blackout!

I'm going to get to putting up Karriem Riggins' mix from last week's Benji B soon, people - I'm just very damn busy so not many posts recently. At least I'm still doing FLFD, people!

One of the things Riggins played on said mix was some unreleased Black Thought from Masterpiece Theatre - i.e. the unreleased solo album he did that got scrapped in favour of The Roots' Phrenology (if I remember correctly, I think "Rollin' With Heat" was originally supposed to be from that). I think the track's with Madlib? Anyway, I'll have it up soon. And here's a goodie that I forgot to post about last week:

Black Thought - The Professional

On other related Black Thought stuff, if you haven't yet seen that cipher with him, Eminem and Mos Def, stop being an idiot and click here already. And click on this old freestyle vid of Black and ?uestlove minus an afro. Weird.

swoosh

Because I'm ridiculous and have my opinion formed fully by Nah Right [/sarcasm], I've been playing a lot of US hip-hop golden boy Drake recently. So Far Gone is my shit, I'm not going to lie, especially when it goes back and forth between the more laidback, almost drowsy material ("Houstlantavegas", "Sooner Than Later", "Successful") and the massive sounding summer smashes - namely "Best I Ever Had" with its video with, well, good looking women. (Really good looking women. True story.)

So my first reaction to the cover/reimagining of the song by Donna, Anna & Ruby was "EUGH THIS IS LIKE THE LIVE LOUNGE GODDAMMIT" before it started seeming pretty sweet, with those new lyrics and all that stuff. It sounds a bit like the song can end at any point and you'll continue singing along, which is both a testament to Drake's original and the cover version.

Donna, Anna & Ruby - Best I Ever Had

(via Cover Me)

And while we're on the topic of Drake, the made-to-be-massive posse cut "Forever" featuring Kanye West, Lil Wayne and Eminem leaked last week and Tom Breihan went in for Pitchfork. Ouch. Low reviews and general spreading of apathy aside, the song's allowed me to annoy my girlfriend with a brand new catchphrase: "I'm shuttin' shit down in the maaaaaaaalll". And for me, that's priceless.

Drake ft. Kanye West, Lil Wayne & Eminem - Forever

The FADER cover story that the photo above is taken from is worth reading if you hven't peeked yet. Click here.