Saturday, April 26, 2008

Sean Bell 0, NYPD-too many to f***kin count

By Jamile Karout

Seventeen months to the day since the November 25, 2006 shooting of Sean Bell, a queens judge found three undercover detectives involved not guilty on all charges today (April 24).



Detectives Michael Oliver and Gescard Isnora who faced the most charges, were both acquitted on first and second degree manslaughter, which carries a possible sentence of 25 years in prison.



They were also acquitted of first and second degree felony assault, and reckless endangerment. Detective Marc Cooper was also acquitted on the two counts of reckless endangerment he was charged with.



"The Hip-Hop Summit Action Network expressed today its profound dismay in the wake of the not guilty verdicts for the New York City police officers who were involved in the killing of Sean Bell," HSAN President and CEO Dr. Benjamin Chavis told AllHipHop.com. "Hip-Hop is an inclusive cultural phenomenon that represents the highest aspirations of all youth of the human family. The injustice that is so evident in the case of Sean Bell reminds us of the old America at a time when millions of young people are raising their voices and votes for a new America. Police brutality is not a new phenomenon, but unfortunately, the system of justice, particularly in New York City, appears to be incapable of rendering equal justice without the taint of racial bias and prejudice."



The verdict came in just after 9:00 am, after nearly two weeks of deliberation.



The detectives opted out of a trial by jury and instead the seven weeks of testimony was heard by State Supreme Court Justice Arthur J Cooperman.



"This case was not about justice. This case was about the police officers having the right to act above the law… Justice was not here today. This court is obviously bankrupt of justice when it comes to people of color," added Leroy Gadsden of the NAACP.



According to Judge Cooperman, he had a hard time finding the testimony of the victims credible. "The people have not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that each defendant was not justified" in shooting the victims, Cooperman said.



"What happened in that case is a f***ing travesty," outspoken Atlanta rapper Killer Mike told AllHipHop.com. "What is the police trying to force the underclass to do? The police maintain jobs when they have something to police. By agitating the people you just create a bigger need for police. So instead of the police protecting and serving the community, the community becomes a commodity for the police force."



Steele of pioneering Hip-Hop duo Smif-N-Wessun expressed his anger with the verdict, as well as the police.



"There’s a war against us waged by the so-called powers that be and their first infantry are these murderous pigs they use to keep us in place by harassment and murder," Steele said. "We must stand together and defend ourselves and be smart. We are all under surveillance. It’s time to stand up."



Sean Bell, 23, was killed in the early morning hours of November 25, 2006 after leaving Kalua, a Queens strip club where he'd just wrapped up his bachelor party.



An NYPD undercover investigation unit looking to make arrests in their prostitution case witnessed an argument between one of Bells friends and another man.



Detective Isnora told the grand jury that he believed that Bells friend Joseph Guzman was going to get a gun out of Bells car.



That's when he followed the men and called for back up. Bell, along with his two friends Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield got into his Nissan Altima.



Then with Bell behind the wheel, officers approached the car and drew their weapons without identifying themselves as police, according to the testimony of Guzman and Benefield.



Detective Oliver was the only one who reloaded his 9mm semi automatic weapon firing 31 shots, while Detective Isnora let off 11 shots, and Detective Cooper fired 4.



No gun was found in Bells car. Dr. Chavis urged the Hip-Hop community to remain calm and channel any anger into positive, constructive energy to bring forth change.



"The anger and disgust that the Hip-Hop community certainly feels today should not be permitted to develop into anything negative, as a response," Dr. Chavis noted. "Sean Bell's death will not be in vain, to the extent to which millions of youth work even harder to demand equal justice, and to fundamentally change the current system of injustice."

Portishead in Los Angeles

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDzJQvgQAhA

Thursday, April 24, 2008

pRODIGY TAKeS IT bACK TO THE sTREETS

Prodigy's 2007 album Return of the Mac was a leftfield triumph, the work of a rapper everyone had counted out reconnecting with everything that was great about him in the first place. As half of the bloody-minded Queensbridge duo Mobb Deep, Prodigy had come off a losing streak at least a half-decade long. He'd been dissed by Jay-Z, signed to G-Unit and released a flop of an attempted comeback, and saw crossover attempt after crossover attempt go nowhere. But with Return of the Mac, he and producer Alchemist dove into their stashes of 1970s blaxploitation-flick soundtracks and came up with a stark and grimy revivalist movie, a cinematic fever-dream memory of the old, gritty New York. In a bad year for rap, it was a cause for celebration.

It'd be great to say that Return of the Mac triggered a creative revitalization in Prodigy, but the past year has seen the man's life devolve into chaos, which positively bleeds through H.N.I.C. Pt. 2. Return of the Mac was originally intended as a mixtape teaser for H.N.I.C. Pt. 2, P's long-awaited sequel to his 2000 solo debut. By the time he got around to recording that sequel, though, Prodigy was staring down a three-and-a-half year prison sentence for gun possession, a term he's since started. Before Prodigy began serving his time, though, he reportedly recorded scratchy YouTube videos for every song on the album, signed a record deal with the translation-tech startup Voxonic, and started writing cryptically self-aggrandizing and weirdly addictive all-caps blog entries. (From his list of trends that he started: "#5 HOW I FOLD MY BANDANA," "#9 SAMPLING MUSIC FROM THE MOVIE SCARFACE,,,,,NOBODY DID IT BEFORE ME..NOT THE MUSIC").

H.N.I.C. Pt. 2 isn't like Beanie Sigel's The B.Coming, another album made by a rapper about to start a prison term. The B.Coming was a bitter lament, a recording of someone taking stock of his life and dwelling on his mistakes. By contrast, H.N.I.C. Pt. 2 finds Prodigy tangled in confusion, sounding like he's rapping through a haze of self-prescribed medication. As a rapper, P's never sounded more detached. He mutters out of the side of his mouth, barely noticing the beat. Nearly half the time, his words don't even come close to rhyming, and we get a lot of couplets like this: "Don't be mad at me, be mad at yourself/ For being so garbage you need to be killed." Most of his lyrics are either violent threats or conspiracy theories, but the threats have lost the vivid specificity of the vintage Infamous-era Mobb days and the theories usually straight-up don't make sense: "They lit the Pentagon on fire/ That's lighting a pentagram on fire." He contradicts himself all the time, saying on the first song that money and jewelry don't matter and then threatening to break your cheekbone with his platinum rings one track later. But there's still something absolutely magnetic about that voice: a weathered, craggy under-the-breath rasp. And there's something deeply poignant in the way he uses it on this album. It's like the tumult of his life has him so distracted and beat down that his words naturally come out all punch-drunk and half-hearted. In that way, H.N.I.C. Pt. 2 makes for a much more complete and visceral portrait of an incarcerated man than the most precise and technically sound record could possibly manage.

Musically, H.N.I.C. Pt. 2 grants P's travails an epic dignity. Alchemist is on board again; he and Brooklyn's Sid Roams (two dudes, weirdly) produce the bulk of the album. But instead of the washed-out soul-samples of Return of the Mac, Alchemist and Sid Roams favor spare, eerie drums and streaky, evocative John Carpenter synths, almost giving a restrained East Coast boom-bap answer to the gothic horror-movie bounce of DJ Paul and Juicy J. Sometimes they distress Prodigy's voice, running it through filters so he sounds like he's rapping over a bad phone connection. And we get a few cameos from Mobb associates like the competently heated Big Noyd and the terrifyingly guttural RBX clone Big Twins (one dude, weirdly). Prodigy sounds absolutely at home in all this, his haunted husk sinking easily into these tracks and playing off his guests with grim authority. The Prodigy of H.N.I.C Pt. 2 isn't depressed; he's as defiant and strange as always. He'll be OK.

-Tom Breihan, April 24, 2008

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/prodigyreturnofthemac

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Pt. 4 Porn Star Sasha Grey on Tyra Banks Show

Sasha Grey on eating sperm

This is why the Roots Are cool!!!!

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid452319916/bctid1279703123

Why i like Crooked I

Look the drink helped me thru many nights of childhood and then the man became the myth over the last year. He just said "sometimes i freestyle and i call it the no look." Look labels, no reason to sign this cat, cause he will make money independently and smack the labels back. BOOM

Monday, April 14, 2008

Thursday, April 10, 2008

A little bit of SALT

I saw my girl Leigh spinning at a wonderful spot called Salt in LES. Great atmosphere, great space and great location. Unfortunately they are closing. According to the owner, they were losing money and she has another spot in SOHO. Shout out to the beautiful owner who showed everyone a good time. RIP Salt.

PS Thank the dj for playing the Outcasts, Johnny Cash, Nenah Cherry and Terrance Trent D'arby all in the same night.

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Trent Reznor - Peter Murphy - Tv On The Radio

This is an amazing collaboration. Stand up people and welcome to the revolution of sound.

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Stay on the grind

There is never a break in the daily grind of a dj. I am still in the studio constantly and working on new mixtapes, cds, and more. This year the dream becomes reality. I am meeting with other djs in order to start the moving party of gypsy punks. Liberty Kids cd will be on its way by the fall. This weekend we finished up the nights with toasted beer, women dancing and djing and the Rub. Good nights and better days. Lets ride into the blissful night of NYC.

We Have found MTV

Pitchfork.tv Takes a Stab at Music Videos
By Eliot Van Buskirk Email 04.05.08 | 12:00 AM
Pitchfork.tv serves up compelling content in a nifty interface, like A Place To Bury Strangers' Oliver Ackermann giving a tour of his studio-workshop-performance venue.

Sensing a gap between MTV's cheesy reality shows and YouTube's labyrinth of pixelized musical treasures, music tastemaker Pitchfork Media plans to launch a video section Monday that will showcase live performances and other original content.

The video selections won't include the news and reviews that have made Pitchfork so widely read. Rather than meting out ratings, Pitchfork.tv will serve up band interviews, music videos and even feature-length films at higher quality than is standard online.

"There are a lot of people doing really cool stuff with music and video on the web, but in terms of clean, crisp audio and video recordings, there's really nothing out there," said Ryan Schreiber, Pitchfork's founder and editor-in-chief. "[We're] really documenting the music that we like and that we feel is vital."

With more than 60 sessions in the can, Pitchfork.tv will launch with original sessions from Man Man, Liars, A Place to Bury Stangers, The Thermals, Jay Reatard and others. Utilizing a mobile 16-track Pro Tools setup and at least three high-end cameras, the operation is shaping up to be the Peel Sessions of online video.

"Obviously, people are ready for something crisper and better-looking," said Schreiber. "[YouTube] is like sub-VHS quality."

Wired.com got a sneak peek at the Pitchfork.tv site. We watched many videos, and the audio and video quality was fantastic across the board, with an editing style that adapted to the subject matter (faster cuts for faster riffs). The full multitrack recording setup Pitchfork.tv uses makes a real difference, and the benefits of careful editing are manifold. Any fan of a band featured in one of the sessions will be compelled to watch.

Aside from its original basement and rooftop sessions, Pitchfork.tv will feature third-party productions, including more than 300 music videos and a different feature-length documentary each week. Everything is free.

Since its launch in 1995, Pitchfork has become trusted as the final (or at least first) word on the latest sounds, although the site has faced criticism for reviews some call snarky or elitist.

"How on earth they became a gold standard will forever be a mystery to me," e-mailed Conan Neutron, a guitarist for Replicator who described the site's reviews as "poorly researched, disgustingly glib and poorly written."

Even the site's detractors would admit that Pitchfork excels at keeping noteworthy music on its readers' radar. The site's influence is profound, extending from oft-quoted reviews to the increasingly popular Pitchfork Music Festival held each summer in Chicago.

Judging from our sneak preview, Pitchfork.tv builds on all that experience. Rather than criticizing bands, the site attempts to capture them at their finest. To do so, Pitchfork acquired Juan's Basement, a live music show that previously appeared -- somewhat bizarrely -- on the upscale community-television network Plum TV. Juan Pieczanski now records live sessions for Pitchfork.tv in the same Brooklyn basement he used as a studio, while his sound guy handles audio for rooftop video segments called Don't Look Down.

The Pitchfork.tv crew shoots two to four sessions per week, with a small staff of producers, video editors and New York University students handling production. The small video team plans to post at least one original video per day, including clips that can be embedded on other sites or downloaded to iPods, iPhones or any other portable device that plays M4V files (H.264 video with AAC audio). Some sessions will come with an MP3.

Quality and portability aside, this is still not your older brother's video network. Although Schreiber says he respects original MTV host and current Sirius Satellite Radio jock Martha Quinn, Pitchfork.tv will forgo VJs entirely.

"Frankly, we don't really need them," he said. "The closest thing you're going to get to a host is when we do one-on-one interviews [between Pitchfork writers and] artists."