Another classic by Kasey Stokes...

Some ten or so years ago, these sparse, spacey, yet filthy-funked, beats started raining down on hip hop. They'd been around since rumps were shakin' in spandex, but The Neptunes reign had officially begun.  

Lately, it seems the trio's migrated from making music for others to making it for themselves, as N*E*R*D's soon-to-be-released Nothing and a bunch of dates touring with the Gorillaz tell. 

But there was no denying Pharrell had been playing with others when I saw Chiddy Bang's new video for "Good Life" a couple of times yesterday on MTV Jams.  A little poking around on the internet confirmed my suspicions (and my lateness).  To put a tidy bow on the whole package, Chiddy Bang also did a remix of Gorillaz's "Stylo" a few months ago. 

Hmmm ... first "I'm Good" for The Clipse, now "The Good Life" for Chiddy Bang. Like anybody ever doubted Pharrell's Midas touch. 

Rebecca Haithcoat in her first on screen interview talks with Fashawn about the real Santiago, how he draws strength from his stage name, and how someone so young can come up with such raw emotion. If you haven't already cop "Boy Meets World" it's a jewel.

Laughter just barely overtakes the beats tripping out of his house as Exile opens the door. He’s been working on his rap album, the one he’s been making since 2007, during the same time he and Blu were making “Below the Heavens.” Of course, with the exception of one beat, he’s also doing the production.

Exile lives both sides of the coin. Seeing him socially, you can almost imagine him as a happy-go-lucky fourth grader, playing some prank and then running off to hide and stifle his giddiness.  But in the studio, Fashawn, for whom Exile produced last year’s “Boy Meets World,” says Exile is all business. He agrees. “I know exactly what I want, and I know how I want it, and I’ll tell you.  First I’ll have to get to know you so you won’t hate me.  Or I’ll have to be quiet when I first work with you and let you do what you wanna do.  Even if I don’t like it, I can’t tell you right off the bat or it could fuck up the relationship.  It’s like getting to know a woman; you can be yourself, but you gotta do a little dance.” 

He walks into his lab, a small room with one wall almost covered in old black and white photographs yellowing at the edges.  “That’s my dad,” he says.  “I’m gonna take his reels, and I’m gonna make a whole album from that. And I’m gonna re-release my dad’s stuff.  It’s a great way for us to work together while he’s gone.”

The son of a musician, Aleksander Manifredi didn’t see his father from age six to thirteen—he was “fucking around with drugs, so it wasn’t the right environment”—but he’d give Aleksander drum lessons when he did see him.  His mother, who was in and out of mental institutions, partied with his sister, a “crazy goth chick” who did a lot of drugs, which left Aleksander to be the grown-up in the house.  His father passed away when Aleksander was only eighteen, and still bitter. 

He recalls a story about Blu: “I remember this one time, Blu was having family problems, and he really wanted to see his mom.  He was in Long Beach, so I went there and took him to his mom’s- he didn’t have her number, but he just knew he had to see her.” But Blu’s mother didn’t live there anymore, so Exile drove him all the way back to Long Beach. “At this point, it was like, five in the morning.  And this song by Johnny Cash comes on, about his father, and I’m just crying in the car. And I came home, and I made this song about my dad, and it’s one of my favorite songs on the album.”

It seems his past—the early responsibility, youthful resistance and retrospective reconciliation—has influenced his affinity for uncovering some of the best, and youngest, talent to emerge from the West Coast in the past few years.  Fashawn was 20 when he and Exile made “Boy Meets World,” and he and Blu began working together when Blu was 19.  Both albums they created are reminiscent of backsliding gospel-choir anthems, or lullabies a 1940s chanteuse might’ve sung in a sad, soul-soaked club—all overlaid with Exile’s signature MPC trickery.  

Exile envisioned replicating the sort of mentor relationships that early East Coast pioneers established.  “I wanted to help bring up the West Coast, find artists like DJ Premier or Marley Marl would do,” he says, “Blu’s style grew and developed before my eyes.  Back then he was an artist who didn’t really have any solid material, and I saw potential in him.”  But he aims for symbiosis in the studio, growing with and building a relationship with the artist. “I’m not religious but I definitely believe in putting what you want out there and it coming to be.  Sometimes I’ll pray to have a connection with the people I’m working with.”

With statements like that, you can’t help but consider Exile an embodiment of the 16th century origin of the word “artist.” Yes, he’s realistic, jokingly asking how he can get his name on everybody’s lips, but he’s also deliciously removed from the current commerciality and dizzying pace of hip hop. He hates the Internet because it demystifies so much. He’s not really sure what’s going on in L.A.’s concert/club scene.  He asks what Wiz Khalifa is “teachin’ the kids.”  

He began doing graffiti when he was thirteen, and just churned out a piece in Germany on his recent European tour. Scattered around his house are “found object” sculptures he’s made.  And his spirit has the youthful curiosity and buoyancy of an artist: He suddenly leaps up from the porch and lopes off to retrieve a little sculpture with which he wants to play show-and-tell. 

“All I want to do is to do what I do and make people have fun, a more positive time,” he says simply. Without a trace of arrogance, he completes the thought, “In every way, really, I’m doing exactly what I planned on doing, making classic records for the West Coast.”  Correction: He’s making artistic records for posterity. 

Now, who smokes more blunts than a little bit? What are you, an idiot?

Ok, so Curren$y chastises those who blaze blunts, but he's definitely taken over Snoop's reign as pot proponent's Big Poppa.  This morning, to the delight of red-eyed Eighties' babies everywhere, he dropped a trailer for Pilot Talk 2. Hip hop, Knight Rider, and weed?  Point goes to Spitta yet again.  

Nice to see Curren$y being as funny as he is on his Twitter, and still snapping all serious-like. 

Only two songs in, and I'm a believer.  NPR.org's Sami Yenigun posted a review along with a first listen of Detroit rapper/producer Black Milk's as-yet-unreleased "Album of the Year."  The album will stream until it drops, September 14th.  

Go. Go NOW. 

No better time than nearing sunset on a Sunday to drop visuals to a melancholic song like "Growing Apart," a track from Compton's own Kendrick Lamar's upcoming release, Kendrick Lamar Overly.Dedicated.

Jhene Aiko's silky hook juxtaposed with K-Dot's rough-hewn verses lead you into a contemplative daydream, and Stefan Werc's time-lapse treatment only serves to more quickly usher you there.  

Kendrick Lamar O.D. arrives September 15th. 

Just found the track "Average Joe" from Kendrick Lamar's upcoming O.D., which is set to drop September 15th.  Seeing him destroy The Roxy earlier this month and hearing him obliterate this song, I'm convinced he has a gun for a tongue.

Add this to the news that Jay Electronica's pushing for Act II: Patents of Nobility to drop on his birthday, the 19th, and September's looking like December.  

Thanks, Keep It Simple Stupid.  

"Oooooooo sh*t, motherf*cka, G*ddamn"

Really, not the best line to float to the surface of your brain and escape your lips while mindlessly wandering the grocery store during Retirement-Home-Residents' Shopping Hour.  

But I'm an unapologetic Lil Wayne devotee- I still rap along with his verse on "Bling Bling." (Sidebar: Did Wiz lift Weezy's laugh or what?) "Miss Me," from Drizzy's Thank Me Later, has been spinning so constantly in my rotation it's dangerously close to being spun out. 

The song's visuals, which just premiered a couple of hours ago on MTV Jams, are pretty boring; then again, I prefer my hip-hop vids clever.  

Also...isn't that vixen a little thin for Drizzy? Tell meeeeee what's really goin' on!

Rock the Bells is Saturday.  Due to the premise of this year's festival- classic groups performing classic albums in their entireties- everybody's talking about its "historic" nature.  Seems likely, but we're shooting a little lower. What can we say?  We hate being disappointed!  

Five Things We Hope Happen

1) Snoop rocks our favorite throwback hairstyle of his.

2) Yelawolf turns the stage into his own little skate park.

3) Lauryn Hill actually performs.  Anything. 

4) The Clipse bring along a special guest. STAAAAAAAR TRAK!

5) Wiz Khalifa takes off his shirt. 

Five Things We Know Are Gonna Happen

1) Rakim won't have aged a day, vocally or physically.

2) A small army will accompany the DPG onstage.

3) Every person in the crowd will try to sing along with every song, and will end up mumbling half the lyrics. 

4) We'll catch a contact high backstage. 

5) Wiz Khalifa will take off his shirt. 

(No matter what happens, you know we'll be there, documenting it all. I'll live Tweet all the cool shit that can't wait: @rhaithcoat.  Thanks to Nicole Dawley for her contributions!)

Meet Quadron the talented duo from Denmark that has already taken L.A. if not the US by storm, composed of Coco the singer and Robin the producer. Their album is on Plug Research, also home to Bilal, Shafiq Husayn, Flying Lotus, Exile to name just a few.

In this interview with M Boogie at the UCLA Jazz & Reggae Festival, they talk about the warm reception they've received from the US and how the terms "electronic soul" fit with their music. With live excerpts of hit tracks "Pressure" & Slipping".

Shout out to Jonathan Kim for getting us acquainted with the group, you can add us to their already long list of fans.

Cali-raised artist Aloe Blacc discusses with us his musical influences growing up as a first generation African-American, his definition of soul music, his upcoming collaboration with Exile, his record label Stones Throw and how they are pushing the envelope and finally his success with " I need a Dollar" now featured on HBO's series "How to Make it in America" . New album "Good Things" dropping in September. Something else to look forward to...

Shoutout to Nu-Soul, Downtown Unplugged the new event put up by Sketch the Specialist & B-52 for facilitating the interview.

-photography by kasey stokes

It's the middle of the summer and the heat is turning up.
I recorded a lil mixtape for those in need of some summer jams.
Now, these may not be your typical summer-time songs,
so its a more smoothed out version of summer.
This mix is best experienced at night...
Feel free to spread this mixtape to your network!
Val The Vandle Presents: Summer Love
http://www.mediafire.com/?wd2kojmzgkfylym

Got 'em runnin' scared, tryna catch up/57 Heinz Gregory the dance legend/make music I'm steppin' out at a major event/best dressed in attendance and I never left the house

The Big Easy-turned-Big Apple rapper is no newcomer, already having been signed with both classic NOLA labels, No Limit and Young Money/Cash Money Records.  I first heard him sounding a lot like Lil' Wayne on the 2006 track "Where Da Cash At," a rather uninspired ode to pimpin'. 

That was obviously an ill fit.  After he and Weezy went their separate ways, he hustled on his own until he and former Roc-A-Fella Damon Dash started hanging out.  Curren$y so roused him, Dame decided to resurrect the label and make "Pilot Talk," Curren$y's third studio album, its first release. Though Curren$y added the dollar sign to his moniker, he's now much more interested in gettin' high than runnin', uh, honeys.  

His "This Ain't No Mixtape" was easily one of the best, and out West, most slept-on, rap releases of 2009. Playing with a "J.E.T.S.ons" theme (yes, a lifestyle mantra, "Just Enjoy This Shit"; yes, a riff on the cartoon; yes, I told you he likes the green), the album's production is spacey, breezy, and even a little jazzy.  Pack Curren$y "The Hot Spitta's" easy southern drawl in, and "This Ain't No Mixtape" was so sticky hipsters and 'heads alike had trouble removing it from their iPods.  

The Don Cannon-produced mixtape, "Smokee Robinson," dropped on the eve of the Saints' Super Bowl win and was downloaded 96,000 times in 14 hours. That portends well for the almost-completely Ski Beatz-produced "Pilot Talk" (Monsta Beatz and Nesby Phips contribute two minor-key, other-worldly beats for Spitta to snap on), a dreamy trip whose cloudy haze is cleared by Curren$y's easy lyrical flips.  

And those Creative Control videos just keep comin', and comin' clean.  

Follow Spitta's hilarious similes/metaphors on Twitter until "Pilot Talk" is released July 13th. It's Chex Cereal, indeed.

No need to introduce  Fab 5 Freddy here. I was fortunate enough to spend a lttle time with him in his studio during my short stay in NYC.

It's hard to resume Fab's fundamental contribution to hip hop culture. In a few words, Fab talks us through his relationship with Basquiat and Warhol, his vision as a producer on "Wild Style", his role in the birth of hip hop as an international movement, Yo! MTV Raps, and hip hop the culture vs its more mainstream appeal.

A big shoutout to my friend J Kevin Swain for setting up the interview.