live

So this happened the other day in NYC and despite tickets only being available to a select few I am still disappointed wasn’t able to go to it. Jay was forced to abandon the idea of playing on the marquee to the theater so he did the next best thing and got Eminem and himself to do sets on the roof. This serves as a nice preview to their upcoming shows at Yankee stadium and Comerica Park where they will open for the other in their respective hometowns and should be one of the biggest events of the summer. Check out the footage for yourself and you can find other camera phone videos if you want to watch it before it officially airs on Friday night.

Now this is a legitimate live hip-hop performance! The Roots get the Monsters of Folk to sing the sampled parts of their song “Dear God” and a whole slew of guests, a choir, an orchestra and what seems like a million other people on stage. I have had this album (legally too) for the past week or so and it will live up to any expectations Roots fans will have for it. It is dope too that the house band gets to go all out on the show for their new single and album, I’m glad to see Jimmy supporting them to the fullest.

Side Note: Shouts to Felipe and the Portugal team crushing the Kim Jung Il’s today 7-0. Felipe and I are big fans of soccer and it has been cool to see most people in NYC getting excited about the US team this World Cup.

The new female James Brown, aka Janelle Monae, lit up the stage for Letterman with her new song “Tightrope” without Big Boi providing his verse. She tears it up with the dancing and the shouting to the band and crowd as if she is having a conversation with them while also performing and she also has a phenomenal voice. I was a little pissed that Letterman immediately starts asking for Diddy when she is done but at least Diddy has enough sense when he comes out to give his artist the appropriate props by bowing to that performance. Click the link above and check out the video if you haven’t already because it could be my favorite of the year to date.

Jools Holland must be the Jimmy Fallon of European late night because of all the great acts he gets to perform on his show. Honestly, I have heard of him before but have never looked into what his show is like but his musical tastes (or whoever books the talent) is on point and almost always features someone that I am listening to at the moment. I think this means that I should get a job booking acts for a talk show but I am not even sure how I would go about doing that lol. Anyways this is the Gorillaz performing their song “Stylo” from their album Plastic Beach which is on sale now.

Broken Bell’s have been featured before on B&B but I honestly am shocked how little the coverage has been on other hip-hop sites. The album is great first of all, and both musicians are massively talented (Danger Mouse and The Shins front man James Mercer) with Danger Mouse also having released some true classics for the hip-hop community. I understand all sites don’t cover rock as much as we do but if with some of the hip-hop acts that get major coverage on the blogs today you can’t argue that these two don’t deserve more of it. Their self-titled debut is available now for download or in store purchase so go get it.

Nneka was an artist I have been meaning to check out since her recent explosion in my Google reader on the blogs and I am impressed with her live performance. She clearly can sing, as this tune titled “Heartbeat” demonstrates, but I have since checked out several of her other songs and she also throws down some rhymes too. Naturally, people will want to compare her to Lauryn Hill but she brings her own unique style to it all. Go get the album called Concrete Jungle and support a dope artist.

Vampire Weekend recently performed an acoustic set in France for La Blogotheque and I think they gave the French a reason to like Americans. Not only do they perform a dope set of songs from both albums and a cover of the Honeycomb’s “Have I the Right”, but Ezra even speaks a little bit of French to the crowd which surely impressed me. As you can tell I like watching groups who can rock an acoustic show as it showcases their musical talents and the great structure and lyrics of the songs. Go see these guys if you are fan like me because their concert is a college late night dance party with great music.

The more I listen to music like this from Common and think about it the further he shoots up my list of favorites.

Brad and Sean attend a Grammy Songwriter Forum that includes Common, Nas, Colbie Callait, Zac Brown and more. Out of nowhere…Common decides to bring genres together and performs an impromptu performance with Colbie Callait and Zac Brown.

Check below to see Nas & Common talking about violent lyrics in hip-hop. This seemed to be a very interesting panel and I wish I had a chance to attend it.

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Congrats to Mayer on reaching another stepping stone in his career by starting to play the late night circuit, I hope this helps blow him up even more. Everyone on the underground has been on this and so have a bunch artists and the guy has been touring extensively to promote himself. The album itself, A Strange Arrangement, is one of my favorites of last year and if you like the old school, Motown sound then you will be into it. Anyone know if he is coming to Webster Hall on March 4th? I saw somewhere that he was but it isn’t on their calendar and I need to see him at some point this year.

El Perro Del Mar has an album out called Love Is Not Pop and this is a song from it. Although I had not heard the song before, I have seen videos of Lykke Li live and she usually kills it but El Perro is as at least as good as her. She plays guitar and I actually liked her voice better but will have to listen to the album to see if can compare with Lykke Li’s song writing and unique style. Shouts to P&P for the video and for always staying on top of the new indie artists.