This is a video of Harry potter rapping a Blackalicious tune on Jimmy Fallon.
It’s called Alphabet Aerobics, and yes, it takes a snowballing speed run through the alphabet. There’s really not much else to explain. He kind of nails it. Enjoy.
hip-hop
Flying Lotus – Never Catch Me [heart stopping music video]
I’m seeing two children hop out of their caskets at a funeral and dance, running for the door. They’re grinning as they look back. I’m grinning as I watch. This is one of the most beautiful moments I’ve experienced in a while, and it’s the best music video I’ve seen in years.
My heart is full and I’m beaming. This is the definition of life affirming cinema. Flying Lotus (aka Steven Ellison) and director Hiro Murai have rendered the joy of life on a grand scale, as only those who have lost it may experience.
Kendrick Lamar – i [music video!!]
And so it begins. Kendrick Lamar consumed months of my listening life, two years ago. Now he’s about to drop his follow up to one of the greatest albums of the past decade, good kid, m.A.A.d. City. The first single is called i.
[This post has been updated to include the striking music video for i]
The intro music is apparently a preview of some Flying Lotus beats on the upcoming album!
After hearing his collaboration with Flying Lotus on Never Catch Me, I was primed for more material. It’s been two years since his last album released, but only one year since the CD left constant rotation in my car. I probably listened to that album more than any other released in the past 5 years, in any genre. It’s not just a hip-hop landmark; it’s a colossus of popular music in general. Suffice it to say that my expectations are flying high.
“We got a young brother that stands for something! We got a young brother that believes in all of us! Brother Kendrick Lamar. He’s not a rapper, he’s a writer!”
An announcer opens the song with these words, before the inimitable guitar line of “That Lady” by the Isley Brothers leaps into action. Kendrick comes in with another fresh vocal inflection and the tune is off and running. Bouncy, bright, funky, psychedelic, energetic: it’s a bold proclamation that the young master is back in top form. I dig it. The song obliterated my fear of a sophomore slump in exactly 4:20.
Don’t take my word for it. You should already be listening.
The upcoming album is “soon” and has yet to be titled, so that’s all the information I’ve got today!
Progress [mixtape]
I made this in springtime, as I was coming out of an anxious, fearful period of my life. It’s the sound of an airlock opening, of stepping outside for the first time in years. It’s my fucked up, weird nostalgia for the future, and it works. This is the sound of me beginning to feel OK again.
The future’s going to be alright. Things have changed. This is Progress.
Flying Lotus – Coronus, The Terminator
Just now, Flying Lotus dropped a second preview track for next month’s long anticipated album, You’re Dead! The song is titled Coronus, The Terminator, and you can listen right here:
Death Grips – Hacker // The internet can be pretty cool.
If you’re looking for a single tune to define how weird music is in 2012, you’ve come to the right place. This is easily my favorite track on Death Grips’ breakthrough album The Money Store. It’s called Hacker.
This frantic burst of nakedly violent energy feels like it’s on the verge of exploding from the get-go, yet impossibly doubles down on its momentum, throttling away like a madman in absolute command of his vehicle. The spliced-digital-ADD edit of Ghost in the Shell footage is a stroke of genius pairing, as far as I’m concerned. Work like this is what the youtube age is all about. It’s also a great example of how copyright laws are outdated.
While the album was loved and acclaimed by many of my friends, it was this track alone that completely enthralled me. It’s the kind of song that punches first time listeners in the face. I feel like a rocket every time I hear it.
Flying Lotus – Tiny Tortures (video featuring Elijah Woods)
This arrived today and it is beautiful. Echoing Akira (and Tetsuo) and some of the brilliant, creepy videos from Aphex Twin, it’s a dark, cinematic corkscrew in psychedelic miniature. There are few videos so evocative of their namesake, working as a perfect thematic foil to the song. Now watch, as Elijah Wood has a fucked up night.
Despite the fact that I haven’t done a full “album post” about Flying Lotus‘ latest opus, Until The Quiet Comes is easily one of my biggest repeat listens of the year. It’s the living, breathing incarnation of what I’d always kind of hoped his work was pointing towards. Its growth from 2010’s Cosmogramma is more organic and inevitable than the sudden leap that album made from its predecessor, breathrough lp Los Angeles; naturally, it’s less surprising how radically good this is. I feel like I took it for granted at first: “Of course this is good. Well there it goes in my car to stay in rotation for weeks.” Only a handful of albums have spent so much time as regular, near-daily listen this year, and if it weren’t for Kendrick Lamar’s new release, I could have, possibly, worn it out.
Thankfully this video came along today. Not only my favorite track, Tiny Tortures was due for some recognition. On an album crowded with standout moments between sublime guest vocals and dizzying synth work, its sparkling meditative cascade can be mistaken as a gentle interlude. It’s more like a brief exposure of Quiet‘s spiritual heartbeat. It reaches transcendence in the emotive dance of its guitar and bass (by second time MVP Thundercat) over a pulse hinting at great-aunt Alice Coltrane’s organ work on one of her masterpieces. If you haven’t listened to the album yet, here’s your chance to embrace one of the warmest electronic albums in years, a possible masterpiece of jazz and electronic music.
Optimistic Underground 