I actually like this. Go figure.

Paola Jean – “Featherlight” Director: David Wong from David Wong on Vimeo.

So my dude/cousin, David Wong aka Moe Fabulous aka Dj Rare Form just twittered about the above video. Oh yeah, he also directed the video. So check your local listings and make sure you tune in and put one down for the buhbOmp extended fam.

Paola Jean’s Featherlight video will be premiering on VH-1 Soul Monday 5/18 and on BETJ Soul Sessions.

This is Pelican, they are from Chicago and while they may not sing and dance, they play the kind of music that scares children, women and well, just about everybody else. How can you not love that?

and

and another thing…

I am very glad that I never have to worry about getting enough of my daily dose of lil wayne!

This past weekend I wrecked my first rental car! And I did it with no insurance! Top that, loser!

and because I never lie, (and I know you wanna know) lil tiger played strong safety for the Suwannee Bulldogs in ’68, here’s our team picture:

Lil Tiger(66), Empandamn(20), JD(60), Elz(84), Cashless(22) and me, HR(25)

We eventually lost in the championship game, 17-14, I missed the field goal cause I was looking up the dress of this Hamilton County cheerleader … 

Damn you, Hamilton County!

You’re Welcome.

I first heard this remake while youtubing one of my favorite local emcees, Kay of The Foundation. Earlier today, Nicolay dropped a high quality version (320kpbs for all the bitrate nerds) of the song. I’ve reposted it here for you all to enjoy.

From Nicolay Music.

In July of 2006, I was approached by people representing world renowned jazz keyboardist Bob James. They were working on putting together a project, to be called ‘Sampling Bob James: The Nautilus Project’, on which several DJ’s and producers would present their take on one of the most sampled tracks in hip-hop history, ‘Nautilus’, from Bob James’ 1974 album ‘One’. To my delight, I was invited to be one of the contributors, but instead of sampling the original, I chose to ‘cover’ it and re-create the track from scratch.

They really liked my version of ‘Nautilus’, but the project has remained unreleased. My version did end up online, by way of a viral video. Ever since, people have been asking me for a high quality version, so… here it is! Enjoy, and please… spread the word. You are more than welcome to share the link or the file itself.

Thank you for listening,

Nicolay

Download here.

BONUS: Nicolay – Nautilus with Kay of the Foundation on the intro…

Malice Video Blog 1 from Malice of the Clipse on Vimeo.

Pyrex – $3.99
Arm and Hammer – $0.75
An FBI Agent’s face when you start making Waflles – Priceless.

We’re still debating whether or not we should start printing up “Free Clipse” T-shirts…you know just in case the indictment comes down.

Just saw this on a tweet from Arthur magazine, and it’s too amazingly beautiful for me not to post it here. Nina Simone performing “Four Women” and “Backlash Blues” live at the Harlem Festival in New York’s Central Park in 1969:

You know what, I’m just gonna go ahead and post all five parts. Here’s the rest:

“Be My Husband”

“Ain’t got no – I got life” / “I loves you Porgy”

“To be young, gifted and black” / “Revolution”

“Are you ready?”

New Maxwell. ’Bout damn time. (Shouts to Tee Double for posting this on the Crowd Control board and bringing it to my attention).

I was doing some catching up on the Strut recently and found this amazing archive of Soul!, a PBS music and interview show in New York from the late ’60s and early ’70s:

This entertainment-variety-talk show was not only a vehicle to promote African-American artistry, community and culture, but also a platform for political expression and the fight for social justice. It showcased classic live musical performances from funk, soul, jazz, and world musicians, and had in-depth, extraordinary interviews with political, sports, literary figures and more. It was the first program on WNET to be recorded with the then-new technology of videotape, and most of the shows were recorded in real-time—not live, but unedited.

Soul ran from 1968 to 1973.

This is a goldmine of incredible performance footage and musical history. You can spend days watching this stuff. It’s an absolute treasure.

The shows include performances by the Nite-Liters, Earth, Wind and Fire, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Ashford and Simpson, Max Roach, and much more.

The ever-knowledgeable Oliver Wang provides some additional context:

The history of the show – and its host – is really, really fascinating. Not only are the performances just incredible but so were the interviews considering the time and place they were happening. Haizlip was an openly gay Black intellectual and Wald managed to find the episode where he’s interviewing Louis Farrakhan – half the audience seemed to be from the NOI – and Haizlip asks him where gays fit into the Nation’s overall mission and membership. It was a fascinating moment, to say the least, especially circa 1970.

I have been watching and re-watching the Latin Soul episode from November 15, 1972 hosted by Felipe Luciano and featuring performances by Tito Puente, Willie Colón and their respective bands. You can watch the full episode below, or for better navigation, you can go to NY’s THIRTEEN PBS site, and follow along with the chapter index they have below the video.

I get chills listening to a young Héctor Lavoe singing “Aguanile” with Willie Colón y Su Orquesta. It’s breathtaking. (That performance begins at the 35:16 mark, or chapter 10, if you go to the navigation on the THIRTEEN site).

Watch the whole episode, tho. Luciano breaks down the history of the New York latin music scene and paints a particularly vivid and colorful portrait of New York in that era.

(If you don’t see the video below, there might be a Flash compatibility issue or some other technical glitch with the embed. Just go to the THIRTEEN site. You can watch it from there.)

The whole archive is like this. It will melt your face. Please check it out.

Daggering classic. It gets good at ~1:04.

Via App.com

Jamaica’s latest dance craze called “daggerin” may be responsible for hospitals treating a flood of young men with broken penises.

The subject of many recent songs in dance halls across the country, daggerin is sexual in nature and involves a man and a woman gyrating suggestively and aggressively in crotch-locked positions.

With the number of broken-penis cases having almost tripled in a year after the rise of daggerin, it appears the “dry-sex” dance moves have evolved to bizarre sexual practices among Jamaican youth, according to The Sun.

Doctors at Kingston Public Hospital report injuries occur during fast, rough intercourse and can result in permanent damage when the man fractures his member as it hits the woman’s pubic bone.

Some believe the practice of daggerin is threatening to undermine the manhood of the island nation.

We here @ buhbOmp (which means me and only me) have a severe distaste for hip hop revisionists.

Let’s talk about a few:

1) Myth – It was Written was a classic.

Truth – Nas’ It Was Written was widely panned by heads when it dropped. Perhaps if it didn’t follow a fluke/perfect storm of an album it would have been better received.

2) Myth – Reasonable Doubt was a critical favorite.

Truth – Jay’s Reasonable Doubt was a ho-hum album in 1996. ’96 had plenty of dope lps. No one was jocking that record outside of Dame and Biggs. Oh it sounds good now, but nobody that was jansported down and hoodied up had much love for Mary J singing a hook when the rapper wasn’t Method Man.

3) Myth – Beats, Rhymes and Life is as good as Midnight Marauders and Low End Theory. Everybody loved it.

Truth – Beats, Rhymes, and Life by Tribe was underwhelming (i.e. wack) when it dropped. Although I think we could see the elements of fall-off-ittudeness in Midnight, everyone knew Tribe was done when BRL dropped. I won’t even speak on that god-awful contract fulfilling 5th album.

Who does this?

Normally it’s nostalgic, mad @ the South, former backpack wearers (now having moved onto messenger bags and briefcases) complaining about Flo Rida and Plies.

You can understand where they’re coming from. The hip hop rug got pulled out from under them prolly around the time the Lox and DMX were considered top NYC rappers. They’re in a new musical world and probably dealing with some new personal stuff. Their escape from reality, hip hop, no longer allows them to escape.

But what happens when when you get a bonafide hip hop legend lying to you?

D-Nice is definitely doing a public service with his “True Hip-Hop Stories”, but this latest piece featuring Special Ed … I dunno.

I’ll let you watch it first. And my comments follow.

True Hip-Hop Stories: Special Ed from D-Nice on Vimeo.

… cues up sad music ~2:30 …

Mr. “I got 70 some odd Honda Scooters” says, “it’s just like commercials now, not even records.”

Then has the audacity to say “… instead of actually making a meaningful record.”

Meaningful?

What has Ed ever done that was meaningful? (By Ed, I don’t mean Ed O.G. and the Bulldogs. No one can front on “Be a Father to Your Child”).

“I’m the Magnificent”?
“Think About It”?

We love you Ed, but you’re not Chuck D, Brother J, Grand Puba, or Rakim.

Let’s not forget that Spike Lee had to convince him to use his talents to say something more than he had been saying. (I’m not discounting “The Bush”, but bragging about how dangerous your neighborhood is isn’t meaningful the way he wants it to mean).

The real danger here is pretending that we weren’t trying to rock Ballys, Puma Clydes, Jordans then, and it’s only kids of today who spend god knows how much on Jordans, Air Yeezys and Gucci slippers.

We liked gold, cars, chicks, drugs, violence, bass, stupid dances of the week, and pretty much everything old heads hate about young heads.

Never forget where you came from.