This is the first time I’ve blogged anything in a long ass time. The 9-to-5 life had me all but discard of this domain name, but alas, we’re still alive! I came back here to announce that we’re proud to present our next show, featuring DC’s own Fat Trel. Check the flyer out above! Crazy, right!?

I blogged about Trel pretty in-depth a little over a year ago (check that here). While bigger names Wale and Tabi Bonney have worked diligently to put DC hip-hop on the map, Trel has been too, just a little differently. Trel’s been in the trenches (read: the studio), perfecting his craft and killing open mics and murdering shows across the country when time permits. Sure, the noise hasn’t been as loud (although it did garner some attention from Cash Money CEO Bryan “Baby” Williams aka Birdman, some big magazines, and a bunch of labels), but you’re about to hear it.

You may have caught Trel at DC’s Vitamin Water Uncapped show alongside Rye Rye, Wale and X.O. earlier this year (I was in there. It was wild!). If you missed it, here’s some footage:

He’s only 20, but his talent as a musician is unparalleled by most. I wouldn’t have said that before yesterday, when the DC to BC team hit the practice site for Krank Factory, the electrifying band that will be backing Trel on stage. He told us it was his first real time rocking with a band that wasn’t a go-go band, but watching him work, you would think he’s a vet. Adding his input for when the guitar should solo on a track, communicating with the lead keyboardists to figure out how to recreate the synth sounds for the live performance. He was doing all that. They jammed out for like 6 hours straight and didn’t even seem tired. That’s an artist if I ever seen one.

I don’t need to sell you on anything else except his actual music, which is what the compilation that we’ve put together will do. It’s called The Set List, and it’s (give or take a few surprises!) the exact same set list that all 500 fans will experience on Sunday evening. We curated it and finalized it with Trel before we gave it to you guys. We hope to gain Trel some new supporters through this mix; you can download this today and know all the words by Sunday. Lol. But really though, we think this could be a cool new way of experiencing music as a new fan. The old fans already know what’s up, but it’s worth a download because it features a lot of his crazy thumpers on one compilation. The best part for both old and new? It’ll sound completely different (but equally as awesome) with a live band.

The entire point of this blog post was to give you guys an exclusive. So here it is, “Nightmare”, the introduction to his heavily anticipated mixtape Nightmare on E Street, dropping at the top of 2012. Enjoy.

DOWNLOAD: Fat Trel – Nightmare [DC to BC EXCLUSIVE! PLEASE TURN THOSE SPEAKERS UP!]

DOWNLOAD: Fat Trel’s Nightmare Before Christmas – The Set List [Mix Compilation]

I’ll have the streaming version of The Set List shortly for those who can’t download. Gimme like 30 minutes. I gotta find some food. For those in DC, see you guys on Sunday (grab tickets here!). For those who aren’t there, we’ll definitely document that joint for you!

I hit NY every once in a while to check in with my folks out there. Since graduation, probably 75% of my really good childhood friends have relocated there. I also gotta dap up those who held me down when I was a newbie to NY, living in Aris’ cozy apartment in the back room and taking the J train to Complex every day, almost always late. I miss NY just typing about it.

One of the guys who looks out the most for me in NY do or die is my bruv Callender (pictured above). I swear to Allah, this man walked about 75 feet, from one spot to another in the Lower East Side, and dapped up 7 people. THAT RATE IS ASTONISHING! I’m talking everybody from the local panhandler to that chick of Caucasian persuasion who looks fly and you don’t know what she does until you find out she designed the entire Fall season of some designer that you’ve heard of but can never afford. “We do laundry at the same place,” Callender explained.

Bare with me. I’m just tryna get my mojo back out here.

Callender took me out to lunch and I brought up this dude Rocky who  he works with and had put me onto back before there was a “ASAP” in front of his  name. Honestly, I wasn’t a huge fan of everything that I heard from him, but I did recognize his charisma and was waiting to hear something that I couldn’t stop listening to. He told me some new jams would be dropping extremely soon. But everybody says that.

Then I was on Twitter a couple days and I saw that my man Noz of Cocaine Blunts fame (as well as every epic hip-hop article, internet or print, of recent) had posted this video that I’m about to make you watch on The Fader.  It’s now 2 AM on a work night. If this whole song and video wasn’t that tight, I woulda been sleep 15 minutes ago. Right? Right.

I rock with Rocky cuz he has a lot of swag. I don’t really care if people think that word is overused, because it’s so appropriate. A Harlem kid with golds in his mouth, permed hair braided up like a left coast legend? That’s crazy.  He pays homage to that Houston movement with a chopped up, not slopped up jammy jam that’ll make you think you just sipped some purple drink once you press play. Lemme know what you think. Just swag rap, don’t expect to learn anything except how he has the boppas goin’ crazy. Just remember, this is a New York rapper. Keep that in mind. New York rarely gives the South respect. There’s something pretty major here.

If the tape is vicious, I’ll throw it up here. Drops end of this month, I believe! Download the MP3 too. You know you want this in your iTunes.

DOWNLOAD: ASAP Rocky – Purple Swag

Chip covers my favorite Bone Thugs song, “Days Of Our Livez”, and sounds just like his Ohio forefathers, almost to a T (Editor’s Note: NO idea what “to a T” means, but felt like I should throw it in here!). This is a smooth way to round out Friday. His harmony game is kinda tight; sounds a lot like CuDi in the beginning of the track.

DOWNLOAD: Chip Tha Ripper – Don’t Come Into My Hood (Bone Thugs Cover)

I’m one of the guys on the east coast who stayed up and watched Tyler tweet the countdown until the debut of his new video for his track “Yonkers” dropped.

Odd Future. These guys are like…well, they’re like nothing else, really. My man Thiz wrote about Tyler and his cohorts for Madbury a while back, and the article was being discussed at great length in the cozy dorming quarters of Ope and my man Tobi somewhere on University of Maryland’s College Park campus. No joke, I was there and witnessed it. The power of the internet is undeniable. I say that to say this: these young abrasive Californians have talent mixed with a few other things that make them stand out like a fat guy at an eating disorder clinic. Watch below, and then do some research on Tyler and the rest of the Odd Future family. Their video are especially crazy. Like, crazy. But yeah, watch.

Oh yeah, and don’t think I forgot about their show in DC on Monday. I’ll be there, suckers. Let’s go.

I tweeted the other day that Ab-Soul was my favorite right now of the TDE. He reminds me of an early Eminem; it’s rare that rappers can convey humor in their bars, and Ab does it so easily. He’s super crafty with it!  ScHoolboy Q, Kendrick, and Ab are the guys  guys I jam; Jay Rock I’m not really a fan of…at all…no offense, he just doesn’t have bars like these guys in my opinion. My man Dave just freed this leak from his new tape, Long Term Mentality, which drops soon.

DOWNLOAD: Ab-Soul – Hell Yeah [feat. ScHoolboy Q]

I gotta throw in another joint he leaked recently.

BONUS: Ab-Soul – Tits N’ Ass [Cool Like That Flow] [This joint rocks. A lot. Ooh wee.]

If you like Ab, hit the internet and get his old tapes. They both go really hard.

Kendrick Lamar and Gucci Mane? Yes. They went around this the right way, and I won’t even spoil it. You’ll just have to listen. If you’ve heard the first version, and if you’ve heard him briefly refer to vanity slaves in “Michael Jordan”, then you already know what it’s about. Such a smooth beat, and definitely not ratchet like you’d expect from a track featuring a guy who just tatted a damn cone with three scoops of ice cream and a couple of blue lightning bolts to complete this inked masterpiece.

DOWNLOAD: Kendrick Lamar – Vanity Slave Pt. 2 [feat. Gucci Mane]

And just in case you haven’t seen Gucci’s tat…

“BRR!!!“

This may be my new favorite Theo Martins joint. He samples “You Can’t Blame Me” by Johnson, Hawkins, Tatum & Durr, which hardcore hip-hop heads probably heard flipped before on Reks‘ “Big Dreamers” and the tree climbers who were on that earlier Wiz Khalifa music heard on “When U Find” (which is my favorite Wiz song to date).

“I speak the issues that we all are under / but I also spread the faith that we can all recover.”

There’s some heat in this! Sounds like a heartfelt rap, dude. I really rock with this joint. Speaking of which, me and Theo just had a crazy awesome night in Philly last Saturday with the AnmlHse heads, and while I don’t have the means to throw all the pictures up, I’d like to direct you to AnmlHse’s site to check out some of them (there’s SO MANY GOOD PICTURES), and Theo’s site for you to catch his re-cap.

DOWNLOAD: Theo Martins – Lo-Fi Love [prod. by $port]

If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve already heard me sing this album’s praises. I bought ScHoolBoy Q‘s Setbacks off iTunes, and now he’s released a free version. The free version is shorter than the iTunes joint (couple different songs, and honestly, one of them is potentially a highlight on the tape…yikes…oh well!) Since he dropped the announcement on Twitter Nation, I figured I’d let those who don’t know of him or follow him to learn about him here.

Q’s got a charisma about him, man. His voice is unique, and he kills the majority of these tracks with his somewhat unorthodox rhyme scheme. Every song is pretty intense, too, as far as subject matter. When I play this album, I paint a vivid picture of this hazy, California hellhole. Lots of drug talk, but the stressful life that he seems to lead kind of explains it all. I love pretty much every beat on the album, and the only real problem I have with the project is that he didn’t put the one song that I blogged of his a while back on the joint. I understand the decision (it doesn’t really work with the entire “setbacks” concept), but that joint bumped.

All of the features are awesome. Top Dawg teammates Kendrick Lamar, Ab-Soul, and Jay Rock all have appearances (Kendrick actually has two, and the one on “LigHt Years AHead” is my favorite swag verse of his since I heard “Michael Jordan”) ***WOW! This song is NOT on the free version! Sorry, guys!*** BJ The Chicago Kid murders the hook on “I’m Good”, and in a great, great way.

I hate talking about music too much. Just listen to it. Thank me later. I rock with Q the long way. This album is the best thing to drop in January as far as hip-hop is concerned (that I’ve heard, anyway). Check out this video real quick, then grab the whole project via the link below. Oh, and shout out to @daveisfree.

DOWNLOAD: ScHoolBoy Q – Setbacks [ALBUM]

You know I’m probably Fam-Lay‘s biggest supporter. Ever. This is my favorite joint he’s put out recently, but Fam…where’s the album at!?

“I will put you up in something that you can’t get out of / got n****s makin’ money, shootin’ guns and sniffin’ powder.”

Goodness. So raw.

Oooh, buddy! This is like an easter egg for die-hard N*E*R*D fanatics.

The album leaked yesterday. No, I will not share it. I will, however, toss you this extended version of one of the album’s highlights, “Inside The Clouds”, that made its way to the surface of the earth today. The album version was a huge tease to see what else they could have gone with the track, and lucky for us, they tossed us a full version, which is available on the Japanese edition of Nothing. This joint is reminiscent of those minor chord-heavy jams that were all over the first album.

So my marvelous Twitter follower @TGIME just hipped me to TheNeptunes.org article on this joint, which basically says that this dude just took a program to that regular version of “Inside of Clouds” and flipped it! This isn’t any official remix! There is, however, a snippet for a different song that is apparently a Amazon.com bonus track! Grab that here, and HUGE shout out to TheNeptunes.org for always being the most up-to-date on what’s going on with these guys. Enjoy.

DOWNLOAD: N*E*R*D – Inside of Clouds [Extended Version]

Oh, and the guys over at Madbury Club reviewed the album. I’m not pleased about their words, but I respect them, so I’ll let you guys see for yourself.

Madbury Club Reviews N*E*R*D’s Nothing