Issa Rae is mad talented. We featured her before as the director behind the "F Word" series with The Fly Guys. Her latest web series "The Mis-Adventures of Awkward Black Girl" is a confirmed hit and landed her a great deal of attention both from the media and the TV industry. Needless say I am part of her incredibly vocal and devoted fanbase which has enabled her to successfully raise over $56,000 to carry on with the series. Go #ABG! Yeah!

I have a knack for catching Diddy when he's intronising the new generation of hip-hop. Last time we were at The Music Box where he came on stage two nights in a row to show his support for Wiz. This time it was  more unnanounced. I stayed to watch Lil B's performance at the Fader Fort and all afternoon I could see Diddy on the side chilling and watching the acts (including Machine Gun Kelly from Ohio who hanged from the speakers, to be a Bad boy soon?). When it was finally Lil B's turn to perform and close the Fader Fort series of concerts, Diddy introduced him on stage and started cooking. I already knew Diddy was a master chef so no surprise there.... But Diddy returned to emphasize the positivity of LilB's movement (everyone commented though on how the crowd really went wild when Lil B finally became his rowdy self and performed hits like "Wonton Soup" or "H*es on My D*ck" as opposed to "The Age of Information") and treated the crowd to some Biggy stuff, just a few days after the anniversary of his death. Now say what you want but Diddy has swag, and the same crowd that brought spatulas to cook at the concert was hyping and asking him to come back.

Issa Rae is the talented filmmaker for does all the F word episodes with the Fly Guys. This is the first ep of a new series in which she stars and it's hilarious... Way to go!

Haters are gonna hate... When we went to Pomona to film and interview Lil B the Based God The Pack's DJ showed me this video. It's shot during a show in Santa Barbara. The crowd is wild and I like that they use real live footage for a pretty slick result. The tune is catchy, Shout out to LIl B as well for doing his thang, that dude is a real rock star. He had a little Elvis thing going last time we saw him,

In this final part of the interview, Phonte & Nicolay describe the essence of their collaboration, how the group has evolved and Phonte asserted himself as a vocalist, and the music inspirations behind their formation. Make sure to cop their album Authenticity on Oct 12.

A big shout out to Phonte & Nicolay for sitting down with us, Aimee Flint for helping us to set it up, and the whole LA Stereo team who did magic with the questions.

This interview is part of a bigger project we have on the current state of the music industry, more to come, stayed tuned, we'll keep you posted. And let us know what you think as we go along.

Cheers.

Following up on Phonte talking about how he discovered his own life on twitter, we asked him about a conversation we'd had with Richard Wright who jokingly said that "Drake had stolen his life". Here's his reaction... watch out for the little skit at the end.

In case you missed Part 1 you can catch it here.

This is part 1 of a special feature we did with Phonte & Nicolay from Foreign Exchange. They spell out the music business and why they are 100% in favor of being independent. Phonte goes through the music industry history, its relation to innovation and its outcome. Look out for part 2 where Phonte talks about Drake and part 3 where Phonte and Nicolay detail their collaboration.

Photos: Kasey Stokes

An outstanding group that first formed on the message board of Okay Player. Another show you don't want to miss... and while you are at it listen to some good Foreign Exchange music.

While we interviewed Aloe, he drew our attention to a track (Death is Fair) he'd worked on with Exile (together known as Cali duo EMANON) and how he'd linked up the lyrics to some of the subject matter he was alluding to: here on his site. It's pretty cool and instructive. It's safe to say that both Exile & Aloe are great experimenters, and I'd expect this really simple concept to be used ad inifinitum, once the multimedia technology enables it.

"Back in the lab with Exile working on new songs for the next EMANON album, Birds Eye View. I had some downtime came up with the idea to link the words in my lyrics to relevant articles and videos for you all to enhance the meaning of the song. It gives you a better sense of what I'm talking about."