Tag Archives: Hip Hop

Every Hero Needs a Theme Song: Oddisee’s “That’s Love”

Motivation. How to get yourself up to do what needs to be done?! I find music to be a great motivator (deadlines, fear, and insecurity are others…) and Oddisee’s single, “That’s Love” more than fits the bill.

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Oddisee’s “The Good Thing” is a shot of sonic caffeine

The Maryland native, Brooklyn-based artist’s new album The Good Fight “acknowledges the stacked odds, but refuses to submit”.

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Stream and purchase the new album on Bandcamp, support a great artist, put your cape on, and create your own!

Respect.

 

The Impact of De La Soul’s Kickstarter Campaign

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The term game changer tends to be overused, but De La Soul’s Kickstarter campaign may inspire more artists to work through unconventional channels to finance and distribute their work.

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De La Soul appeals to fans via Kickstarter for creation of latest album

In less than a month, more than 9,000 backers have contributed over 500,000.00 USD—obliterating the band’s crowdfunding goal of $110,000.00 in ONE DAY!

This method of crowdsourcing and unconventional financing sends a powerful message to established and emerging artists as well as media companies and distributors that technology is a great tool for creatives to send their art directly to market.

Revolutions on Air Documentary: The History of New York’s Golden Age in Underground Music

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The Red Bull Music Academy releases a mini-documentary on the history of New York’s underground music scene entitled: Revolutions On Air: The Golden Era of New York Radio 1980 – 1988; a seventeen-minute overview of New York City’s urban music explosion, its architects, and the reverberations still being felt today.

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New York City break dancers, circa 1980

First person accounts by underground music luminaries (such as DJ Marley Marl, Kool DJ Red Alert, Tony Humphries, and Stretch Armstrong) interspersed with vintage audio, photos, and video drops you in the moment when the underground broke above ground via New York radio and germinated throughout the world by cassette tape (I fondly have college recollections of students collecting,trading, and dubbing tapes from New York to Baltimore to Philly to Detroit to Chicago to Oakland to LA).

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B-Boys on the block with prerequisite boombox, circa 1980

For those who choose to delve deeper into the subject, read Vivian Host’s feature on the New York radio scene.