ryan leslie - transition

The transition doesn't refer to his music. Instead, the singer says his sophomore disc was inspired by "a summer of secret love." After that fling ended, the result became "Transition": an 11-track set full of futuristic R&B tunes that finds the 31-year-old R&B-crooner sweet-talking his sweet hopeful. (AP)

new /rles cd out... wow.

blueprint 3

playing around on some blogs, and 5starhiphop is rocking the new jay-z album cover for blueprint 3.

pretty dope cover. wonder if it'll stay.

mike snow - animal

mike snow, a talented music head has a new track out...RCRD Label got it up as their free download of the day.

it's his track "animal" remixed by peter bjorn and john.

listen here:

download here.

lusine

the folks over at ghostly international describe lusine the best. the man known as lusine has been producing his visceral, melodic strain of abstract electronic music for 10 years now.

i'm not even going to try to describe what type of melody he reveals through himself. listen to it for yourself.

this woman's work

had i been active with posts the past few weeks, i would have probably only been talking about maxwell lately. his new album is just nearly flawless.

take "this woman's work" an older track by maxwell and put it into visual choreography, and you really get something pretty magical. i can't say i have ever watched the show so you think you can dance, but this video shared to me by a friend is something else.

mc hammer flash mob

kind of randomly interesting. a bunch of people in gold mc hammer pants decide to flash mob at a skinny jeans sample sale.

tone matrix

came across this on another blog. it's pretty unbelievably fantastic. it's called the tone matrix, developed by andre michelle. http://blog.andre-michelle.com

it's described rather simply: simple sinewave synthesizer triggered by an ordinary 16step sequencer. each triggered step causes a force on the underlaying wave-map, which makes it more cute.

might sound a little odd...but try it here. turn those speakers on.

http://lab.andre-michelle.com/tonematrix

turntables + violin = ?

going in step with the previous post...check out this cat on the violin with the dj in the back, putting together some perfect melodies for some classic hip hop tracks.

flutebox & beardyman

some of uk's finest beatboxers. i don't think it gets any better than this.

the best is the last piece when they do it together. "the only thing that they had to protect themselves against the beasts of the jungle is that most fundamental of human capacities...rhythm."

dark night of the soul

here's another pretty spectacular album.

it comes out next week. it's definitely been called one of the most mysterious projects of 2009. a little odd for an album, i know. but check it. it's been this top secret collab between danger mouse (grey album, gnarls barkley) and mark linkous of sparklehourse (does a lot of production for radiohead). and somehow, they pulled in gangster filmmake david lynch in to put together a really interesting album. it's a very acquired taste per se, but definitely worth the listen.

it's pretty crazy. so the album is supposed to be released with a book of photos by david lynch. but there's a bunch of legal disputes between multiple labels and there's even discussion that the album may never be officially released. but they are going to release the book of photos with a blank recordable cd. the cd's will be labeled "for legal reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. use it as you will."

here's an article on NPR that talks about the album, and how it developed. the album is also streamed on this site.

you can also check out the project's official website: http://www.dnots.com/

pretty wings

it's been eight long long years since maxwell has put out a track. in 2001, he was known for the track "this woman's work" and somewhere between then and 1999, he put himself on the map with the remarkable single "fortunate."

things have changed since then, with the afro gone, but the neo-soul is there. maxwell is finally back. with an album slated for july, entitled "BLACK" maxwell has just released his first single in - i'm going to say it again, because maxwell is a musical genius - eight years. and it's about time.

and honestly, after listening to this track, it was definitely worth the wait. just last week he released the single and video, which in itself has it's own artistic essence even without the track. check out the video for "pretty wings."

stars and stripes project

this is unreal. adrian champion, a hip hop head tells a story on his site of how he came across the white stripes later than most people, and was fully enamored by their music. being a fan of hip hop, he realized he needed to do something so other hip hop fanatics who would maybe not even know who the white stripes were...would be educated.

so he did it. with samples and remixes.

with jay z, nas, mop, mos def, pharoah monche, busta rhymes, kanye west, redman, eminem, common, outkast, biggie and tupac. check out the trailer here:




you can download the album at www.starsandstripesproject.com

mean beat box

this kid is the best beat boxer i have ever seen.

love the future

chester french's album dropped yesterday, and it's superb. these two harvard school kids from boston have been making a lot of noise with their mixtape a couple weeks ago, and now their debut album off of pharrel's star trak records.

album's entitled "love the future."

an album you definitely need to go get.

kinda like a big deal

clipse always been on fire add kanye cocky rap and you get this

r. les/fab/keri hilson

really nice studio session


Ryan, Fab & Keri Studio Session from Ryan Leslie on Vimeo.

chocolate box

i don't think prince will ever stop making music. he may change his name again...but the music will never stop. here's his new video...featuring q-tip in the video...unfortunately, q-tip doesn't have a flow on it...which woulda been pretty smooth.

ebrahim

a friend resurrected one of those unknown artists for me today. soulful dude, remarkable voice and perfect beats on the album.

but nevermind the album for a minute, and check out this quick video of him on his mixer...making magic happen

OOO

check out this video created by a video blogger, the juzzard.

all he used was ink on white pieces of paper, scanned and inverted...nothing tricky, just genius creativity.

love sex magic

im sure the world has already seen this video... but here is the official video anyway put out today.