DJ Premier rocking the shirt at Rock The Bells LA ’10

Coming soon through Premo’s label Year Round Records…

(August 26th, 2010) Babygrande Records is proud to announce the upcoming release of Group Home’s “Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal” on September 28th.  Honing their skills for over 20 years, Group Home is back to pay homage to their longtime friend and collaborator, the legendary Guru.

Group Home has unquestionably proven that they are one of the most important groups to come out of hip-hop’s revered “golden age.”  Appearing on Gang Starr’s 1994 album “Hard To Earn,” Group Home released their critically acclaimed debut album “Livin’ Proof” in 1995.  Now, Lil Dap has returned with partner Melachi The Nutcracker, enlisting the help of legendary hip-hop icons Jeru The Damaja, Lord Jamar (Brand Nubian) & more as well as some unreleased heat from former partner in rhyme Guru himself, to bring experience, perspective and their unique flavor to the game with their new album “G.U.R.U.”

Set for release on September 28th by Babygrande Records, Group Home’s “Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal” is a tribute to the movement that birthed hip-hop’s most celebrated emcees and a must-have for any true fan of hip-hop. (Babygrande)

I also get informed that the first single will be dropping on monday August 30th, the single is called “Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal (G.U.R.U)” and is featuring Jeru the Damaja. I’ve seen the cover somewhere but I lost it, ah well… Lets see what they can bring us!

This All-Star shoe is printed with the recently made Gang Starr wall in The Bronx. The custom Converse All-Star x Gang Starr is now available at The Ave Venice. Shout out to Guru’s nephew Justin Nicholas-Elam Ruff for the heads up. A percentage of the shoe sales go to Guru’s sons Trust Fund.

The Ave Venice
Location:
64 Windward Ave
Venice, CA, 90291
Phone:
310-452-5577
Mon – Sun:
11:00 am – 8:00 pm

After 16 Years, Fat Beats And Fans Bid Farewell To The Legendary Record Stores; Online Retail, The Label, And WholeSale Distribution Will Continue.

After 16 years, Fat Beats has announced the closing of the legendary label’s two remaining retail locations in New York and Los Angeles. Fat Beats will celebrate the legacies of the stores, which are scheduled to close in early September (New York: September 4th, Los Angeles: September 18th) by throwing a series of blow-out sales and tribute parties open to the public during their last weeks. Fans can check www.FatBeats.com for updates.

Fat Beats’ longest running and most famed location is at 406 Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan. Since the 1994 opening of Fat Beats’ flagship retail location, hip-hop fans have traveled far and wide to visit the iconic store. With locations soon following in Los Angeles (7600 Melrose Ave.), Atlanta, Amsterdam, and Tokyo, the record stores were a place to experience hip-hop culture and its legacy, which became a global phenomenon. “The closing of Fat Beats is just like one of my friends passing away. They promoted vinyl at its highest degree for the culture of good music and that makes it more difficult to say goodbye,” says DJ Premier.

The announcement of the closings is a reflection of the woes that have been plaguing the industry for years. Global chain HMV closed their last US location in 2004. Tower Records shuttered in 2006. Last year saw the close of the last Virgin Megastore, and the story is no different in 2010. For Fat Beats, maintaining two stores well into 2010 is a testament to the stores’ importance to the music and to fans and consumers continuing to support independent hip-hop.

While news of the stores’ closing marks the end of an era, the future is not doom and gloom. Digital sales continue to increase industry-wide; for Fat Beats, currently operating a profitable and growing online retail store, this has provided a boon to business as fans continue to order mp3s, vinyl, and CDs from FatBeats.com. Although digital sales continue to grow, executives at Fat Beats understand the importance of independent retail stores and are planning to re-open a brick and mortar hip-hop lifestyle location sometime in the near future.

The future looks just as bright for Fat Beats Distribution and the label. Fat Beats Distribution, which has been renamed FB Distribution, continues to strike noteworthy distribution deals with independent and major labels worldwide and is now working with different genres of alternative music. Fat Beats Records will continue to release notable albums from their own impressive roster of artists including ILL BILL, TruMaster/KRS-One, Black Milk, Trinity, Sha Stimuli, Q-Unique, and more. Fat Beats owner and President Joe Abajian says, “This is the start of a new era for Fat Beats. We’re adapting to meet the needs of our demographic by revamping and improving our existing systems. While our website, which stocks everything available in our retail stores, continues to do very well, we’re still exploring our options for alternate retail locations in the future. We’re proud of our legacy and will continue to re-invent ourselves. For now, we’ll see you online at FatBeats.com”. (audibletreats)

R.I.P. Fat Beats Record Store NYC & LA, this is not good for hip hop, not good at all… Shout out to DJ Eclipse and the staff at Fat Beats, it became reality… think about it… this say a lot of the state of music today… protect your neck… I know I’ll always have my vinyl.

Acclaimed and controversial Jamaican-born emcee Cannibus is proud to announce the release of his brand new LP entitled C Of Tranquility. The 15 track album will be available on October 5th from Interdependent Media, the label responsible for releases from Tanya Morgan, Finale, J*DaVeY, Moe Green, K’Naan, and co-founded by Evan “TRUTHLiVE” Phillips.

C Of Tranquility, Canibus’ tenth studio album, features production credits from DJ Premier, Jake One, Scram Jones, The Bizness, J-Zone and Slopfunkdust and proves that he is just as on point now as when he was first hand-picked by Wyclef Jean for the sensational debut LP Can-I-Bus. in 1998. His widely-known lyrical prowess, along with a knack for creating songs that double as personal statements, is even represented in some of the track titles on the release. “Merchant of Metaphors,” “Free Words,” and “The Messenger’s Message” all deliver on their promise of insightful and dexterous wordplay. Having been deemed by several rap magazines as being one of the best lyrical freestyle rappers, Canibus recognizes this record as his opportunity to showcase his skills once again, implying that C Of Tranquility is the culmination of years of practice and progress. “Sometimes life will beat you down just to remind you that you’re alive,” Canibus said during a 2009 interview with Conspiracy Worldwide Hip-Hop Radio. “There’s no better time than the present to try and actualize your dreams.”

Canibus’ C Of Tranquility drops October 5th via Interdependent Media.

Group Home is widely considered one of the most important groups to come out of hip-hop’s revered “golden age.” Recognized as origina­tors in the culture, Group Home (cumulative career scans over 350,000 units), have proven over their 20 + year career that they are a force to be reckoned with. After his 2008 solo album “I.A.DAP,” Lil Dap returns with Melachi The Nutcracker to pay tribute to his longtime friend and collaborator, the legendary, and recently deceased Guru (Gang Starr). And with one of the most distinct and unique voices in all of Hip-Hop, Dap and Group Home are poised to pass on their knowledge, experience and pas­sion, from the 80’s and 90’s into the second decade of the millenium.

Release date: Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Label: Babygrande Records

Source: UGHH.com (Where you can also pre order)

That’s all, no more details, no details who’s on the boards… Props to PR for the heads up!

DJ Premier & Harry J. Elam

Word.

Tired of this, but recently Joe Budden announced he got DJ Premier on the board for his next LP. That’s dope. And surprise surprise, also Nasir slipped some info about his new LP. His plan is to have DJ Premier, Kanye West, Dr. Dre, Alchemist & RZA on the boards.

Noreaga: “We was starving to work with Premier. We was so starving to work with him that I think we paid him all his money up front. He was like, ‘I want this amount.’ We were like, ‘Here!’ And this is the first time we paid somebody up front. And it’s the first time we ever waited. Premier had us waiting for a good four to six months. To this day, Premier doesn’t give out beat CDs. If he makes a beat, then he makes it deliberately for you. It’s not like if you don’t want it, Nas or Mobb Deep could get it. Nah, if you don’t like it then it gets erased.

“The crazy thing was I remember Premier telling us that his little brother was like the biggest CNN fan, so I guess we had an advantage because at this time Premier was as hot as fish grease. He was the hottest thing on the market so he had a waiting list like the welfare line. We didn’t even get on the phone with him. He just got the money. I remember right before he actually gave us the beat we was going to ask for our money back. We were like, ‘This is ridiculous, you got us waiting for too long.’

“But then he told us to come to the studio. He was in the studio with us and he played us three or four bangers and was like, ‘Oh, we like it.’ And he was like, ‘Nah you don’t like it.’ And he erased the shit right in our face! I mean three of four times. If he was playing the beat and we didn’t go ‘Whooo!’ and were just like ‘Yeah, this is good.’ I swear to you, he erased the shit right in front of our face if he didn’t get the reaction he wanted. When he played the beat he wanted us to jump up in the air and be like, ‘Whoo!’

“He had the skeleton for ‘Invincible’ but he didn’t have it all and he had a few other choices. And obviously when he played ‘Invincible,’ we was like, ‘This is it!’ We was at D&D studios, he would step out for a minute. We stepped out. And he put the touches on there and we came back and it was done. We were like, ’Finally!’ We wrote our verses right then and there on the spot.

“The first line that comes, ’Yo Melvin Flynt drop, my whole collasso stop/I can’t believe I fucked up and made a half-ass album/My excuse is, my pops just died, and I ain’t wanna make music/My pops just died.’ Well, it was so much on my mind and I wanted to be honest with the fans. It wasn’t even about dissing my last project, or dissing myself, it was just about being honest. That’s just how I felt and it was so much on my mind, it wrote itself. Premier played the beat, I sat there and wrote the rhymes, and I was like, “Let me get this shit off my chest.” What better way to get it off my chest then a Premier beat? I was lucky enough for the world to feel that.

“But you see Eminem took my shit, right? Eminem just said, ‘Let’s be honest, that Relapse album was ehhh.’ I’m like, “Yo, I respect you, Eminem, but you know where you got that from.” [Laughs.] There’s never been another rapper on planet Earth that dissed himself. I was the first person to do it. It was just something that was on my mind the same way it was probably on Em’s mind. You throw out a product that you’re not proud of. And you know at the end of the day, you have a job to promote it, you have a job to try and sell it. But deep down inside you wasn’t 100% feeling it.

“At the same time, people come up to me like, ’Melvin Flynt is your best album, nigga!’ And I don’t argue with them. But it wasn’t about the material for me, it was about my heart not being in it. To this day, when I walk down the street, people will just drive up and be like, ’Yo! Melvin Flynt is your best album!’ And then get in their car and roll off. Like there are people who take it personal with me! But I was just being honest, something I thought I owed the fans. Something I thought I owed myself.”

Capone: “Premier was basically our homeboy. That was years in the making. Premier wanted to be on The War Report. But when we was recording The War Report, we couldn’t afford him. When it was time to do it and things was right, it was time to do it. But getting Primo was hard because he had a million projects he was working on at that time. But he came to the table. Primo is never going to send you a bunch of beats, he’s going to send you one beat and you’re going to run with it. And when we got that one beat it was like, ‘Yes!’

“We was recording in D&D a lot so we had to see Primo. I remember it being grimy because it was D&D. At D&D you don’t sit on certain chairs, all the walls [got] graffiti, it’s roaches everywhere. It’s foul! It’s the foulest studio you can record in but it has the best sound.

“I like to write about a lot of shit I see. [That’s why you hear,] ‘For my niggas in the bridge, with the $50 dollar Panasonics on the black gates.’ Back then tapes was the shit, there wasn’t no CD players. They had these little black Panasonics that was like $50 dollars. QB and most hoods in NYC had these little black gates. And these little black gates, the radio handle fits perfectly over three of the top parts of the black gate. So your radio sits there all day, you don’t even got to put it on the floor, you can just chill on the bench and have your radio on the gate and just ride it out all day. That’s where I came up with the Panasonics on the black gates. If you go to any hood right now you’ll find somebody with a radio on the gate. It might not be the same old black Panasonic, because they got mp3s and CDs and all types of shit now. But back then, that $50 dollar Panasonic was the shit. And if you was a real hood nigga, you already know that that radio was so easy to take apart and put together, so a lot of people was hiding they work in there. And I don’t mean they 9-5.”

Source: Complex.com