Kanye Has Blood on the Leaves TNGHT

I'm still at a bit of a loss trying to wrap my mind around Yeezus. Maybe I'm missing the whole artistry of it because I love Daft Punk and I love me some Hudson Mohawke and they both heavily contributed to the album's sound. After a couple laps, I'm still struggling to pick a favorite and I'm beginning to come to terms with the fact that I'm not a big fan of the abrasive tone of the album. It's clearly written with anger as a driving force, which isn't necessarily a bad thing because emotion can be a driving force behind the creation great music. Kanye sort of backed that up that angry assertion today by posting an American Psycho inspired Yeezus promo on his website today.

So if had to pick a favorite, it would be the Blood on the Leaves, which features Tony Williams and samples Nina Simone's Strange Fruit and TNGHT's R U Ready? Click below for the old school sample..

Whatever happened to the joyful 808 sound and the uplifting music? Maybe the album will grow on me, but for the time being, I'm not as excited as the general populace...#Yeezus

Kanye West feat Tony Williams - Blood on the Leaves (prod by Kanye West, TNGHT & Mike Dean)

"Oh, Luxury, Chidi-Ching-Ching Could Buy Anything"

Now that Kendrick Lamar has asserted himself as the next big, influential Hip Hop artist, it might be time to give his TDE (Top Dawg Ent) labelmate some much deserved attention. ScHoolboy Q is a well-known name around Hip Hop circles, but beyond those circles not a ton of people realize he's released two albums already. His most recent album Habits & Contradictions received really favorable reviews from Pitchfork (8.4/10), Billboard (3.5/5) and XXL (4/5). You might have even heard his track with A$AP Rocky, Hands on the Wheel that sampled Cudi's Pursuit of Happiness?

Even if you haven't the good news is his upcoming album, Oxymoron is scheduled to drop in 2013. Last weekend he debuted his new single, Collard Greens at Bonaroo last weekend...

Pretty cool how he infused a little reggae twist to the live version. At the very least the steady knock of the THC beat with Kendrick's verse should pique your interest enough to nod your head to this one...#BlackHippy

Schoolboy Q feat Kendrick Lamar - Collard Greens (prod by THC)

"You're a Stay At Home Dad and That's Not Gay"

Man what a perfect track to post on Father's Day. Seattle's own Macklemore & Ryan Lewis let us have a freebie today called Stay at Home Dad that does a great job of highlighting a demographic of fathers that generally gets mocked and overlooked. The track was previously released as a bonus track on their 2010 The vs Redux EP, but since it's been a few years they generously gave it away today.

There are too many quoteables to count, but below are a few of my favorites from the track:

"You make the cheese Ill bring the guac"
"Shit is 4 o'clock, time for Oprah (Oprah, The gospel of the Lord, for dads who stay at home"
"Now keep on bringing the green baby, and Ill keep on tossin' salad"

Big fan of the open questioning of gender roles and giving credit when credit is due to an often thankless responsibility. Shout out to all the dads out there, raise a glass for all the say at home dads...#HappyFathersDay

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis - Stay At Home Dad

Avicii is About to Wake Up the Music Industry

I know, I know Yeezus leaked last night so you're probably expecting me to have picked out a favorite to post today. I'm leaning toward Blood on the Leaves, but On Sight goes pretty hard. Stay tune for tomorrow, but for today, in light of Kim and Kanye's baby being delivered five weeks before it's due date the day after his album leaked, the internet has jokes. Shout out to P&P for being Johnny on the spot and bringing to light gems like the one below...

Kanye's baby didn't want to get outshined by the Yeezus leak. The baby clearly has his father's sensibility.
— Matt Komar (@KomarKomar) June 15, 2013

Kimye aside, I'm actually a lot more excited about the radio edit of Avicii's long awaited lead single to his upcoming yet to be titled album. For those who weren't at UMF (Ultra Music Festival) and missed my post on Hey Brother, Hey Sister, Tim is making an attempt to combine electronic music and country. While a whole lot of hardcore electronic fans quickly ran to social networks to bash him for his trail blazing efforts, I thought the move was brilliant. Personally, I've never been a fan of the country sound because of it's lack of flair. Sure there are a ton of different types of country songs that have a wide range of styles and tempos, but the genre has always hovered around the same sound and style for decades. It's about time someone like Avicii tried to take the acoustic/banjo with bluegrass elements out of country and apply it to a more dynamic genre of music. According to an anonymous comment on the last Avicii post I had, the new sub-genre is called "Newgrass." Can't confirm whether that's true, but with the soothing vocals of Aloe Blacc and the genius of Avicii, something new is coming to life in the form of Wake Me Up and I really like it...#WakeMeUp

Avicii feat Aloe Blac - Wake Me Up (Radio Edit)

Videos of the Week June 14th

Whoever thought up the idea to create a cruise experience based on electronic music deserves an award. There's a slim chance I'll attend, but Holy Ship! is a forward thinking idea that I hope more and more cruise companies adopt especially with all the poop cruises and such of late. In other news, Drake evidently loves FIFA and plays a lot of it. Oh, and Skylar Grey released another relatively dark video that involves some tent snuggling and playing the piano in the woods...cool right? To round out the top 5, Wiz and Alicia chipped in new videos for recent singles. Solid week overall for music related visuals...
Skylar Grey - Wear Me Out (Video)

Wiz Khalifa - Paperbond (Video)

Holy Ship! Promo Video (EDM Cruise)

Drake Introduces FIFA 14 at E3

Alicia Keys - Tears Always Win (Video)

"My Chevy Hop Scotchin' If You Ask Me"

Unbeknownst to me, there has been a production competition co-hosted by McDonalds and Vibe called "The Big Mix" taking place over the past few weeks. The best decision they made surrounding the competition was to let Big K.R.I.T. select the finalists. Now that K.R.I.T. has unquestionably taken over the reigns as the most influential producer of southern Hip Hop music, his opinion on what's "hot" should be taken with more than a grain of salt...matter of fact it should probably be taken with an entire salt lick.

Long story short, the contest started with ten contestants and those ten contestants were eventually whittled down to five finalists. Out of of those finalists, Foreign Allegiance was eventually crowned the champ and they earned a chance to work with K.R.I.T. on a new track. Check the video below for a quick behind the scenes look of What You Know About It...
Straight up, the track is bangin'. Given, I'm a heavy lean toward the sound of southern Hip Hop (pun intended), but between the keyboard lead in and the sampled screwed hook, K.R.I.T. was given a more than sufficient platform to shine on. Big ups to Mc D's and Vibe for bringing this thing together...#TheBigMix

Big K.R.I.T. - What You Know About It (prod by Foreign Allegiance)

Tiësto & Dyro Make Paradise Together

With the amount of worthwhile electronic music that gets released on a daily and weekly basis, I'm trying to make a habit out of posting a new favorite EDM track every Wednesday. Partly because it's "Huuuump Daaaaayyy yeeaaaa! (love that) and folks in the working world sometimes need that extra something to help them down the homestretch of the week. What better choice than a fresh new Tiesto collabo with Dyro, which amounts to a crisp, harmonious dose of electronic rhythm. Newly minted visuals below...

There's a certain minimum level of quality that Tiesto always seems to surpass, which makes it difficult sometimes to critique his music. He's got Greg Maddux-like consistency with his music that won't necessarily dazzle, but it always gets the job done. Most people would be surprised to hear that he's 44 years old, especially because of how well he's managed to blend in with the new electronic music movement that is marked by artists that are almost half as old as him. Betcha didn't know that his Club Live Vol 3 album is coming out next week, did you?...#ClubLife

Tiësto & Dyro - Paradise