rza

I think our friends at Prefix Mag described this video best so I’m gonna hand it over to them for the description.

Vampire Weekend soundtrack the trippiest tennis match of all time in the video for their “Giving Up the Gun,” which sees a woman playing tennis against a giant woman, twins, a samurai, a drinking Jake Gyllenhaal and Joe Jonas while RZA acts as line judge. It’s a pretty crazy clip, that only gets dreamier when RZA starts mouthing the lyrics and the woman starts playing three versions of herself. Then Lil Jon shows up as her coach, and this thing basically implodes on its own goofiness. It’s memorable at least, and its celebrity cameos bring to mind the kind of jokey videos from the ’80s.

Yeah, Rza is the line judge and thats not even the beginning of the craziness. Contra is in stores now.

“Nice to meet you. I heard the Wu-Tang Clan ain’t nothin’ to fuck with.”

LOL, that line actually had me laughing out loud. This video is very well done by the good people at Funny or Die and I think it is hysterical that it all started with a Tweet by ?uestlove. Questo also does his best Hugh Hefner, living in the lap of luxury, impression at the beginning which made me realize I was in for a great video. Also follow Questlove on Twitter and if you aren’t I am pretty sure that makes you the only person in America.

Dame Dash, The Black Keys, and slew of ill rappers…yeah, I’m excited for Blak Roc. The Black Keys are posting up these videos to build some buzz for their album, which is a great idea that has been used as of late used by artists such as Raekwon for OB4Cl2. RZA is a legendary figure in hip-hop. Even though he’s not a stellar rapper (he’s really good nonetheless), his production will be remembered for a very long time. You can tell in this video that he added a bit of that Shaolin touch to the instrumental of the track – it actually got me thinking about Afro Samurai lol.  Spotted at NR.

Edit: It’s Blak Roc, not Black Roc…I should’ve known that but I wrote that mad tired (on the plus side, it’s Thanksgiving weekend for us Canucks, so to all our Canadian patrons, enjoy yourselves!!!).

My prayers have been answered. Literally just yesterday, I asked in a post for more recorded hip-hop to be backed up by talented bands, and now I’ve got it. The Black Keys are an Ohio-based blues-rock duo and they will be releasing a collaboration project with a motherload of incredible rappers called Blakroc on November 27 (Black Friday). Here are just some of the rappers the duo will be featuring on their latest album:

• Mos Def
• RZA
• Ludacris
• Pharoahe Monch
• The late ODB
• Raekwon

Click here to see the teaser video on their website (seriously, watch it: if you aren’t excited about this news yet, you will be after hearing this collection of snippets from recording sessions). I am positively ecstatic right now. This is a talented duo that personifies genuine American blues-rock, and they’re comfortably reaching out to hip-hop. Without a doubt, the greatest advancement to occur in this decade’s hip-hop is the community’s bolder openness to breaking the mould and fusing styles.

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New Wu-Tang from Chamber Music which drops June 30th. This song is just as good as the rest of the songs from the album and the beat had me bugging out. The piano loop with the high note chords was simple but brilliant and I also like the loop it switched to for the chorus. Wu shows everyone else that you can have very musical beats and still make them sound grimy as hell. Chamber Music should be one of the big highlights for the summer of the Wu and don’t forget to go get U-God’s Dopium which is out now.

N.A.S.A. releases another video from their album Spirit of the Apollo and it is similar to their video for “People Tree” which happens to also have one of the same directors in Syd Garon. The animation style and video are creative and original and I actually like this video more than the other. This isn’t even mentioning the fact that I am a fan of Rza and John Frusciante and N.A.S.A.’s album is one of my favorite recent albums. I didn’t know much about Syd Garon before these videos so click the link below if you’re interested to see the inspiration behind these unique works of art.

Syd Garon Interview

This will be one of the only albums I ever post the artwork for and the reason is because it is, well, real artwork. Click the picture above to see it enlarged. N.A.S.A. got 5 artists, like Shepard Fairey, Marcel Dzama, Mark Gonzales and friends, to create 5 interchangeable covers available in copies of their album Spirit of the Apollo. What a cool concept and it is awesome that they can get all these guys to do this for them. Click the break to listen to the song “Way Down” by N.A.S.A. featuring Rza, Barbie Hatch and John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. This is the only song I have seen that I haven’t posted yet and the names speak for themselves, man this album is going to be great.

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