Ozzie's 2009: Music

Let me begin with saying Happy New Year, 2009 was a top year for hip-hop, so many good projects. I can honestly say that choosing a top 10 was not an easy task, and I left out a couple of favourites, because ten means ten. Enough talking, hit the jump for the lists.

Top 10 Albums(Not in any order):

Raekwon - Only Built For Cuban Linx 2

Blacroc - Blackroc

Mos Def - The Ecstatic

The xx - xx

K'NAAN - Troubadour

MF DOOM - Born Like This

Fashawn - Boy Meets World

Brother Ali - Us

The Alchemist - Chemical Warfare

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz!


Top EPs, Mixtapes & other projects (Not in any order):

Modest Mouse - No One's First and You're Next

Brother Ali - The Truth is here E.P.


MF DOOM - Unexpected Guests

Danger Mouse - Dark Night of the Soul

Joell Ortiz - Covers The Classics

Wu-Tang Clan - Chamber Music

Lupe Fiasco - Enemy of the State: A Love Story

Sean Price - Kimbo Price (A Prelude To Mic Tyson)

UNI - Before There Was Love

Honourable Mentions:
Kasabian - West Ryder pauper Lunatic Asylum
Cormega - Born & Raised
Beriut - March of the Zapotec/RealPeople Holland
Danger Mouse - Dark Night of the Soul
Arctic Monkeys - Humbug
Skyzoo - The Salvation
Ace & Edo G - Arts & Entertainment

Agree, disagree or just want to put you 2 cents here, use the comments section.
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Type - Man Crush (No Homo)

Funny video, but it is kinda sad how 'no homo' made the jump from the hip-hop head blogosphere to the mainstream, I blame Kanye, no home.





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Supermagic

Might do a post on this year's /this decade's best music, not sure which yet, let me know which one you prefer.

Till then enjoy The mighty Mos doing what he does best.





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My Way

Matt here!
Ian Brown has finally released a record to live up to his legendry name - My Way, unlike his previous solo efforts, this is solid all the way through with no filler, and the stand-out moments are as good as anything he's ever done. New single Just Like You (ADIDAS), is out now, check it out:

Click here to watch

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Bill Gates as the DOOM Guy

Nerd Alert:

While doing 'research' for my presentation I came across this gem. This was recorded for the 1996 Computer Game Developer's Conference, DirectX 2 was the biggest headline back then, anyway, the good ol' Mr Gates stars in this video.




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Local Mixtapes

Been a long time, I will explain why later. For now, enjoy these mixtapes by some local DJs, all of them do some good hip-hop nights, check em' out if you are ever near one.

DJ Illas & DJ Heritage - The Throwout Volume 1

The first is by DJ Illas & DJ Heritage, it is a compilation of the "dopest, freshest, stupidest new tracks" they can find, most of these tracks were a on my zune's playlist for a while now, have a listen. Tracklist after the jump.
Download

THE SEX TAPE PART 5 - TAKE IT TO THE SHEETS

The second one is done by our own DJ Lee Majors, it is not my kind of thing personally, but it is good 'baby making' music I hear, it is R&B, check it out and make sure you attend Familia on the 27th December at CORD. The Artwork is NSFW, peep it after the jump.
Download


The Throwout's Tracklist

1. FASHAWN - Ecology (prod Exile)
2. KRS-ONE & BUCKSHOT ft. TALIB KWELI - oh Really (prod Marco Polo)
3. BILLY THE KID - Forgive Me For My Sins (prod Soul Unique)
4. BROTHER ALI ft. FREEWAY & JOELL ORTIZ - Best@it
5. Q-TIP - Won't Trade
6. MASTA ACE & EDO G ft. POSDNOUS & LIGHT - Good Muisc (prod DJ Spinna)
7. JACK FLASH - Sound Of a Genius (prod Wizard)
8. MICALL PARKNSUN - New (prod Jaisu)
9. FASHAWN ft BLU - Samsonite Man (prod Exile)
10. RAEKWON - Gihad (prod Alchemist)
11. SLAUGHTERHOUSE - Microphone (prod Alchemist)
12. MASTA ACE & EDO G - Over There (prod M-Phazes)
13. DIVERSION TACTICS - Can't Swim
14. EVIDENCE & FASHAWN - Amsterdam
15. ROYCE DA 5'9 ft. BUSTA RHYMES - Dinner Time
16. RETURNERS ft. EMILIO ROJAS, KAZE & DOUJAS RAZE - Do You
17. BROTHER ALI, TOKI WRIGHT & EVIDENCE - The Freshest Kids

Majors's Sextape

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Guess Who is Back...

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Ozzie's Video Showcase

Eminem, Mos Def, Black Thought & DJ Premier cypher, enough said


Cormega – Journey, off Mega Montana’s new album, Born & Raised, available now.


This used to be my jam last year, it is about time they relased its video.




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Matt's first post.

Hello, Matt here, with my first of hopefully many posts. I'm a friend of Ozzie and Moose and they've taken the stupid gamble of letting me post on here... apologies in advance!

So I thought I'd start off with the overdone, cliched notion of a top 5 records of the moment, just to give an idea of the sort of things I'll be posting in the future; some of it will be old, some new, some hip hop, some not, some you'll hate, and some you'll hopefully enjoy. The whole point for me is to show people new music they wouldn't have heard otherwise, probably through choice, but which MAYBE they might want to play to again.

Right then. First album:
Nas - Illmatic.
Obviously from the first listen this was always going to be a favourite... Nas has it all here, engaging, storytelling lyrics, some of the smoothest delivery I've heard on any record before or since, all sitting on top of some hard beats vs vintage funk, courtesy of Premo, Large Professor, Q-tip and Pete Rock. Got me into hip hop, and will keep doing the same to others for a long time yet.

Download


Demon Days - Gorillaz.
A huge album - effortlessly moving from lo-fi pseudo hip hop (November Has Come) to euphoric, bizarre dub-soul (Demon Days)... with a fair bit inbetween. Cameos from MF Doom, Bootie Brown (Pharcyde), Shaun Ryder, De la Soul, and bunch of other unexpected people make for an intriguing first listen, which really does grow until all other forms of music seem... redundant. And as for the videos - I don't even want to know how they make cartoons that sexy and terrifying.

Download


Stone Roses - The Stone Roses
No tricks here, just a phenomenal indie record from one of the greatest, most underrated bands from the UK. Endless re-releases, missing songs, crap videos, huge egos and lawsuits SHOULD have made this a disaster of a debut - but the fact is, it flows beautifully from start to finish, Ian Brown is enigmatic yet incredibly forthcoming, and the instrumentals show what a great band the Stone Roses could, and should, have been... and for a couple of years why they were the most exciting band on the world.

Download


The Masterplan - Oasis
OK so everyone knows Oasis, but not as many people have heard their best album... forget Definately Maybe, this collection of pre-1998 B-sides is their greatest work. Noel is at his best on Half The World Away, Talk Tonight and the title track, Liam sounds halfway to articulate on Listen Up and Rocking Chair, and there are even some clues to their early punk influences in Headshrinker and Fade Away. A live version of I Am The Walrus sums up the audacity, and bravery of the record - even the Beatles never played this one live...

Download


Anthology - A Tribe Called Quest
Yeah I know, putting a best of is lame... but how could I pick from the first 3 albums!? Regardless this isn't a bad compilation; all the best songs from a career-spanning 5 discs in all the right places, and I can't turn ATCQ off at the moment so they had to feature in the top 5...

Download


Long first post! Peace.
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Hip-hop is on fire..

After listening to 3 new dope albums this week, I'm confiedent that hip-hop is done with its midlife crisis, it is like the 90's all over again.

To top that, I'm officially hyped for this BlakRoc album:





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BlakRoc > RocNation

This video shows why BlakRoc are about to run this town.

The Black Keys + RZA + Q-Tip + Mos Def = EPIC WIN!





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Video Showcase

The video for my favourite track in U-N-I's first album is finally out; it is amazing so make sure that you watch it!


The lead single of Fashawn's upcoming release has a dope video to match the track
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More KICKS than a baby in a mother's stomach

I would like to introduce to you, the two newest members to the family...

One goes by the name of mahadidas Forum, and it is an Adidas x Maharishi joint effort. It is too HOT.


And the other is the Adidas x Goodfoot collaboration, which has a basic clean look.

More pics are included after the jump!







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Video Showcase

Ozzie here A.K.A the music addict and I'm here to showcase a couple of Hip-Hop videos.

Starting with the latest Roots single 'How I Got Over', I am a massive Roots stan so this had to be done,the track is growing on me. Black Thought for president.


Secondly, it is the original video for Common's UMC, the album might have failed but this track still gets heavy play. Back to business, before that robotic video was done Com & co did this video but disliked it for some reason. Check it out though.


Finally, we have a superstar admiring another superstar, we need to see more of that shit in hip-hop instead of that so called 'beef rap'!


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KING KONG!

Most of my money went on buying and building (o2 did all the bulding) this beast of a gaming pc. I spent a total of 1000 pound on a pc and monitor. It took O2 about 8 hours to put everything together including installing Windows 7 and Linux Fedora 11.

These are the specs:-
Intel I5 2.66GHZ
Gigabyte P55-UD3
Nvidia Geforce GTX 275
Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gamer
1TB Samsung F1
Corsair DDR3 2X240
Be Quiet Dark Power 650w
22" LG W2252TQ
The Dvd writer is ok but im planning on upgrading in feb. I'm also going to add another 4GB of memory, gaming keyboard and gaming mouse.




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Recent purchases

I got paid a week ago by Student Loans and I've already spent all of it. I know I wasn't supposed to do it but it had to be done.

New Balance Feral Creations (Lion Heads)

I ordered these 3 weeks ago and they only arrived a couple of days ago. These were designed in collaboration with Left Foot of Singapore and my favourite pair out of the pack. There were only 660 pairs released and they were totally worth not sleeping to order them.



Adidas Rod Laver X Wood Wood

These are just simple and go with pretty much any colour. I was going to buy the Solebox pair but I reached my budget.



Apart from these two kicks i also bought a pair of April 77 selvage Jeans, Levis Special Edition 505's, Undefeated X Masterpiece Tee, Stussy x Reas Tee and a Stussy Worldwide Varsity

More Pics after the Jump...





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Why I still love Hip-Hop

I might be nice and post something worth reading later tonight, until then, pray that this tour will be coming to Manchester.




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Ballin'

I'll return to posting soon, meanwhile, I'll let you know how I am doing through this dope track. Ballin.




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"Just For Teh Lulz"

After Kanye's VMA incident the internets went crazy and used the joke everywhere and since I found most of them funny, I decided to treat you guys with a dozen. For the complete set click on read more, the last one is NSFW!















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Ozzie's Music Showcase Vol. 6

A pair of albums that impressed me recently, you should be used to this by now; short descriptions and selected tracks are waiting below.

The xx - xx

One of the best albums of the year, I said this about a few albums this year, but they all deserved it. This is one is no different. This Boy/Girl band made and amazingly innovative album, that sounds complete and does not contain any fillers. Check them out, you won't be disappointed.



KRS-One & Buckshot - Survival Skills

Two aging rappers, or more accurately two hip-hop pioneers. These two uncles diss wack MCs, talk about great they are, and preach a lot. The album contains production from Black Milk, whose dope as hell, and features more than half a dozen other artists, such as: Talib kweli, Mary J Blige, K'NAAN and Pharoahe Monch.

All sounds good, but unlike the album above, this album requires some skipping, but don't let that put you off, cos over all it is pretty good.





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