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.

If you know me, if you’ve been in my vehicle or been in my dorm room while I was in college, you’d know that my affinity for A.B. The Pro‘s music is probably unrivaled. I have a lot of confidence in this SE representer’s sound, and he’s my favorite artist on DC’s Studio 43 imprint. I felt like his mixtape he dropped back in ’09 was criminally slept on as far as production and the artists featured. You can tell that he cares a lot about putting DC on the map, and he without a doubt brought out the best in artists that otherwise may not have been able to convince you of their talent. In my eyes, “Stussy on My Back” with Young Marley could have been a local smash if the proper push was behind it (Stussy could have easily jumped on that joint and licensed it out and more money could have been made!), but 43 made the poor decision to push “W On The Fitted” instead, which was by far the worst joint on the entire tape. No offense to any of the artists on that track, but…that joint was so weak.  But hey. I’m not hear to chastise too much. That’s the past. We’re on to the future.

A.B. let me hold an early version of the mixtape to give him some feedback and criticism, and it’s so awesome to see that not only did he take it well, but he actually listened to the majority of what I said! Swapped some songs out, changed the tracklisting, and dropped a lot of freestyles over industry beats. In order to give you A.B. as an artist as opposed to just a producer, I feel like he needs to rap over his own $#!t. The one thing that I wished he did was to start the album with “Young Jimi Hendrix” (which is the first preview I’m gonna give you), or at least make that joint #2! It goes way too hard and kinda introduces you to what the entire album is gonna be like. Besides that, I don’t have too many gripes. The beats are mixed and mastered to thump in the vehicle or through your headphones, he has some club bangers that’ll make you raise an eyebrow and wonder why he doesn’t have stuff on the radio (or with bigger artists outside of DC, to be completely honest), and while he’s not exactly a rapper, you can’t be mad at his lyrics, cuz it’s all stuff people can relate to.

DC is proud of this, but I’m tryna make sure everybody beyond DC hears this product. Featuring a lot of untapped and under appreciated talent that you can read about on the back cover, this is a really good project that I’m proud to have been a fake-me-out A&R on, lol. Nah but really. Jam the previews, and then grab it below.

DOWNLOAD: A.B. The Pro – Crown Vic Music [Mixtape]

My boys over at Pocket Full of Paper have been relentlessly working with one of their PFOP artists on a pretty damn good mixtape that I got two days ago, and it’s bumped ScHoolBoy Q and Trel over for a bit as far as my regular rotation. It’s February, so why not open your ears up to something completely different. Jersey’s own MoShadee drops Grove Street, a candid, telling project that I’d call more of an album than a mixtape to be 100% with you. I’ll let him do the rest of the talking.

Grove Street is the block I grew up on. Even though this is my second project, I feel as though this is a better introduction of who I am. I lived on Grove for eleven years. From the tender age of five up until my teenagers years. All the memories and lessons I’ve had while living there have been summed up and put into this tape. Not everything is Grove Street related, but the overall feel brings me back to those days. My best work yet, I’m sure listeners will feel the same.

I say grab this tape. The beats will entice you, and then once you start bobbing your head, you’ll realize he’s talking about some stuff that you probably went through! I got some tracks for you to preview, and then if you rock with ‘em, the DL link is below. I’ll give you one hard track and one soft joint, just to show you the range of sounds on this tape.

DOWNLOAD: MoShadee – Grove Street [Mixtape]

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]

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.

An article in Atlanta’s Creative Loafing informed me that the three ATLiens that make up the alternative rap group Supreeme have disbanded and gone their separate ways. These guys were always interesting to me, as they all had completely unique flows but could come together on a track and it worked.

Word on the streets is that Sam (the white dude in the group) is going to cooking school, Negashi (middle with the tank top) moved to Oakland and is coming out with a solo album. Shaka? Well, this interview explains how things went down from his point of view, and it looks like he was all for staying together. Probably one of the saddest music industry things I’ve heard in a while.

With the announcement of the group’s end came their final album, God Bless The Child, which has some cool joints on it. Very dark album though! Just look at that album artwork. My goodness. Jam the sample below (featuring my man Fat Tony), and then download the tape by clicking the link or the artwork. Enjoy.

DOWNLOAD: Supreeme – God Bless The Child [Album]

My brothers Christian Rich gave me an exclusive early this morning, and I never get them, so this is kind of cool. The twins collaborated with Y-O from the left coast duo U-N-I, to give us some quality music that’ll likely be in rotation in that iTunes library heavy until you get the rest of the tape. It has this reggae/ska/dub feel to it, and the hook is something you’ll be humming in your kitchen while you’re cooking or walking around the city whistling. You know it’s trill if I posted it, because I haven’t posted music since before Obama was in the White House. So after the drop, jam it, download it, and spread the word like herpes wildfire.

DOWNLOAD: Christian Rich – Lady of the Night [feat. Y-O of U-N-I]

Also, if you can see that beautiful imagery above, it means you’re looking at their mixtape artwork. Yeah, I’m the same kid who said it was crazy to think that album art was worthy of a blog post. Except when it’s actually worthy of a blog post. That illustration is indicative of something monumental. Confused at all by what it’s depicting? Don’t worry! The twins broke down the meaning of their artwork for me this morning:

“The artwork meaning is simple. It’s about the word “Decadence,” which in part means decay, but also an uprising. So the cover depicts a world where the people at the bottom are decaying and the people closer to the top are rising, hence a new start. As you see, the creatures at the bottom are crying and sad, while the ones above them are smiling and crying tears of joy. We tried to recreate a fictional world to set the tone for “The Decadence.“

There you have it. Reminds me a bit of ‘Ye’s Graduation album art, as well as the illustration style from Fern Gully. I know you remember that flick, so don’t fake on me now. The Decadence is hosted by Clinton Sparks and Mick Boogie, and will feature Pharrell Williams, Pusha T, Peter, Bjorn and John, DJ Benzi, U-N-I, and more. It drops May 31st, so mark your calendars