News
[News] KAYTRANADA Wins the 2016 Polaris Music Prize
This is kind of a big deal. This is really the first hip-hop or black electronic/urban-centric release to win this Canadian critics’ award. Well-deserved it is too. While I always liked the album, it took a minute to really grow on me but by time it was down to the wire I was fully on board as the video of me endorsing it above, that played as part of the full Gala broadcast Monday night, attests! Congrats, Kay and for the rest of you not on his train, get on board. This is the future….
Previously on the Kitchen:
– Listen to New Music From Kaytranada: Glowed Up Feat. Anderson .Paak / Illusions
[News] R.I.P. Prince Rogers Nelson: 1958 – 2016
What can be said about Prince that does the man and his legacy as an artist & person justice? He was a giant, a legend, an icon and so much more that is only coming out in the wake of his unexpected and untimely passing last Thursday. The impact of what we have lost with his passing will reverberate for years to come. To wit…
Bonus reading and video:
– Miles Davis on Prince: “Prince was like James Brown, Jimi Hendrix and Charlie Chaplin”
– An absolutely INCREDIBLE video of Prince preforming “It’s Gonna Be a Beautiful Night” from the never (or very limited) released Sign O’ the Times concert documentary film
– An amazing acoustic performance by Prince on VH1
– That time Prince jumped up on stage unannounced and performed with Q-tip
– Van Jones on the breadth of Prince’s anonymous philanthropy and altruism
– The story of the time Prince gave a free concert at a college for deaf students
– Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top calls Prince’s guitar playing “otherworldly” and “defying description”
– The guitar solo Prince played at the 2004 Rock N Roll Hall of Fame Ceremony that has been dubbed the “greatest of all time” by some
– Bruce Springsteen‘s tribute performance of “Purple Rain” to open his show in Brooklyn last night
– Video of the only time Prince, Michael Jackson and James Brown were all on stage together at the same time
– Absolutely heartbreaking of video of Whitney Houston and her daughter, Bobbi Kristina watching Prince perform “Raspberry Beret”
– Chevy’s perfect tribute to Prince
R.I.P Prince….
[MP3] R.I.P. Malik Isaac “Phife Dawg” Taylor, 1970-2016
Rumors of the passing of Phife Dawg, from the legendary hip-hop group, A Tribe Called Quest, which started to surface just as I was going to bed last night, were like a baseball bat to the head. Even though it was well known that he was a long time sufferer of type II diabetes and his health was, sadly, up and down at the best of times, 45 is way too young an age to pass.
Phife was the backbone of Tribe, the dude who added the grit to their left-field, black boho sound. When they reinvented the notion of so-called ‘jazz rap’ with the deep grooves on The Low End Theory earning widespread acclaim, including from many who even at that time still didn’t consider hip-hop ‘real’ music, it was actually Phife who got many of the lyrical plaudits for stepping his game up on the album from their debut and making it what it was, a genre and era defining masterpiece.
It’s been a weird past few weeks for me. So many people who have an impact on my life, both directly an indirectly, have passed away as of late and some of them I only learned about in passing or purely by accident.
It’s sobering seeing so many of my peers, in their forties, the supposed prime of life, pass away. What is going wrong with this world that so many in our generation are not getting to live out full, accomplished lives like Bowie, Glenn Frey, Keith Emerson, Natalie Cole, Maurice White, George Martin and other older legends who have also passed away recently? Not sure I’ll ever have an answer to that question.
Ironically, a couple days ago I saw in my Facebook ‘memories’ I had posted an article a couple years back about Q-tip reassembling the group to go back in the studio to work on new music. My comment accompanying it was something to the effect of: “Ian falls to his knees and cries…” I thought about re-sharing it but didn’t since nothing ever seemed to come of those sessions in the end (although apparently I am wrong on that: I am happy to report a new ATCQ album may be released in 2016!).
Now, even though I wish I didn’t, I would have presciently had all the reason in the world to have had that reaction given yesterday’s terrible news. But, as the homie, Wes says in this Brooklyn Bodega post, let’s not be sad, let’s celebrate Beats, Rhymes & Phife! The mini-mix by the UK’s DJ Yoda above does just that in the best way possible: by whipping together some of the 5 ft Assassin‘s best verses into one glorious hip-hop eulogy cum tribute. RIP Phife… #RIPPhifeDawg
[mix via The Rub, other great mixes there too! Image via Geology]
Update bonus mix: Listen to an amazing, almost 2 hour long, Phife Dawg tribute mix by the T.dot’s own super DJ, Starting From Scratch HERE.