Yeah, you were probably wondering when I was gonna stop talking about Lil Wayne. Well today, ain’t that day. Weezy is free. Finally. But he walks free now with new responsibility shoved into his arms. He reported that he started writing lyrics in jail, and most of the hip-hop community is expecting his return to be glorious. Well this week we were treated to his first recorded verses since his release. And what do we think? Check it out below.
P.S. Please ignore anything Birdman says, as he is a terrible rapper. Only focus on Wayne’s parts.
Anyway, all Weezy aside, recently my girlfriend showed me this fantastic band that you may or may not know about. They are called Minus the Bear, and are freaking amazing. They are coming to Bostonon December 7th, so if you like this, you should definitely go.
As of now, I think everyone knows to expect a musical gem from Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Friday series that is released on his website every week. He is single-handedly changing the way hip-hop (and quite honestly music as a whole) is being made. Almost every track has been amazing. I’ll post my favorite below just in case you haven’t heard.
But although Kanye may have started this trend, his fellow hip-hop producers have noted its influence and have hopped on the weekend bandwagon. One of them is “The One Man Band Man” himself, Swizz Beats. Swizzy has started a Monster Mondays series, two weeks in. The second installment definitely stands out to me, tell me what you think in the comments.
And just when you thought hip-hoppers could copy themselves no longer, esteemed producer Timbaland has recently announced that Timbo Thursdays is about to become a new institution. Timmy hasn’t produced anything in a while, his most famous work being with Missy Eliott and Justin Timberlake. Here’s a recent track for a quick refresher:
Now these are all good things. Artists realize the music piracy is a real viable threat to their record sales, and instead of going up in arms and pulling a Lupe, they decide to give out free music. This will hopefully become a trend in the music industry. Free music doesn’t necessarily have to mean the end of the industry; it could mean that people are more focused on good music instead of what label A&R’s tell them they should listen to. It is also interesting to note that most of the G.O.O.D. Friday tracks will be on Kanye’s new album this month. It will be worth watching to see if fans reward Kanye for his generosity by buying his album or if they take the music and run. Stay tuned.
OH AND BY THE WAY, Lil Wayne gets out of jail in a day. Let’s not forget who was instrumental in this whole free music era when the man released 1000 free songs in the time span of three years. FREE WEEZY!!!
The art of the mash-up is oh-so-important in today’s music scene. Everyone wants to rap, everyone wants to have a band, everyone wants to be signed by a major record label. But the mash-up artist’s experience is a bit different. For regular artists, they want to be signed so they can sell records, and thus, get paid. But if you mix songs, you can’t sell your work. (Unless you bought the rights to it, which would be more costly and probably wouldn’t net you a profit.) Most mashers start out as just doing it for fun: DJs with a hobby, music lovers with a cool program, people with eclectic musical tastes.
I love this genre because most of these guys started out just doing what they wanted to do; no big time dreams of record labels or big sold-out arenas. Just acapellas, instrumentals, and the desire to mix and sample them. This is what music is all about, finding your niche and perfecting your skill. So to celebrate, here’s a few mixes I like:
Pretty Lights: “Hot Like Sauce”
Super Mash Bros.: “I F*cking Bleed Purple and Hold”
And of course, as my esteemed colleague Dan Donohue said, it is Weezy Wednesday so…
