The future is not now.

Peace,
Employee

Salute this man today.

Shout to Ithe Diggy for the video heads-up.

Peace,
Employee

As if the pretty boy invention needs any more face time. “Heeb” interviews the boiwondah and LOLs abound:

he attended a Jewish day school, and was even Bar Mitzvah’d (the song of the night was Backstreet Boys’s “I Want It That Way”).

Drake: The Heeb Interview

Peace,
Employee

Go away. Both of you.

Peace,
Employee

When Employee asked me to write one of these I was at a loss for what to talk about…as I often am when people ask me to tell them stories about where I go and what I do. It’s kind of a problem I have where I’m not as mindful of my accomplishments as I should be because I’m always trying to get to the next thing. I also hate qualifying. I’m the dude that’ll tell a hot bird my dayjob is picking up animal dookie at the petting zoo. However skimming through the writings of the other guys (except MB…I totally skipped that philabuster) made me get more perspective on my year. Then I wrote it and it was dumb long and I had a nightmare where I was pelted with “didn’t read” emoticons.

I started the year wasting my life at a job I hated and on some probation called “accelerated rehab” for some bullshit with a cop in July of 08 which means once it was over I still have no criminal record and can still get into the UK and Canada unless they call Interpol. I ended the year happy as fuck with no job, on unemployment, and officially free of a woman I now only refer to using words like “paramour” and “succubus.”

In between all that:

-I ran a half-marathon for Crohn’s Disease & Ulcerative Colitis raising over 4 stacks. It was an incredible experience. I met a lot of great people and after I get in more stable space I definitely want to do some more fundraising and running for them and maybe some other different causes.

-Had my first probation officer who was a fly young puerto rican woman that found me a bit too charming say “I can’t supervise you…for obvious reasons” and gave me that look, crossed her legs, and bit her lip ever so slightly. Yeah I feel like my life is a movie a lot.

-went to Disneyland & Disneyworld in the same month.

-rocked a show in a Frat House in St. Louis with my very good friend DJ Fishr Pryce. Bronz Nazareth was on the bill. It was mad fun wildin out with Asher Roth demographic. They made us honorary brothers and I made enough money to spread it out on the bed and bang that girl on top of it.

-had sex while driving 80 mph leaving Disneyworld for the airport. Don’t try this at home. Please I was temporarily insane when I did that and it was incredibly exhilarating, but don’t do it. Ever.

-attended WMC & SXSW. Still don’t see the point of either except that I got to kill shit with Fishr Pryce at SXSW. He’s my main touring dj and we didn’t get to rock together that much this year but we stay on some guerilla shit at SXSW. Last year we equipped his car with turntables and a speaker and just stopped the car and rocked whenever we felt like it.

-went on a US tour with Sole, Awol One, Ceschi, Factor, and more. There were some really fun shows and then there were nights like when someone came to the merch booth and asked me “don’t you feel honored to be sitting next to Sole?” ***blank stare***

-I shot a couple videos with my friend Awar and the talented Matt Hobbs of Vital Films. Felt good to finally have something visual that matched what goes on in my head for these rhymes I write.

-Recorded on original Ayatollah and Alchemist production.

-Went on another European tour with Dos-Noun the day me and the aforementioned female cut the cord and I basically did all the stupid shit I had stopped doing years ago. Bagged some French models, got invited to “Drunk & Sex Orgy” parties by a Czech porn star (I declined), and running into women from my past. It’s all a blur but man did we have fun. Well I had fun, Dos complained.

-Killed basically every show I did. I’m obviously not famous but whether you like what I do or not there’s something positive to be said about a rapper that can walk in a room full of people (whether it’s America or overseas) that don’t know his name, face, or music and can make people rock with him like they been fans for years. On some tin foil hat shit I discovered something I call the “Spirit of the Party.”

-I played a few festivals on my own merit. No co-signs. no nothing. Just me on the main stage killin shit. YES! I love when I get the shot. I always deliver.

-I opened for the Ying Yang Twins in Dublin. HAHAHAHAHHA. That is all.

-Partied with basketball players in Strausborg, France. I walked up to a club and they walked up behind me and I heard ‘em talkin and I’m like “what is y’all American?” and they was like word… and I’m like word me too and then I’m bout to pay for the club and they like “naw he with us” Rest of the night was like a rap video. I woke up in somebody’s crib like where am I and what happened? Got out in enough of time to catch the train to the next city. Another movie night.

-I lived in Prague for a summer in a penthouse. Hung out, partied, rocked shows, drank Czech beer, and enjoyed a psuedo celebrity lifestyle in which I gained a lot of weight. Good times.

-Reconnected with the homies Solillaquists of Sound. We did a couple shows and ultimately Swamburger and I decided we are doing an album that he fully produces and I rap. He brought me out for A3C in Atlanta and put me officially down with the Second Subject family. I kicked it in the new Solilla Manor, we knocked out a track and he threw me some beats. It’s going to be an interesting project because he is trying to get me to record in such a way that I sound the way I do live. He’s also trying to get me to harness and refine my many styles. I’m really looking forward to seeing what comes of this project.

-Got down with this label in London called Tape Records for my electronic project with a guy named Animals on Wheels. We’re called Robots with Hearts. They flew me out to London to do some media stuff, record, and attend the label launch. We recorded in SARM studios. If you can name someone famous that has recorded in London they have recorded there. In fact Shakira was in the studio while I was there as was the bassist for Jeff Beck. It was an incredible experience that I almost blew by staying out late partying with my homies in London. I dropped by the Foreign Beggars video shoot and ended up drunk in the middle of the street tryna get a cab to stop for me. Once I realized it was like 6am and I had a session at 11am and nothing written I went into a full scale panic that would render me retarded. The songs I recorded that day I think I did like 300 takes. Suffice to say I got a good night’s rest the following night and came in a lot more prepared. Then after what seemed like the millionth photo shoot I met Shakira briefly and went to sleep in an apartment they said Bob Marley slept in when he recorded there. Yep…my life is a movie. Oh yeah they dropped the vinyl EP for our record too and it’s on iTunes. Go get that.

-Went back out to Europe in November. American heads got me lookin at Europe like the ball players do. So I figured I’d jump over for 10 days and try out the new material before I brought it out at home. Sorta like trying out my new crossover on these cats before I bring it back to the league. I got down with the Herbaliser band for a couple shows. Rocked for a sold out crowd in Prague. 900 people.

Continuing with the basketball metaphor, rocking with the Herbaliser was the equivalent of coming off the bench for a championship team scoring 40 and sitting my ass back down watchin them win the game. Rumor has it we might do some more in the future. YES!

-I dropped a new album with Chum. I had a lot of fun making fun honest music with good lyrics and people that like to go out and party and come to shows love it. So I’ve succeeded in reintroducing myself (as MiC K!NG) to the people that actually go out to shows and enjoy music. People from my past that I haven’t seen in years are finally embracing what I do because of this record and this is just the outtakes from the main album. So I’m very happy and can’t wait to see what happens when the self-titled Cool-Aide album drops. Big shout out to Slug. Much appreciated. Big ups to Has-Lo as well (http://www.reverbnation.com/haslo). Shout out to Elzhi too, he’s very talented. Thank to you my best friend Ceschi and Fake Four. Thank you to everyone who is getting down and showing love. I’m indebted to you forever….and I truly appreciate you.

The one truly negative thing that happened in my world this year is I lost my grandmother. There’s not much I can/want say about that to convey the void it’s created but even so I have to say something. I’d never been to a funeral before. I’d never really lost a close relative before. So suffice to say my family and I were devestated in a lot of ways. But at the same time it pushed me to stop wasting time with a lot of things that ultimately don’t matter and just seize the moment. So through that overwhelming loss, I grew and although my grandmother is gone she taught me to keep perservering so that’s what I’ma keep on doing….

So yeah. 2009 is over and it was a great year. Time to make 2010 even better.

Thank you.

Peace

-MiC K!NG (fka iCON the Mic King)

p.s. Catch me on tour in Canada in January. I will be performing a set of Drake cover songs. Also US & European tours coming soon. Going to be EVERYWHERE in 2010.

______________________

A tip of the hat to iCon the Mic King. More iCon here, here and here.

Peace,
Employee

Okay……I unintentionally fucking lied. Hard (…pause…). Your notsohumble correspondent is in the buildin’ and he’s feelin’ someone else (with a vagina). 2009 was chock-full of digital bloodshed, bootlegging, hilarious homoeroticism, Dilla corpse pimpin’, self-censorship and other male estrogen tornadoes. This is the first in a three-part series dealing with twelve subjects (one subject for each month of the year…..clever as fuck, I know).


The Soccer Mom Movement

Jay-Z used this year to usher in a new era of mediocrity. Adding “mundane as a mawfucka” to his resume, we were all treated to the metrosexual extravaganza that is Blueprint 3. Let’s forget for a moment the fucking absurd promotional push that preceded BP3‘s reveal climaxing (no homo) with Hova’s appearance on Oprah Winfrey’s daily circus of an hour for white women. The true marker of an artist in decline: Discussing the intricacies of a cocaine distribution network to millions of women across the country discarding Lunchables packaging and counting Girl Scout cookies. The cherry on top, though, was Jay’s decision to pick the prettiest feather/Manchurian Candidate from America’s fedora and feature the miserable sack of shit on the miserable sack of shit titled “Off That.”. If you actually purchased this album, iTunes or the brick & mortar route, your 2010 will consist of manscaping regimens and bikini-cut underwear for men woven in Germany.

The Sexually & Emotionally Reinvented Indie Rapper

One name: Cage. I was admittedly hyped earlier in the year when I caught some YouTube footage of him rocking a new track at what looked like a fucked-up house party from the nineties you forgot about going to. But I guess that’s the splendor of the internet: It feeds your own delusion. I digress. Depart From Me , I imagine, is the closest humans will ever be to audibly witnessing, in the form of music, the angst of a menstrual cycle in a woman entering her early-twenties. This is a powerhouse of a project if you are fond of contrivances, confusion and high-gloss black nail polish. Why is this peculiar? A) Cage was the quintessential self-hating, drug-abusing, wishing-he-was-born-black poster boy not more than a new moon ago, B) There is no way on this planet or any other that Cage’s transition to Jello Biafra’s maxi pad wasn’t calculated in order to salvage a career and C) Pete Wentz’s stunt double is signed to a label helmed by an internationally respected MC and producer who is on record, hundreds of times over, condemning the same bullshit he’s now financing. All we can do now is embrace the audacity of reality and prepare for a new wave of Emo so powerful that both Brian Bosworth and Kool Herc will shed tears.

Time To Chew & Digest My Own Words

Before Felt 3: A Tribute to Rosie Perez even leaked, I wrote it off in harsh terms as an easy method for bank account padding utilized by the contributing entities. Let’s face it, folks: Does Slug sincerely need yet another series of greenback infusions from your teenage, female cousins? Is Murs in dire need of reaping the financial rewards for skirting the laws of political correctness and throwing up numerous affronts to feminism that would land any other rapper in hot water? Can Aesop Rock buy any more sweaters with large, striped, neutral-hued bands of complexity for rapping like a living, breathing, chopped & screwed dictionary? Needless to say, but I’m going to anyway, this volume of Felt is like a lost 3rd Bass LP from an upside-down dimension where the atmosphere (no fucking pun intended) is thick with Lexapro and pornography. Now I’ve personally never been a Sluggie. This isn’t to say I haven’t heard a handful of his songs that are above-the-cut, but not a rhymesayer (no fucking pun intended) I regularly listen to say rhymes. Murs was a favorite of mine pre-2000, but his output in da noo-noo millennium is kinda doo-doo fuh really, son. Aesop Rock, though: FUCK. His beats sound like they were constructed and sequenced by a pissed-off, pessimistic, pedantic-plus Prince Paul. Initially I assumed it was the element of surprise that ultimately grabs you in terms of the production. The second listen was when it took root that with some more ASR-fueled shit of this caliber, he has the capacity be as compelling with a sampler as he is with a microphone.

The Mother Fucker You’ve Never Heard Of Who Should Be All Up In Your Headphones

With damn near 1,000,000 calling it home, if you’ve lived here long enough you know San Jose is no larger than Mayberry to you. Enter 2 Left Feet. Formerly known to long-time residents as Kefing the Asiatic of the once almighty Epic Paradox. Granted, his subject matter and approach have changed to a certain degree. Yet and still he maintains a jovial accessibility and wit so many in his category lack in droves. It is this distinctness that bleeds into his music. Half-hustler/Half-Ho Slayer. All San Jose.

2 Left Feet

Until next time…..

Peace,
Employee

My disclaimer: I’ve taken the liberty of deciding for all of you that trudging through some half-assed, inferior, “End of the Year” smorgasbord of songs and situations of importance to me, Employee, would bore you to salty pretzel, heart-shaped tears comprised of an indescribable fury. That being said….I thought it would be lighter on the psyche if I asked as many different microphone megalomaniacs and sample slaughterers if they’d be benevolent by sharing their personal ruminations on the year that will soon be a calendar in the garbage. Nothing is edited.

Godamus Rhyme

Looking back on this year… I definitely have to say it was more positive than negative. On a personal level I had some really good ups. I also had some really shitty downs, but they were all money related and it’s a recession, so take that for what it is. I’m still broke, I’m still in Florida, and I still got a lot to accomplish.

As far as my career is concerned, I had a few milestones. First and foremost was the release of my mixtape The Adventures of Rhyme & Sense. It was my first serious attempt to break into the blogosphere and while it didn’t do as much as I might have dreamed, I did manage to do 1300+ downloads with only a few weeks of promotion and no buzz to speak of before hand. While in comparison to someone who does 10-20,000 downloads in their first week it might not seem much, but I pretty much got completely shutdown in my attempts to get any of the major blogs (2DBz, illRoots, Nah Right, etc.) to give it any play/placement. Apparently I suck at politics. The blogs that did support, did so wholeheartedly and gave me great feedback. For that I am grateful. Off the strength of that I managed to get my first print cover, my first west coast shows, a nice run of out of town gigs and some decent internet press.

I was also supposed to release two more projects before the end of the year, one of them being an EP with Philaflava & The T.R.O.Y. Blog called “Classically Trained.” If you’re reading this, you’ve probably heard The Philaflava Project which contained one of the songs from it, “Passin’ Me By.” Obviously, it’s not out yet and that is completely my fault. I wanted it done by July, but some serious writers block, plus some personal setbacks stretched out my timeline. I’m still working on it (sorry Jason) and I promise I will have it finished before spring if it kills me. I also intend on putting out another mixtape and I’m working on a full length album. Hopefully 2010 will see me much more productive than 09. I’m hoping to travel a lot more too.

But let’s be honest, I hate writing about myself and you probably hate reading about me. So let’s get to the state of Hip-Hop in 2009. I think some of the crappiest records I ever heard came out this year. Especially when lookin at the majors. The thing is, I also think some of the best shit I’ve heard in awhile dropped too. So here are my top 5 Reasons Hip-Hop Is Not Dead this year.

1. Mayday – Technology: This EP is my favorite release of the year hands down. If you aren’t familiar with this Miami based band, correct your mistake. It’s available for free on their bandcamp page. The homie Wrekonize is one of the two emcees in the group and his performance on this record is amazing. He raps with a lot of passion and great lyrics, but it turns out he’s also a great vocalist. (No Drizzy)

2. Diamond District – In the Ruff: This is great hip-hop. Grimy, traditional east coast boom bap with a DMV twist. Oddissee really shows his versatility as a producer, chopping breaks with the best of em, and showing a style on the boards that many would think he’d never use. All the emcees are great and mesh really well. One person told me he didn’t think any of the emcees really stood out, but isn’t that how a good group should function? Not one shinging, but all complementing each other and being greater together than apart?

3. The Foreign Exchange – Leave It All Behind: I know this isn’t a hip-hop record, but dammit, it’s Phonte & Nicolay. We all know what Connected was. These dudes really showed that you can completely switch your steez and if the product is dope, the fanbase will stick with you and grow. These dudes have been touring the globe all year and got nominated for the Grammies so they gotta be doing something right.

4. Slaughterhouse – Yeah, I know. I’ve heard it all before You hate Joe Budden. Royce has fallen off. Joell sucks. Crooked I shoulda stopped making records when Death Row dropped him… ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR GODDAMN SKULL?! Slaughterhouse is the proof that a super group can actually work. Yeah, the album wasn’t perfect. So fucking what? The streets were screaming for product and that’s what they gave them. Personally, I’m a fan of all four and I thought the album was great. Not perfect, but really good. What more could you ask for on short notice?

5. Drake – So Far Gone: Say what you want about him, but Drake has changed the game in 2009. I’m not saying he did it on his own. The Cash Money co-signs and big time management definitely helped. But how many times have we seen a well established, famous rapper co-sign someone new and untested only to have said rapper’s career go nowhere? Memphis Bleek? Willie Northpole? Streetlife? Gemini (Lupe fiasco’s homeboy)? Shit, look how fucking long it took for Consequence to get an album out and he was co-signed at the height of Tribe’s popularity. He got a US tour full of sold out dates (at $40 a ticket), multiple award nominations, and an unheard of record deal ALL OFF A MIXTAPE. And then, after he’d done all that, he re-released the mixtape in stores and is making money off the same shit he gave away. He’s shown us all what’s possible with some luck, hard work, knowing what works for you, and having a good team. What Drake did shouldn’t have been possible in 2009. But he did it.

6. *Bonus Track* – Charles Hamilton ether’d himself. Nuff said.

So with all that going on, I think it’s safe to say Hip-Hop is in a good place. The industry sucks and the Blogosphere has gone from being the new tastemakers to being the new radio, but it doesn’t matter. There’s a shit ton of variety out there if you’re willing to listen. The cats who are really talented and have a real work ethic won’t fall through the cracks. You may not become rich being a rapper anymore, but to quote the good brother Oddissee, “You can make a damn good living.”

__________________________

A tip of the hat to Godamus. For more on the man himself go here. Then download 6th Sense vs. Godamus Rhyme – The Adventures of Rhyme & Sense.

Peace,
Employee

The last straw. This video. Fucking Drake. Who the fuck is this guy and why in the fuck is Jay-Z giving him the seal of approval? Canada: TAKE THIS FANCY MOTHER FUCKER BACK. We, in the United States, will gladly accept a trade from the Canadian government as long as there is a clause in the agreement requiring Drake never again leave the confines of America’s hat. You cannot rap. I don’t know whose dick of gold you sucked. Fuck anyone who co-signs this bullshit, too.

I wouldn’t mind getting Jaz-O’s take on his former patna repping for this faux-spinal cord injury-havin’ mother fucker.

Peace,
Employee