“This might be a good look for me.”
Someone posted this in my Facebook timeline. Heath Ledger’s Joker was well played, but even in the afterlife, his character has spawned some great photoshopped portrayals. RIP.
Tennis Anyone? Common vs. Drake
Red clay. Props to egotripland.
Drake and Common need to play a few matches of tennis. After that, they can put their issues behind them. Through their mission to out do each other, both MC’s have shown the type of lyrical sparring that feeds the public’s appetite for confrontation like boxing. As we’ve learned through hip-hop history, a full contact sport like boxing parallels rap the most because rhymes can hurt one’s pride the same way someone with nice hand skills can pack a punch. Take Jay-Z and Nas for example, back when they were in the midst of trading diss records, Jay proposed the idea of a televised boxing match on Pay-Per-View. The idea never went past his comments in a Hot 97 interview with Angie Martinez (whew!). Cooler heads prevailed, giving way to future collaborations between the two legends.
But as far as back and forth games go, Common and Drake’s war of words has closer ties to tennis and even basketball than fisticuffs. Start with their mutual affection for Grand Slam champ Serena Williams, who Common dated in 2008 and Drake claimed to love and care for in his in 2011 interview with Complex. Besides their obvious connection to the tennis world, their similarities have set Drizzy and Com on a speeding path towards each other, way before Serena came into the picture. Reading into the true nature of their competition might be making a mountain out of a molehill. I couldn’t help it though. I opened up a tennis glossary and the listed terms snowballed into this weird point-counterpoint look at their situation.
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50 Years of Ricky Powell aka The Doloist
Ricky Powell‘s photography is constantly writing history and passing it down at the same damn time. Don’t let tweeting events in real time usurp hearing it from the horse’s mouth. Nay-ver that, doggie. Outside of that one tweet that might ripple into a micro wave of retweets, talking about the memories people have of each other is just natural behavior, unfettered from the use of technology. I imagine the guests, young and old at Ricky Powell’s Milk Studios exhibit opened up the floodgates of tales about the figures shot by like-minded photographers Angela Boatwright, Mel D. Cole and Joe Conzo. If you were in the house (I wasn’t…boo!), all you had to do was just listen. It’s commonplace to have the elders school the youth at these events. They know whatever it is that’s poppin’ for you right now is cool, but they made it popular, ya dig?! I imagine someone set the scene of the train zipping past subway writer legend, GHOST—a story more gripping than one about drawing on dirty car windows (“wash me”). My good friend Ingrid is one of those keen listeners who managed to soak up a gang of knowledge and flicks from the Rickster’s All-Star Classic. Peep Customfad for her recap.
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Perfect Timing: Timeless Truth
Times up!
In 2011 2012, Timeless Truth is on my personal list of favorite emcees. I’ve been bumping their work since last year, when I first met Superbad Solace, one-half of the group. The rap game needs Timeless Truth because of what they represent: Dominican, blood brothers, repping Flushing and Corona Queens. Bong! Part of what also makes them special is their honor to a lineage of New York rap that traverses the Beatnuts (Latinos from Corona and Jackson Heights) to Brooklyn legend, Thirstin Howl III. Really, the honor is all mine knowing rappers as skilled as they are, keeping it thorough as other Q-borough acts like Action Bronson, Rekstizzy and Das Racist.
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Viva Nico and Morrissey
T-shirts might fade over time, but a silk-screen print of Nico (Christa Päffgen) is built to last. The Velvet Underground’s singer, immortalized on the above T-shirt was recently worn (in white) by Morrissey’s band this Tuesday on Conan. She looks pensive and subdued in the graphic, which was the best way to describe the feeling of watching Moz take late night TV with a performance of his new song, “People Are The Same Everywhere.”
Morrissey wears his appreciation for The Velvet Underground pretty close to the chest like his V-neck sweaters. Last year, Moz listed his 13 favorite albums, which included two Velvet Underground LPs (White Light/White Heat and The Velvet Underground & Nico) and Nico’s solo record Chelsea Girl. As a model and singer, she could waltz into your lobes whisking you away into bliss, which is akin to the effect of Morrissey’s poetry. Aside from their palatable sound linking them, these two icons are vegetarians. A-alike, B-alike. I imagine there’s a small nation of Nico tattoos out there like the ones sported by Smiths and Morrissey super fans. Lou Reed’s got some mass appeal too. His portrait for Supreme lined cities between New York City, Los Angeles, London and Tokyo carrying on the legacy of The Velvet Underground. Video of Moz on Conan after the jump.
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Greensleeves Dubstep Pushes Things Forward
Do we really know dubstep? Until VP Records distributed Greensleeves Dubstep: Chapter 1, the genre’s identity has been tough to pin down. Ask anyone with some inkling about what dubstep is, and each person will probably define it differently as heavy-aggressive electronica, a hybrid of London 2-step, a dollop of trance, run through a filter of industrial techno, channeling the angst of grime. What?! Being an import to the American nightlife scene by way of the United Kingdom, it’s easy for dubstep’s identity to get lost in translation like playing a game of Telephone, on Molly. You follow?
With VP and Greensleeves in the mix, their interpretation of dubstep makes a lot more sense—you can clearly hear the heavy drum composition influenced by Jamaican dub. But to make the sound more contemporary, it moves to a faster tempo, which makes it more derivative of 2-step. Without getting even more technical, just examine the term “dubstep,” and break it apart into two syllables (phonetics kids), the Greensleeves spin on the genre is right there in your face.
Greensleeves, which is based in the UK has a solid track record of making remix compilations that do their sampled records justice. In 2007, the label released Ragga Jungle Dubs, one of my all-time favorite albums. Every record on the ’07 mix is a staple for anyone (DJs) getting their first exposure to the drum and bass scene. The same goes for Greensleeves Dubstep: Chapter 1. Maybe I’m a little biased to a Jamaican spin on d&b or dubstep. After all, deejaying was originated in Jamaica, so why not take these sounds back to the essence. Peep the Yellowman remix by Horsepower Productions after the jump and a note from VP’s press release.
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Snapshot: Re-introducing Jamil Gs
Jamil Gs has really good looking subjects. I say that objectively about the women and men he’s photographed. Like his contemporaries Terry Richardson and Kenneth Cappello, Jamil Gs also shoots icons of celebrity (Diddy, Paz de la Huerta, RZA), buxom models and tropical landscapes, but he reaches a new plateau of their beauty. When you think you have a clear image of their standout features, he’ll go into his bag of tricks of light and shadow to peel away their unforeseen layer.
When Jamil Gs redesigned his website this year, it was my point of business to blog about it. I’ve shadowed his work back when I was at Complex HQ ogling his calendar (daily) which hung in the mag’s photo studio. Another one of his earlier works that stood out was of Gloria Velez posing her culo for KING magazine. I peeped the portrait of “Miss Big Pimpin‘” hanging above a gallery doorway in Miami. Imagine seeing that image every time you exited during a long weekend in MIA—your nights would be as bright as day.
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