Thursday, June 17, 2010

long time... again

lol. LOOK. as it goes in my mind, i WANT to be able to post like... at the very least, weekly. but man... the road has been gettin me. on top of the fact that i do so many spots a week, the fact that they all require travel makes it that much more difficult.

however, this time i bear gifts!! at one of the tuesday night spots that i frequently play in DC, the sound man decided to hit record. only thing, he didn't account for the vocals, snare, toms, or cymbals. so there's synth. there's kick. there's spd-s. there's bass. it's very experimental. psuedo electronica. and it's FREE. download it suckas!

Electrosonnets Download

Monday, February 22, 2010

who is this dude?!?!

lol... his name is ebrahim. this guy is dope. not only a musician, but an amazing singer. if you listen to bobby caldwell's "open your eyes" and then listen to this dude... the resemblance is wild! can you say future collab?? lol. stay tuned.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

happy birthday james yancey...



Q: how do you truly grasp the depth of a man's legacy?

there are so many possible answers. many of them probably not right or wrong. i want to say that it's based on impact and influence. but that can only be true where awareness exists.

over the years that i have built and browsed my j dilla collection, many times i have come across songs that i had no clue he even produced. havoc of mobb deep expressed the same in one of his interviews. all of that to say that jay dee's music may or may not be something that people are aware of. however, his impact and influence on those who his art has reached... life changing to say the least.

james yancey is posthumously affecting more musicians, artists, and writers than most people can or will affect even with more life in front of them. to me, dilla is to production what mj was to music. granted, the awareness isn't the same. but if you were to consider the size of the footprint left behind in his respective field, i think the comparison would hold true. jay dee was special. he IS quintessential. he was one of the pioneers and innovators of hip hop production. even greater, there was so much soul and heart in his music that what was "hip hop" turned into "neo soul" or "r&b"... MUSIC. most any of his music could easily be approached by a singer, or a free verse poet, or a rapper... OR NOT. just put the instrumental on and ride. visit 1998 steroid boosters and listen to "sweet flute" or "no place to go". holla at vintage (vol. 2) and the cut "doo doo". or ANY of his albums/beat tapes, what have you, in their ENTIRETY. the music is infectiously soothing, invigorating, even inspirational.

so today is your birthday. parties have already come and gone in your honor. youtube boasts thousands of new comments on old videos. there are millions of tweets boasting #dilla as what will wind up being a trending topic over the course of the day. your legacy lives on. in the hands of dj's who admire your craft. in the movement and progressions of musicians that embrace your art. underneath the lyrics of so many who hear your creations and feel forced to write to something that feels so good. in the odd quantizations and slight shifts of shakers and kick drums of producers. you live on dilla. thank you for everything you have inspired in all of us musically and for teaching us to love our art enough to never stop making it, even when the conditions would dictate otherwise.

happy birthday james yancey...
humbly submitted.
-gr0ove




Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Friday, January 22, 2010

hope for hip hop...

THERE IS HOPE!!! it's not that i think hip hop is dead, but it sure is on life support and there are only a few artists who are contributing to its dwindling life. jay electronica would be one of those people. peep the vid for exhibit a. dope showing!



crash landing


today marks an important day for a dude i've been able to tour the world with. curt chambers has finally released his "crash landing" mixtape. go ahead and download that joint, as it is free, and enjoy a great solo effort from the guy.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

for better or worse...

the ripple that is created by simply tossing a stone into a lake probably extends way further than one could imagine. just the same, the actions we take probably have a greater affect than we may ever fathom to be possible. i guess this very well speaks to the lack of action as well.

seems like at certain points in our lives or at the occurrence of certain events, we are forced to consider whether or not we made the right decisions in times past. and there is always the lingering question of "what if", even if just out of curiosity, when thinking if there was a better way to go about something. i wonder if it's even healthy to consider these things though. regardless of how we may try to replay these things in our minds, it doesn't change who has already occurred. at best, it may only be somewhat of a gauge of how to conduct ourselves in the future.

some things never work out the way we desire, and certainly most things hardly work out when we desire them to. but at the same rate, they all work out the way God designed them to. and i think this is hard for a lot of us to understand. we serve a timeless God, but we live a timed life. i think it's probably natural that a lot of us have a sense of urgency when it comes to our dreams, our wants, our desires, and our ultimate goals and path in life. we don't know if we'll live to see tomorrow, so there's a certain drive to accomplish as much as possible today, right now. and sometimes that just doesn't line up with God's plan. weird.

all of that as a foreword to my point - you can't stop living until you stop living. but in living, we need to consciously consider owning and demonstrating virtues. love. charity. kindness. care. compassion. forgiveness. all of these things. we need to consider our actions and what they can actually mean to ourselves and others. we need to live to our greater potential while we still have a chance. we need to spread as much love as possible in a dying world. we're losing people everyday, and while this is common knowledge, 2009 publicized the fact time after time. these disasters that are taking place, the deaths that are occurring, the changes that are being made in our society... we need to consider these things, discover a greater purpose, and live to achieve that purpose. let's be a greater part, a more positive impacting part, a more effectively influential part in each others' lives and the lives of those who surround us. when it comes to our lives... this is the part that we can at least control. what things work out, when, and how they work out is another story. but knowing we want favorable things to work out in good timing and in beneficial ways, let's live in a way that would make these things the results of our actions. and if everything still goes wrong... at least we did our part in trying to see to it that they went right.

pz&love
-gr0ove

ps. this doesn't come without pain. but then again, neither does life.