album

The Get By is a trio made up of 2 rappers and 1 DJ: Mantis, Justis & Pangea Delphi. Their aim as a group (which you can read about on their bio here) is to fight against the segregation between the undergound heads and the mainstream fans by making music that everyone will feel. Not only is this a great philosophy, but it’s good business too since they’re not shunning any group of hip-hop heads. I don’t see what’s so wrong with liking both ends either, while on the topic. I have my copy of Thank Me Later right beside King Geedorah’s Take Me To Your Leader, and there’s no unwritten rule that says I can’t be into both. But I digress. “Lift Off” shows both emcees bringing quality rhymes to a beat that just exudes natural, classic hip-hop coolness with the horns, steady drums, and scratches in the outro. The video is a simple tour-of-my-city concept, which was filmed actually pretty close to where I live. Follow the link above for The Get By’s website, and click here to download their album sampler.

And what better way to start the week than with some new 3 Stacks? I usually try to stay clear of tagged-up joints and wait for the NoDJ/CDQ versions to post, but for Andre I’ll make an exception EDIT: tag-free up (that was quick). This will be off of an upcoming Evil Empire mixtape entitled Limelight Exclusives, out Thursday. “I Do” is a womanizing track that might remind you of “Int’l Players Anthem”, and it’s a niche that Andre 3000 is more than comfortable in. The beat is big and soulful, which again is reminiscent of the aforementioned OutKast/UGK collabo. Although there’s no point in holding your breath for an official album until more solid news gets out, it’s a safe bet that Andre will most definitely deliver, especially after Big Boi knocked it out of the park with Sir Lucious Left Foot.

Download: Andre 3000 – “I Do” [No Tags]

Class continues to push his latest album, Self-Explanatory, with a video series to complement the Choose Your Own Adventure game he had on the album. I think it’s hilarious that he took this concept from a children’s game and ran with it, plus it provided Classified a chance to give his supporting cast of local emcees some time on his album. This is the first video, aka the start of the adventure, and you can make your choice for where to go next at the end. You can play the game from here, but it’s hosted on classifiedadventure.com, where you can find an iTunes link to Self-Explanatory.

I’ve been posting very sporadically as of late and that’s been because of a summer course I’ve been taking (music composition…I’ve been doing it for a while now but any new experience is a good one). The only thing that matters here though is that I have some catching up to do so let’s get down to it. This post is essentially the one-stop shop for all things Kanye-related that happened in roughly the last 24 hours. That might not seem like much but within a day, he previewed verses off of his new album at a Facebook conference and a Twitter conference and they’re big ones. Even though they were previewed acapella, they still sound fiery, especially the verse he spit from “Chain Heavy” (in the video above). Mr. West also got himself a Twitter account – a future source of many intriguing comments no doubt – and promptly announced that Good Ass Job as a title was no more. So all in all, some great news from the source of G.O.O.D. Music. Remainder of the videos after the jump.

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Going by the picture and the album title, you would think that this was some sort of metalcore project. Of course though that is not the case since this is the free album of Lupe’s side project, Japanese Cartoon. The key clever point about this project that alot of rappers seem to fail to understand is that it’s a free fringe project. More power to people like Kanye and Lil Wayne for attempting to step out of their comfort zone with 808s and Rebirth respectively, but in this day and age where giving music away for free has become a core part of any marketing strategy, I feel that you should leave your best material for the store shelves and your musings for the blogs. According to Confusion over at Pigeons and Planes (B&B and P&P…ha), Lupe does a pretty good job on this so I say download away. Download link and a message from Lupe Fiasco after the jump.

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I haven’t posted anything Toronto-related in some time (Drake doesn’t count), so here’s something good I found earlier today. Producer Marco Polo, who has worked with the likes of KRS-One, Buckshot, and Masta Ace, is back with another producer’s album, filled to the brim with dope featured guests from in and around Toronto. One thing I’ve come to realize is if there is a signature Toronto sound in our hip-hop, it’s the big soul-loop beats (again, Drake doesn’t count for this argument). I’m well aware that everyone and their dad have been using soul loops for instrumentals for the longest time, but the vast majority of our veteran emcees and producers stick with soul loops like religion. There’s a bit of a turning in the tide nowadays with some of the newer rappers to come out of the city, but it’s a prevalent trend in alot of the more “classic” acts who have been holding it down for a while (Theo3, Tona, etc.). “The Bridge” is what I’m talking about and features one of the brighter up-and-comers whom I’ve slept on as of late: Promise. The Stupendous Adventures of Marco Polo! is out tomorrow.

Download: Marco Polo – “The Bridge” feat. Promise

Shad has risen the ranks of being one of my favorite rappers and the London, Ontario native just released his new one called T.S.O.L. yesterday. I haven’t made my way through the whole album yet but the first few songs and the single “Yaa I Get It” have all been good listens and it seems like he has picked up right where he left off with The Old Prince. We also got the audio for his recent interview with DJ Hyphen which he breaks down his inspiration for the album and specifically the single “Yaa I Get It” and talks about some upcoming shows too. There is some debate when the album will physically release in the U.S. and on iTunes but in the meantime you can grab it for pre-order at Maple Music and Amazon (for a lot more and shipping later) now. If you can’t wait for it to ship you can drop over to Spinner and stream the album for free now and get Shad’s breakdown of each song with the interview below the break.

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