Track of the Weekend #85: Jurassic 5 - “The Way We Do It” feat. Heavy D

It’s been nearly a decade since Jurassic 5 roared across the world’s stages, but thankfully the hip hop collective is back and their new single “The Way We Do It" samples heavily from The White Stripes to deliver J5’s signature style: cleverly telling us about how they produce music and live their lives, with at least one dinosaur reference. It dropped two days ago, and is already sitting high atop the Hot Tracks thanks to hip hop lover Phanie who scooped it up first! 

Ohno? Oh Yes! Hip Hop Instrumentals & Samples From Angers

Hello! Tell us about yourself, where are you from and who is Ohno? 

Hey guys, I’m Louis, soon to be 21, currently living in Angers, France doing my studies in graphic design but I’m originally from Cholet (not too far away). Ohno is my musical alter-ego, a secret passion that caused me to start producing sounds about a year ago. Then I started meeting people in the Angers music scene, like Spectateur who pushed me to continue improving with his help, I also developed connections to the hip-hop collective Label Collection, and with Pepso Stavinsky, Remington group, Jay Bentham and another electro beat maker from Angers: Wander. 

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Francisco Navarro Presents Club Etiqueta Negra

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This interview is translated to English from Spanish. 

Tell us about yourself, where are you from?

My name is Francisco Navarro, I direct and present a radio program called Club Etiqueta Negra dedicated to Black Music (Hip Hop, R&B, Funk, Soul, Jazz…) in Spain. It was started in 2002. The program is broadcast across different radio stations in cities around Spain (Barcelona, Zaragoza, Mallorca, Ibiza, Formentera, Badalona and Vitoria-Gasteiz). It can also be found online at www.rockolafm.es

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Interview with Johan: Music Miner at Soundigger

1. What are the different faces of your personality?

One could define my personality as very open in a number of different domains. Clearly music is at the forefront, but I am interested in everything that is around me on a daily basis. From cinema to reading passing ads to traveling. I love to discover, learn, and share the little things I find everyday. Very involved in everything that I come across, I like to go as deep as I can. Always unsatisfied with my work, I try to do more, take detours, and improve what it could be. I’m currently working on the rebuilding of my blog, modification of design, a new logo and making stickers. 

2. When did you first have the idea to launch a music blog?

First off, I was definitely fed up listening to my friends listen to Maître Gims, Pitbull, David Guetta and other Zaz during road trips or happy hours. I wanted to make them discover music with a capital M. Just the guts and those that rise the charts. I bummed around for a while on friends’ music tweets (@ilovezistrack, @absolutebass, @musiquechic, @bordwood among others…) The idea to launch my own blog came a long little by little as a result of following them, and they were the ones who really gave me the desire so I have to say thanks! We arrive at the start of 2013, and I decided to launch the site. I was alone at first, then a friend came and joined me to cover Hip Hop on the blog. So we are two. 

3. Where do you find your music?

I use 2.0 web tools a lot to discover new tracks. Principally Soundcloud, but also Whyd, Shufflr, YouTube, ExFM… Certain artists send me their links directly and I thank them graciously. I try more and more to find music blogs from other continents to enlarge the range of musical styles and get a way from European artists who are already widely covered by the French blogosphere. 

4. What are your goals for Soundigger? Who should read your blog?

By creating Soundigger.com, the primary goal was to break as many people as possible out of their commercial shackles, freed from peroxodized clips which can be endlessly consumed on national radio and TV channels. We want to make people discover, and bring forward, lesser-known talent, creating connections with them and other bloggers to carry out various projects, and to create a small community. To do interviews, live reports from festivals… that’s what I had in mind when I created the blog. 

At Soundigger, we love diversity, as much musical as human, that’s why our publications are not reserved exclusively for specific types of people, snobby preps or other hipsters, but just as many people as possible. If Jacky the farmer on the corner discovers, appreciates, and shares the latest releases of Bit Funk, Fakear, or Apollo Brown on our blog, that would mean that wouldn’t probably couldn’t get any bigger. 

5. What other blogs do you recommend?

Among the following blogs, a good portion come from friends with whom we discuss and share a lot of music and advice. It’s the magic of web 2.0 that we know these people thanks to the same love of music 

- http://www.ilovethistrack.com/

- http://absolutebassline.tumblr.com/

http://unclesound.fr/

http://lecoledumicroenbois.com/

http://www.spreadtheword96.com/

http://moosetache.over-blog.fr/

http://www.radiovnl.fr/

http://bordwood.com/

http://davycroket.com/

http://www.musique-chic.com/

http://sodwee.com/blog/

And many more! 


Thanks Johan! Make sure you like the Soundigger Facebook page, and of course subscribe to Soundigger on Whyd

Interview with Lightfoot: Hip Hop from Boston

1. Can you tell us about yourself? How does your personality show up in your music?

My name is Lightfoot, and I’m a sample-free hip hop producer out of Boston MA.  I grew up on all sorts of different music, but sometime around high school, I really fell in love with hip hop.  I’m not just talking about rap music either; I really fell in love with the whole culture. The DJs, the b-boys, the graffiti, it all took a pretty strong hold on me, and my growing appreciation for the culture made me want to be a part of it.  

I wasn’t great at drawing so Grafitti didn’t work, I didn’t have good enough equipment to DJ, and dancing was never going to happen for me, so beat making was the obvious choice.  When I first started making music, I was really influenced by artists like MF DOOM and Mad lib, so my beats were very “boom bap” and sample heavy.  I loved that traditional hip hop feel, so it was important for me to replicate that in my music.  As i continued to make beats however, I began stepping away from sampling, and really tried to force myself to make original productions.  This was due to the ever evolving legality issues with rap music as well as my own desire to feel more satisfied after making a beat.  As I shifted my methods I also departed from only listening to underground hip hop and started expanding into other genres such as electro and indie rock. I then began to mesh all of these influences together whenever i sat down to make a beat.  

I always try to make my music emotional (probably because I’m an emotional dude) and I always try and make it interesting, but ultimately I just make music and try and let things happen organically, and hope that I come up with something good as a result.

2. When did you start producing music and when did it click that you had to pursue it seriously?

I think I made my first “beat” (i use that term VERY loosely) when i was in 8th or 9th grade.  I ended up with a copy of fruity loops somehow and decided to do some exploring.  The results were pretty bad, but they were my first so they are cool in that respect.  I did this on and off for about 6 or 7 years until i finally met my mentor and good friend The Arcitype.  I started interning at his recording studio, and was able to see how a professional producer operates.  It blew my mind and gave me so much inspiration that I ended up quitting my job and focused all of my efforts on music.  It lightened the wallet tremendously, but it allowed me to really hone my craft and in doing so find what I truly love to do.  I haven’t looked back since, and have been enjoying every second of it.

3. What’s the Boston music scene like? 

The music coming out of Boston is pretty awesome.  There is a wide range of material that fits almost any palate, and a lot of it is pretty unique.  Unfortunately A LOT of it is unknown, even to people who reside in Boston.  That is the real downfall of this place.  We don’t really have an active listening community here.  People have their cliques, and their specific artists who they support, and rarely depart from that.  This makes for poorly attended shows, and hard for newer artists to break out.  

Boston is also particularly hostile to rap shows.  It seems like every day another venue closes its doors to hip hop.  This is due to a number of reasons (which may or may not be valid), but it makes it very hard to navigate and expand in the hip hop scene here.  You kind of just need to cross your fingers and hope you meet the right person who will introduce you to their scene, which may or may not be a good one.  All in all, the music itself is great.  Some of my favorite artists come from Boston, so I will always be a fan of the music this city produces.  My main beef, and quite frankly only beef, are the promoters and venues in the city.  They don’t allow for this place to breathe and evolve the way it should.  I love Boston though, and I will always be a part of this city musically.

4. What should we look forward to from you in the near future?

I’m actually currently wrapping up an EP I have been working on with my rapper homie Andrew Milicia.  Collectively we go by “Remains”, and our EP is titled “Ei8ht Se7en”.  I’m pretty excited for the drop and eager to share our work.  The project will be available as a free download on Bandcamp.  Andrew is a super talented rapper/lyricist/songwritter, and i love the beats on the record so it’s definitely something I’m proud of. I also have a bunch of other projects in the works, but everything is still in the early stages so I can’t speak on them just yet. I’m certainly staying busy though, so there will be plenty of music in the future.  In the meantime you can check out my instrumental album i put out last fall called “The Rudimentals” which is available on iTunes/Spotify/Pandora.  Cheers!

Thanks Lightfoot! Make sure you take a listen to his work on Soundcloud, like his Facebook page, follow him on Twitter, and of course subscribe to him on Whyd

Playlist Madness: One One Six Eclectic Contest!

Since One One Six kicked off their playlist contest on Monday on Whyd, numerous playlists have been created, satisfying the requirements of adding eclectic music including one Dub track, one Rap/Hip Hop track, and most interestingly, one shitty track! This is particularly funny since we frequently talk about the wealth of amazing music coming online everyday, but just as there are some awesome jams, the internet is also inundated with terrible amateurs chanting and experimenting; it all makes for a good laugh. 

Here are a few of the entries that you should listen to and vote for if you like what they put together!

One One Six Eclectic Playlist Contest by F116 including tracks by Rodrigo Y Gabriella, EZ3kiel, and Alpha Blondy.

One One Six Eclectic Playlist Contest by Tis including tracks by Lee Perry, Dilated Peoples, and The Rolling Stones.

One One Six Eclectic Playlist Contest by Ben Panda including tracks by Syl Johnson, Gaël Faye, and High Tone. 

Plus Follow One One Six on Twitter and make sure to Like their Facebook Page