I had a music teacher tell me once that you can tell a real musician by how comfortable he is with his instrument (…pause). Freddie Mercury looks more comfortable on stage than B.B. King does with a guitar. He was a talented guy. If we can perform or put on a show half as good as Queen did in their day, then I’ll be happy. Real happy.
On a side note: My roommate kept playing covers of “Bohemian Rhapsody” today, and I thought to myself “this may be the only song that shouldn’t be covered.” Not because it’s like sacred or I’m an asshole purist, but because I can’t even envision how you’d even do it.
Beyond all that, I just wanted to share one of my favorite single performances ever.
Well now you do. I love these guys. I remember being in middle school when their first album dropped in America, and the song “Clint Eastwood” and the video absolutely hooked me. This was when MTV2 was just getting started and they were actually showing videos all day long.
This new track “Stylo” premiered on YouTube yesterday, and I was even more amped to find out that they have an album coming out next week already. This track also features Mos Def. Not sure I could ask for a better collabo myself.
By the way, Bruce Willis is having a big week. Starring in a movie that landed #2 for the weekend, and making a cameo in this video.
The demonstration above is unquestionable proof that we still have the power to make great change when we can assemble and speak out. I know we all lose any glimmer of “hope” sometimes, with the economy moving slow and Obama’s vision of change moving at an equally slow pace, but let this serve as a real inspiration to us all. These are real people, not paid-off Senators. These students all lived the change they wanted to see and showed no one is powerless in the face of “superiors.”
What happened?: On the UC San Diego campus, the Black Student Union organized a protest against the administration’s policy and inaction toward a school-sponsored news outlet that was harboring racist content. A very detailed list of grievances can be found here.
Even if the news isn’t with this group of students, we are, and it’s time we show the world the power of social media and its ability to unite people. We are not powerless. Especially as college students, we have much more power than we think. These students are an inspiration to me at Northeastern, and Brandon at the Art Institute.
Remember: We must always live the change we want to see.
Either way, it made my morning. I always love a Good Will Hunting reference, especially since I actually get them now. (I just saw the movie in full for the first time the other night)
As I was working on some beats before, I figured it would be good to check in with you guys on video, because it has been a little while. I also wanted to share with you something we found fun: making beats while sitting on a physio-ball. I mean, people sit around their offices on physio-balls, so why can’t I create music while defining my abs?
In addition to watching me produce on a physio-ball, you get a first listen of one of our new tracks.
Earlier today, Steve Garfield stopped by one of my classes at Northeastern to give a presentation on his approach to video blogging.
During the presentation, he did a quick live-stream of the class. Since I was sitting in the front, you got a big ole’ dose of Mark. Check it out above. Nothing really happens, but it’s me, and I always post things about us.
side note: I think we’re the first rap group not to Ustream ourselves in the studio or in the crib. We were in the classroom. We’re either dorks or ahead of our time.
After checking out his Twitter, I found out I was Twitpic’d as well.
After ROB’s video shoot last weekend there was a nice cypher afterwards. It was filmed by the man Will Gehrman. The Mc’s were ROB , Chaz, Cypha, Teddy Grahams and of course BlackHoodieRap was well represented. I (Brandon Dottin) spit a mash up of verses from two songs Mark and I were working on a couple weeks ago in Boston. After the jump there are a bunch of pics from the video shoot.
We're two guys who take hip-hop and push it past how you understand it. A mic and an MPC is all we need to bring some grit to your ears. It's not polished or about what we have, it's Black Hoodie Rap.
