So this past week was pretty damn crazy when it came to big news stories in the music world. The biggest, to me, was the controversy over whether or not AraabMuzik beat-jacked Afta-1. A close second was the announcement of Busta Rhymes and Q-Tip’s joint mixtape followed by the Macklemore and Ryan Lewis hiatus announcement. How about that hilarious beef between Kanye West and Zappos, too? Ridiculous. Speaking of Yeezy, did you see his “Bound 2” video? Bleh. At least that clip of him watching David Blaine do magic was great.
Also, Kanye was pretty much overshadowed in the following days by Pharrell’s 24-hour “Happy” video and that amazing interactive video for Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone”. I’m not hating on Ye, either, because he did help fulfill a dream for Tyler, the Creator at the Odd Future Carnival this year. In related news, this NPR interview with Earl Sweatshirt about Doris (and other topics) was superb, so you should definitely check that out.
And here are the best single drops:
- Danny Brown & Mndsgn – “Sweeney Song”
- Wara From The NBHD – “’98 Rocafella”
- Evian Christ – “Salt Carousel”
- Raekwon – “A Rainy Day”
- ScHoolboy Q – “Man of the Year”
- Jamie xx – “Untitled”
- Step Brothers (Alchemist & Evidence) – “Step Masters”
- Prince – “Da Bourgeoisie”
- Ratking – “100”
- Lil Bibby – “Water”
There were a few nice streaming opportunities this week, too, including Scallops Hotel‘s (aka Milo) poplar grove EP, Jae R‘s (aka Jeremiah Jae) Yard Sale 2 compilation, and DJ Harrison’s Polytoned snippets. And as far as stuff we wrote about, you should check out David’s piece on his b-boy competition experience and our feature on five hip-hop acts you need to know for this month.