Archive for the ‘House Shoes’ tag
I was just on the phone yesterday with my man Shoes and he was congratulating me on the birth of my beautiful daughter a few days ago. Among sharing words about the joys of parenting a newborn (sleep cycles or lack thereof) we chatted about last Thursday night, Feb 7th, for the Dilla tribute in L.A. Naturally, Shoes was holding court and had some of the best DJs in LA who knew Dilla closely on hand to rock the turntables as they all raised one up for Dilla.
I’ve been too busy raising up my new sweetheart along with her mama to really focus on any of the Dilla tributes that happened around the world but considering that he had two daughters of his own, it seems even more fitting to keep my attention where it belongs. Still, I can’t help but throw up this video from the Mochilla family as it’s beautifully shot and captures the energy of a night very well. Shoutouts to the whole LxNxM crew for helping me through one of the craziest weeks of my life.
It may not be politic to say it, but I have to get this off my chest: I have a complete and total crush on HVW8 Productions. Phew. That feels good to say out loud. We’ve given HVW8 love over the last year, and it’s for good reason: beyond running one of LA’s illest gallery spaces, pumping out clothing collabos with folks like Parra, they put out good music from folks like the Hawthorne Headhunters and maintain a top-notch podcast series.
The latest podcast features the stylings of Detroit/LA ur-DJ House Shoes, a man who fears no mix, and is liable to drop whatever the hell he feels like (check his interview with LxNxM’s Wordlush). Shoe was in town recently for the inaugural installment of the Enjoy series from the Members Only team, and he lived up to expectations. If you weren’t there, shame on ya, but enjoy this podcast as recompense.
Tracklist after the jump.
A lot of folks are starting to come around and appreciate the hood genius of Detroit rapper Danny Brown. He’s got a rap voice only a mother could love, and totally comes off as a thug nerd, but his subject matter makes people’s eardrums percolate with nearly every song he’s released. He’s like the train wreck that you can’t look away from. A train wreck that can rap his ass off. As House Shoes stated in his interview with us last week:
“He’s a one of a kind artist. He fits right in the middle. The grimy cats appreciate it, and the poppy kids appreciate it. Everyone likes all of Danny Brown. He strikes some type of nerve in people.”
He also likes to feature people in the act of stealing copper wiring in his music videos. He’s probably the first to ever do that. Between the offensive lyrics and bare knuckle budgets for his videos, I’d say Danny Brown is the best hood rapper out right now.
Today I popped Elzhi’s Out of Focus EP into my tape deck (yes I still listen to cassettes) and reminisced on how gifted Elzhi is as an MC. That EP is from like ’98 –I’ve even been told it distinctly sounds like it’s from ’98 –and mostly features production from DJ House Shoes. Neither Elzhi nor Shoes had come-up in the rap world yet, but both were just a year or two away from changing that. This is all around the time that Detroit artists like Dwele G, Waajeed, Hodge Podge (now Big Tone) and El were all emerging out of The Hip-Hop Shop/St. Andrews and on the verge of record deals.
Here we are some 11-12 years later and Elzhi is still coming off the top with crazy quotables and verses unlike any other rapper. It’s clear that he’s getting better with age and I’m loving him for it. Instead of having House Shoes on production this time, he’s got the even more internationally known, yet still Detroit born and raised Black Milk holding down beatmaking duties for his latest single. Those two have been grinding together since Slum Village’s Detroit Deli album. The two 313 favorites just released a video for their latest song called “Deep.” Ya gotta love the brief cameos from Phat Kat, T3, and DJ Dez.
