Urban Alternative
[MP3 + Music Video] Michele Wylen – Holla If U Wanna feat. Tre Redeau
Digging this track by new artist. Giving me vaguely Sleigh Bells (or maybe it’s M.I.A.??) vibes. What y’all think though??
[CONTEST] Win the Kaleidoscope Dream Album and Tickets to See Miguel Live in Toronto on December 11
[UPDATE: contest is now closed. Congrats to our winner, Dave Wilson. Thanks to all who entered, look out for more contests coming soon!]
If you’re a regular reader you already know we’ve long been fans of the progressive R&B singer, Miguel and think his new album, Kaleidoscope Dream is one of the best of the year.
Recognizing our support for this great new artists, the good people at Sony Music Canada have graciously provided us with a copy of Miguel‘s album and a pair of tickets to his upcoming December 11 show here in Toronto at The Guvernment.
Gonna keep it relatively simple to win this great prize package. Just tweet:
“@Stellaskid: I wanna win tickets to see @MiguelUnlimited Live at @The_Guvernment on Dec. 11 in Toronto”
and I will select a winner at random at noon on Monday (Dec. 10). I know at least a couple of my fellow bloggers are running similar promotions so your odds of winning are likely pretty good so don’t get fatalistic and not enter ‘cos you think you have no shot. Good Luck!
If you really believe your luck is not that great though and you don’t want to take a chance of missing this show ‘cos it might sell out, you can BUY TICKETS HERE.
[Album Stream] New Artist: Introducing Skipp Whitman – 5AM
Been really digging this BK by way of Boston MC, Skipp Whitman‘s 5AM album since I started checking it out yesterday. Skipp handles all the completely original (no sample) production himself and it is impeccable. Vocally he reminds me of the homie, D-sisive at times and a little bit of friend of The Kitchen, T.Shirt as well but overall, this is kind of fresh to my ears. I digs! What about y’all??
If you like what you hear and you’re in the NYC area, Skipp has a show at Arelene’s Grocery in the LES tomorrow evening. Hit the jump for more details.
[MP3] Rage Against The Machine – Clear The Lane (Demo)
As spotted on NME:
Twenty years ago this month Rage Against The Machine released their now immortal self-titled debut, fusing rap and rock and switching a generation of music fans onto radical politics. Before they made that record in 1992 they produced their own demos, some of which have never been released before. We’ve got one of those original demos for you to hear now, taken from anniversary boxset ‘XX’. ‘Clear The Lane’ is propelled on a rolling funk, and if you listen closely you can actually hear the sound of the band sparking the match that set the world alight.
[MP3 + Music Video] D-Sisive – Don’t Turn The Lights Out (feat. Neverending White Lights)
This is not really my bag, a little too top 40/alt-pop sounding for my ears but, ‘objectively’ speaking, not a bad track from one of the T.dot hip-hop scene’s finest. Here’s the official blurb with more…
There was a time in Derek Christoff’s life when he didn’t have many words. It’s not that he didn’t have a story; but he was stuck on the start.
In the late 90s, the young MC known as D-Sisive came up quickly in the Toronto hip-hop community with a string of well-liked singles, but his burgeoning profile was stopped cold with the illness and death of both of his parents in a six-year span. Grief and depression stole his creativity and motivation for the better part of a decade, but in a moment fit for fable, his lyrical inspiration returned suddenly one day while singing along to the Beach Boys on the radio. It was the new start D-Sisive’s story needed. And he hasn’t stopped since.
2008’s The Book EP was nominated for a Juno and its single “Nobody With A Notepad” won the SOCAN ECHO Songwriting Prize. 2009’s Let the Children Die was long-listed for that year’s Polaris Music Prize (and would later get an elaborate send-off with a full-band live funeral after legal issues forced it out of production). The same year, he released Jonestown as a free download. Less than a year later, we got Vaudeville, and a year after that, the Jonestown sequel, Jonestown 2: Jimmy Go Bye Bye, back and forth between his story and others’. Along the way were a series of Hijacked singles, with D-Sisive rapping his own words over the music of such songs as Grizzly Bear’s “Two Weeks” and Sigur Ros’ “Festival,” an homage to just some of his comprehensive influences and tastes.
On 11-13-2012 D-Sisive released his latest project, Run With the Creeps (TheD-LuxeEdition), it’s a deeper dive back into himself and with his wide-open online look at the creative process along the way, his most honest yet. The hunger, pain, humor, and scrutiny have been on display every day; he’s forever brazen in ambition and as credulous as a kid. He’s writing the whole thing down, sparing no detail and certainly no time.
D-Sisive is a disciple of hip-hop and a Bowie devotee. His eleven-year-old imagination was captured by Fresh Prince and DJ Jazzy Jeff’s “Nightmare On My Street,” and later, by a legendary punk spectacle as heard on Creep single “GG Allin.” There’s something new everyday, and so he’s running, trying to keep up with himself, trying to connect with his fellow creeps. There was a time he didn’t have these words; didn’t know how to say them. So now he’s making sure he doesn’t miss even one.
#DK11: The album, This One Goes To Eleven… OUT NOW
