Ooooooweeeee!  Really?!?  This is almost too good to be new Slum Village.   It sounds like old SV came back from the past, but with a renewed, fresher sound.  It makes me feel kinda guilty that I like it so much knowing that Baatin and Dilla are no longer with us.  Is that wrong?

“Don’t Fight the Filling/Daylight” is basically one of those two-in-one combo deals.  Elzhi and T3 spit some classic verses while Dwele softly kills the hook on the first half of the track .  Don’t Fight the Filling then gives way to Daylight, which is basically the best use of funky hand claps and sitars I’ve ever heard.

This track is off the the Villa Manifesto EP, which came out July 27th - just in time for Slum Village to break up.  Yup, that’s what I said.  Ain’t that some bullshit?

Download “Don’t Fight the Filling/Daylight” here (right click, save as).

Last Night’s Mixtape covers all types of good music, and in all locations around the world. Luckily, it just so happens that one of my personal favorite musicians happens to live right here in my home base of Seattle. His name is Ahamefule Oluo, and he and vocalist Okanomode are collaborators on a project called Reverie. The concept? A ten-piece pop opera, based on the theme of making choices that you know you will regret, but that feel right at the time.

I was able to catch up with Aham and Okanomode, and get a quick interview with them. It’s a little window into two of the most fertile creative minds in the Northwest. And for Seattle folks, their show is coming up this Saturday, at Lo-Fi, and tickets are going fast – get them at Now I’m Fine, the official site for the project (and yes, I don’t like calling things “projects” either, but there may be no better way to describe this undertaking).

It’s LxNxM’s first time doing an interview, so bear with our technical awesomeness!

One of the album’s slated to drop in early 2011 that I’m most looking forward to is a full length LP from Invincible and Waajeed. They first linked up musically on the Platinum Pied Pipers Triple P album a few years back with the song “Detroit Winter.” So it’s appropriate that their current track is called “Detroit Summer”… plus if you’ve ever been there, summertime in Detroit is the shit. Listen to a radio rip of the tune above.

The duo are releasing a split 7-inch vinyl album called Detroit Summer on August 10 which you can pre-order here. Do it. Also, check out video shot by yours truly of Invincible premiering this track live at the Allied Media Conference. Read the rest of this entry »

i literally have no time for a proper d.f.t. this week, so i’m just going to leave you with the song that’s looping in my head as i stress the fuck out. you can download this track here, courtesy of the top billin’ dudes.

Given the weather of the last few weeks (hot, that is), it’s only appropriate that we have for you a mix with the apropos title Tropixx. And not a minute too late.

The mix comes direct to us from the man behind it: Righteous Trash, aka Colin Johnson, aka your favorite booker’s favorite booker. If you aren’t knowing, the man is a West Coast legend with his finger on the trigger of what you should be listening to, and Tropixx captures a snapshot of what’s now.

Anybody who can kick off a mix with the Beach Boys and wind it up with El Guincho and Robyn is okay in my book. And my guess is that after listening to this, you’ll second that emotion (tracklist after the jump).

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Just because.

you know what your weekend is missing? yep, key-tars. so why don’t you click over here to stream/download chairman mao’s latest spine blowing decisions mix with a heavy emphasis on the key-tar. click here for the tracklist. great summertime mix, and yes, dam-funk, this is “the kind of music the most beautiful woman in the world and the most gangsta dude in the world could sit down and enjoy together over a glass of wine.”

Skratch Bastid and The Rub’s Cosmo Baker were rehearsing for their Let’s Build performance the other day, and somewhere along the way Cosmo decided to start fuckin with the beat to the new Dipset joint, “Speakin’ in Tongues.”  Skratch Bastid threw Cutty’s classic acapella over it and “instantly smoke filled the room and an airhorn sounded from the distance.”  The rest is mashup history.

Stream and/or download this magical musical mishmash below, but be mindful of where you are when you hit play.  You definitely don’t want to play this song too loud in the office, unless, of course, your boss is cool with ganja smoke and airhorns at the workplace.

(On a somewhat related sidenote, have you peeped the free hip hop hisotry mixtapes that they’ve been droppin’ over at The Rub?  If you haven’t, you really got get up on that.  For real.)

Filthy. One of my favorite producers going is Los Angeles MPC wizard Exile. His album Radio is a certified classic in my book (yes, I have a book), and seeing him live with DJ Day was one of the more impressive shows I’ve been to. Having said all that, it’s  delightful to find out that other folks feel the same way.

Pretty hot off the presses (as in yesterday), Exile, along with sonic purveyors Dirty Science, released an album of Radio remixes and unreleased cuts. And they are excellent. Amongst the remixers are LxNxM favorites Rhettmatic and Mr. Dibiase (me happy). Given the original album’s specificity (all samples came off L.A. radio) and the wide-ranging cast of characters involved with this project, the end result is something short of unified concept, and something beyond a simple collection.

The hits hit (Marco Polo goes hard!), though a couple of the remixes lose too much of the original without enough added value from the new artist involved. So it goes. This shit is heavy and you should get it. It’s free, dammit.

Tracklist after the jump.

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