut up the critics with this one. Thanks to the completely sample-free production from The Sundance Kid, this new MaLLy project is unlike any others coming from our scene. Track number two, my second favorite on the tape, is a good example of that new sound:

Track #2 – Swallowing The Reign

The album also features guest vocals from K.Raydio (Current in-studio video below), Claire De Lune, Truth Be Told (Tribe and Big Cats!), and also includes a guest verse from Brother Ali. The cut with Truth is probably the most hyped on the record and worthy of a dance party (Get Cryphy, holla?):

Track #9 – Bounce ft. Truth Be Told

Following his usual theme of keen marketing prowess, MaLLy released the tape exclusively through Complex Magazine for stream and free download. But we all know its hard out here for aspiring musicians so if it is within your means, please head over to Fifth Element or Electric Fetus and cop that tape. I got mine today and was mad impressed by the artwork, it even came with a free poster that is finna make my wall extra purrty. Also make sure, if you haven’t already, to check out the video for the single, Shine.

P.S. MaLLy will be hosting this year’s Soundset Festival, along with Brother Ali. Cop your tickets today.