Excellent blend tape of well known and more obscure Camp Lo accapellas remixed with original production (they ungayed Lumdi!!!), made even more worthwhile by a smattering of some great new exclusive freestyles over classic Pete Rock tracks. The content is very solid, and it’s elevated by spot on execution – smooth mixing, impeccable progression, uniform tone kept throughout, very little DJ interference – this thing is put together damn well. Honestly, considering how in recent years Camp Lo have done better on random freestyles and features than on their own official albums, I’m wondering if some of the stuff here will actually surpass the album the mixtape is meant to promote.

Stream the whole thing via soundcloud:
Camp Lo/Pete Rock-80 Blocks from Tiffany’s mixtape by djtrackstar

DOWNLOAD LINK 1 / DOWNLOAD LINK 2

via TSS
Full tracklist below the jump

I’m pretty sure this is the kind of music Jay-Z plays when it’s his turn to host the monthly Illuminati picnic.

DOWNLOAD: Cradle Orchestra – Imported Nights ft. Camp Lo

Cradle Orchestra are a Japanese instrumental neoclassical/souljazz outfit, their latest album features a bunch of familiar faces aside from Lo, you can check it out on itunes.

via Whiskey Teeth

I found these just casually cold lamping on a disc 2 of a random 2007(?) Best of Camp Lo compilation. That disc is kinda weird, I’m not sure how it qualifies as a ‘best of’ considering that many of the featured tracks are rather obscure. Anyway, the songs below are the standouts of the bunch.

Both of these show Lo at their ethereal best and by demo standards the sound quality is better than average. This particular version of Coolie High is actually the fourth ‘official’ permutation of the song (the others – 1, 2, 3), being fairly different from both the album version and the 2 remixes. I’m curious how much similar material Ski has laying around in the vaults, hopefully his recent resurgence will bring some of it to the surface. Uptown Saturday Night is due for a deluxe reissue treatment anyway.

DOWNLOAD: Camp Lo – Coolie High (Demo)

DOWNLOAD: Camp Lo – Bubblin (Anita Demo)

Just for the hell of it, here’s the Camp Lo version of Feelin’ It. The story of how Jay Z ended up with this beat is now stuff of internet canon and the song has been around for a while, but I still never skip it when it randomly pops up on the ipod.

DOWNLOAD: Camp Lo – Feelin’ It

As we continue on, our Sounds Like Summer series adds another volume while the humidex/heat index pushes past 100 in the north east. Somethin’ for your car, somethin’ for your hangout spot, or just somethin’ for you to chill to. Hella shouts to dirt_dog from TROY for the artwork. Download link, tracklist and links to the rest of the series after the jump.

— Snoop Bloggy Blogg

Sounds Like Summer – Volume Three

Download Now

01 Dr Dre ft Snoop Doggy Dogg, Daz and George Clinton – Let Me Ride (Extended mix)
02 Outkast – Rosa Parks
03 Camp Lo – Luchini (a.k.a. This Is It)
04 Lord Tariq & Peter Gunz – Deja Vu (Uptown Baby)
05 Ill Al Skratch – Where My Homiez
06 Fabolous ft Nate Dogg – Can’t Deny It
07 2Pac ft Dr Dre and Roger Troutman – California Love (Extended Mix)
08 Dam Funk – Hood Pass Intact
09 Da Brat – Give It 2 You
10 Main Source – Just Hangin’ Out
11 ERule – Listen Up
12 E-40 – Hope I Don’t Go Back
13 The Diplomats – Dipset Anthem
14 Kanye West ft T-Pain – Good Life
15 Ludacris ft Bobby Valentino – Pimpin’ All Over the World
16 Mos Def – Travellin’ Man

(click pics for links)

2009 the year of the duck…

There is this duck who lives on the corner of Allerton Avenue in the Bronx who became sort of my best friend and encompassed a hell of a lot about what the year was like for me, what the fuck right?

Well let me explain, see I still make music full time “somehow” despite it being extremely hard to do. I’ve some how managed, save for the occasional bouncer/porter job and trips to Belmont and Saratoga Parks’ I made it through another one on music by the skin of my teeth. Mostly by not going near Manhattan and smoking more regs than exotics so all in all it was s good year. I made quite a lot of music in 09 in hopes of a long overdue (for me) 2010 release, we will see. One thing is for sure, music got made.

Which brings me to Music in 2009 on a whole, strangely I was forced to listen to the radio this year more than any year I can recently remember, simply for the fact that their were very few independent records that I was able get through. So I heard a lot of Kanye, Beyonce, Wayne and Drake and way to little of New York Mc’s. Yes I know, “Empire State of Mind”… well that song would be scared to sit on the same train as “New York State of Mind” so yeah that didn’t do much for me.

Warning elitist rant approaching: There’s actually a note change in the hook of “ESNY” that makes me fucking cringe, as if Alicia Keys decided to channel Charles Mingus and throw some off note, planned accident shit in there only problem is there is singing in key of other things happening and it’s a super dense part of the song, so please do me a favor Hun, lay off the Smack if your not actually on smack playing a style of music that is sparse enough to allow that, to a room full of people on smack. Thanks in advance.

Anyway back to 09: It seems to me the oft over looked yet glaring tragedy of the whole music business collapse is that, if there is no smaller stores or even major chains now, that might take things on consignment and indy labels have to play things so tight to the vest that they can’t release the amount of records they once did, where does the alternative music listener go to find something they feel good about supporting and actually speaks to their rebellion or even what little is left of the movement they fought so hard to cultivate? The internet? Yeah well, that’s not even a real place and while it is easier for artists to utilize the nets to reach people and ultimately offers more opportunity for different artists to be heard than ever, it’s super- passive in nature and in many ways more polarized than a Beverly Hills High School cafeteria with its social networking sites and Hip of the Day blogs, oh and it’s also completely superficial in nature, not saying it’s not the main line to music in ’09, but if we take an example of the internet as a barometer for what music music listeners want Somaya Reece is getting more love as a rapper than Freeway, so yeah, not so much. Remember the Duck.

I won’t bore you with remedies for the ill or what I think should be done because that involves burning buildings down and making Chuck D and RZA joint music Czars who oversee all aspects of what major record labels put out of course they’d have to consult the few independent label heads left who have persevered through it all as sort of rap music war generals, this is my fuel. I almost wish I hadn’t lived through the Sleeping Bag, Cold Chillin’, early-Def Jam era so that I wouldn’t be so damn bitter in the ’09…..not.

’09 Highlights for me personally: I played a bunch of shows this year with Aes that actually made me feel really fucking good about things, notably early in the year in Toronto with Camp Lo (my actual neighborhood heroes), Red Rocks with Atmosphere and Murs and then a festival in Pomona California. That one was mainly for the drunken hilarity that ensued post show (Slug). So all in all if I’m fueled by a longing for better music to be more widely embraced than I’m driven by the amount of people who actually check for those of us who have stuck with it for so long and come out to see me, really my friends but the support just seems to grow and seeing kids who now have been listening to me in some sort of incarnation for 10 plus years is incredibly rewarding. I only hope to not make a record that makes you stop checking for me. The Duck….

Now about that duck, this is a fucking huge duck, like a movie duck not like a mallard, like a fucking snow white swan/goose king dick duck and he just sits in this ghetto ass fenced-in yard about 5-by-5 in the middle of a not so pleasant area chilling all day all night. He’s been there for at least 6 years and this year it dawned upon me that duck is maybe the only thing that is a perfect example of why shit is what it is and to keep going. Many a nights on my exorcising I think fuck this shit, I should of went to school, got a job, not do drugs or at least not that much of any of the shit that made me who I am and then I see The Duck and he kind of looks at me like, bro you know what? Look at me, I’m a duck, do you see any other fucking ducks around here? Well I’m supposed to be a fucking Duck so that’s what I am and your supposed to be what you are so be it. so it all makes sense for a second.

Lets go 2010.
________________________

A tip of the hat to Rob Sonic. More Rob Sonic here.

Peace,
Employee

P.S. – If you’ve never heard this song, you need to:

Fuck yeah!!! From Stone & Rob: Caught On Tape.

Peace,
Employee

01-lupe_fiasco-fire.mp3
02-black_thought-philly_boy.mp3
03-freddie_gibbs-im_that_nigga.mp3
04-royce_da_59-something_2_ride_2_feat_phonte.mp3
05-fashawn-ecology.mp3
06-cormega-define_yourself_(feat._tragedy_havoc).mp3
07-young_jeezy-i_got_this.mp3
08-camp_lo-uptown_(remix).mp3
09-royce_da_59-hood_love_(feat._bun_b__joell_ortiz).mp3
10-murs-eighteen_to_twenty_one.mp3
11-buckshot_and_sean_price-the_feeling.mp3
12-big_boi-shine_blockas_(feat._gucci_mane).mp3
13-cormega-rapture.mp3
14-curren$y-the_dossier.mp3
15-camp_lo-black_connect_3.mp3
16-le$-somethin_like_a_pimp.mp3
17-usda-bag_music_(feat._young_jeezy).mp3
18-crooked_i-guess_whos_back_(feat._snoop_dogg).mp3
19-timbaland-say_something_(feat._drake).mp3
20-sean_price-figure_four.mp3
21-curren$y-on_my_way.mp3

Download Mix

About a week and a half ago Nahright premiered the video for Son of A… as part of their One Shot series. Now with some internet magic here’s is the mp3.

Camp Lo – Son of A…

For the original Nah Right post and the video go here