Estevan Oriol X Upper Playground Capsule Collection

POSTED BY: Uno ON March 15, 2012

Los Angeles based street-photographer, Estevan Oriol and San Francisco streetwear boutique, Upper Playground drop a line of 9 t-shirts featuring some fine ass women on them. Even if you can’t ever get close to women of this caliber, these shirts will always make sure you keep a stable of them on you. Click here to check out the whole line.

Doomtree Releases “Bangarang Video” and kicks off US Tour

POSTED BY: Uno ON January 20, 2012

To help kick off their ‘No Kings Tour,’ which starts today, Doomtree has released a new video for “Bangarang.” The video features the karaoke stylings of Har Mar Superstar and is sure to entertain. The track comes off of their new album No Kings available now. The crew was also recently named one of ’12 Artists to Watch in 2012′ by AOL. Make sure you don’t miss Doomtree live when they hit a city near you. Tour dates listed below.

Doomtree’s super producer Lazerbeak’s new instrumental album LAVA BANGERS comes out 1/24 and today over at 2Dopeboyz a new track “Bully / Ay Bay Bee” premiered. Lazerbeak will perform an opening set every night on tour before the full crew hits the stage.

Doomtree No Kings Tour Dates
1/19 – The Granada Theatre – Lawrence, KS
1/20 – Mojo’s – Columbia, MO
1/21 – The Waiting Room – Omaha, NE
1/22 – The Summit Music Hall – Denver, CO
1/23 – Urban Lounge – Salt Lake City, UT
1/24 – Neurolux – Boise, ID
1/26 – Branx – Portland, OR
1/27 – The Crocodile – Seattle, WA
1/28 – Fortune Sound Club – Vancouver, BC
1/29 – WOW Hall – Eugene, OR
1/31 – Slim’s – San Francisco, CA
2/01 – Catalyst Atrium – Santa Cruz, CA
2/02 – The Troubadour – West Hollywood, CA
2/03 – The Casbah – San Diego, CA
2/04 – Chasers – Scottsdale, AZ
2/06 – Wrecker’s – Lubbock, TX
2/07 – Dan’s Silverleaf – Denton, TX
2/08 – Fitzgerald’s Downstairs – Houston, TX
2/09 – One Eyed Jacks – New Orleans, LA
2/10 – Bottletree Café – Birmingham, AL
2/11 – Drunken Unicorn – Atlanta, GA
2/12- Local 506 – Chapel Hill, NC
2/13 – Rock and Roll Hotel – Washington, DC
2/15 – Union Transfer – Philadelphia, PA
2/16 – Bowery Ballroom – New York, NY
2/17 – The Middle East – Downstairs- Cambridge, MA
2/18 – II Motore – Montreal, QC
2/19 – Sneaky Dee’s – Toronto, ON
2/20 – Shadow Lounge – Pittsburgh, PA
2/21 – Beachland Ballroom – Cleveland, OH
2/22 – Blind Pig – Ann Arbor, MI
2/23 – The Bottom Lounge – Chicago, IL
2/25 – Turner Hall – Milwaukee, WI
2/29 – Northern Michigan University, Great Lakes Room – Marquette, MI
3/07 – Blue Moose Tap House – Iowa City, IA
3/08 – The Maintenance Shop – Ames, IA
3/09 – Union South, The Sett – Madison, WI
3/10 – The Firebird – St. Louis, MO
3/11 – The Eclipse – Tulsa, OK
3/12 – Media Star Entertainment Hall – Shreveport, LA
3/19 – Conservatory – Oklahoma City, OK
3/20 – The Scene-ary – Wichita, KS

From Akai’s YouTube page:
MPC Studio offers the most streamlined MPC experience yet. At under one-inch thin, with low-profile controls and a brushed aluminum body, it’s made to move. MPC Studio merges real MPC pads, iconic workflow, and the same MPC Software used by MPC Renaissance to give you a fully integrated portable production solution.

Welcome to production anywhere. The world is now your studio.

The Black Keys, Radiohead, Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg will headline two weekends of concerts at The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.

Organizers of the Indio, Calif., music festival on Monday announced a dizzying list of top musicians who are slated to perform over two long weekends, April 13-15 and April 20-22.

The six-day concert schedule marks the first time Coachella is to extend over two consecutive weekends.

In addition to the headliners, more than 100 bands are expected to perform at the shows, including Arctic Monkeys, The Shins, Bon Iver, Pulp, Florence and the Machine, Beirut, At The Drive In, Cat Power and ska legends Madness.

Tickets go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. PST and start at $285 for a festival pass.

___

Online:

The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, www.coachella.com

Source: SFGate.com

Pep Love Announces New Album Rigmarole For March 6 Release

POSTED BY: Uno ON

Pep Love is excited to announce the release of his new album, Rigmarole. Despite having appeared on other artists’ albums and touring heavily, this marks his first official solo album in 11 years. Rigmarole will be released March 6th via Hieroglyphics Imperium.

Founding Hieroglyphics group member Pep Love last released a solo project in 2001, and while that album, Ascension, is now considered one of the finest releases to come from the Hiero crew, Pep’s new album Rigmarole is all about growth. “Most of Rigmarole was recorded during a time in my life when the music I was making was one of the few things that was actually working,” explains Pep. “It was therapy; it made me feel better. So there was a lot of learning, personal growth, and healing that continues to this very day. I was focused on where I was headed as a human being more than as a rapper or recording artist. But in the process, I reinvented myself as an artist and discovered my love for what I do.”

The album title, Rigmarole, was similarly inspired by Pep’s quest to evolve as a person. “The word ‘rigmarole,’” he notes, “means the necessary steps or process that one must go through to achieve a certain end. With my Rigmarole, then, it speaks to the process that I went through and go through as an individual and an artist – and also to the greater process of cultural evolution that hip-hop and society is experiencing.”

Tracks like the Unjust produced “Reflections” reflect this concept of therapy and self-awareness, as Pep describes the song as “one of those old clock watches that a hypnotist would use to take you to a state of trance.” Then there’s “Runaway Slave,” on which Pep details the process of bettering himself as both an individual and artist through the use of clever and creative metaphors.

And with these songs, and the album as a whole, Pep wants listeners to view the work as a new representation who he is as both a man and artist, rather than compare and contrast it against his previous work. “Rigmarole isn’t a progression from my last album; if anything, it’s a deviation,” explains Pep. “This album is less about what I’m saying and more about what I went through to get it done. It wasn’t created with the intention of living up to anything else.”

Rapper Freddie Gibbs got his stash by airport security… kind of.

The baggage screeners at the Denver airport found a half ounce of weed in his luggage and scribbled him the words “C’mon son” on the screening notice.

Gibbs tweeted a photo:

Rapper Freddie Gibbs got his stash by airport security… kind of.

The baggage screeners at the Denver airport found a half ounce of weed in his luggage and scribbled him the words “C’mon son” on the screening notice.

Gibbs tweeted a photo:

“The TSA found my weed and let me keep it,” he wrote. “They just left me a note. ‘C’mon Son.’”

Houston rapper Bun B, who’s collaborated with Freddie Gibbs in the past, replied on Twitter, “easy…”

A gangster rapper, Gibbs hasn’t really hidden his smoking habit. He talks about drug-dealing in his lyrics and gets high before shows.

“I definitely smoke weed, pray, and just rap to myself and pace around. Just get in the mode for the show,” he told NPR. “What’s the last thing I do before I go onstage? Smoke weed.”

Sharing the note on Twitter, though, may mean some lenient TSA employee gets fired, which happened in a case earlier this year where a screener left a freaky note for a woman who had a vibrator in her bag.

Source: SFGate.com

With the number of unsolved famous hip-hop murder cases nearing double digits with 2Pac and the late Notorious B.I.G., new reports claim an informant is ready to come forward and identify someone responsible for late rapper Mac Dre’s 2004 death.

Reports claim a Missouri writer has information relating to Dre’s fatal Kansas City shooting.

In a statement obtained by MTV News, Kansas City writer Alonzo Washington announced that he planned to hold a press conference in front of the Downtown Kansas City Police Department. Washington was asked by an anonymous male informant on December 8 to be introduced to the police department and, if his unspecified “terms and conditions” are met, the informant will reveal the name of a new person who he believes killed Mac Dre. After Mac Dre’s murder, Washington campaigned for an anti-snitching “Hip to Give Tips” movement via flyers and writing articles. It unfortunately didn’t prevent what would later be perceived as a retaliatory killing when Kansas City rapper Fat Tone (Anthony Watkins) was murdered in Las Vegas in 2005. (Rapfix)

Washington’s decision to come forward could possibly close the murder case for good.

“Mr. Washington is very excited about closing this murder case because it caused so many people to be killed behind rumors and hip-hop speculations,” reads the statement. Whether or not this proves to be the information that cracks the mystery, at least there might be some new motion in trying to solve the case of who silenced a talented artist far before his time. (Statement)

Mac Dre was fatally shot in early November 2004 following a concert.

When Wanda Salvatto heard Monday that her son was dead, she didn’t trust the news. After all, Andre Hicks — better known as Vallejo rapper Mac Dre — had been slain three times before, according to rumors. But at 4 p.m., Salvatto learned the latest buzz was true: Hicks, 34, was gunned down early Monday in a freeway shooting in Kansas City, Mo., where he was performing at a concert, police there said. No motive was immediately revealed. (San Francisco Gate)

Since his passing, Dre’s legacy has lived on through lyrics from hip-hop artists like Young Money’s Drake.

“I’m in the building and I’m feeling myself/Rest in peace Mac Dre, I’ma do it for the Bay/Okay, getting paid, we’ll holler whenever that stop.” (“The Motto”)