@dromnyc @jeangreasy

What else can we say? This will be Jean’s first NYC show in over a year.  She’ll probably be giving a preview of her upcoming album Cake or Death.  Fools really should forget about Nicki Minaj and stop sleeping on Jean.  She’s brilliant and will blaze just about anyone who comes near a mic.

Anyway, the band that will be backing her is killer, too:

@tamar_kali

Good afternoon, fam! Just got this note flyer from Tamar-Kali.  If you want to check out the Born In Flames Tour as it stomps through NYC, get a move on!

Additional link:

• Born In Flames Tour official
  

@pharoahemonch @shawnpeters @warmedia

New music video just-back-from-Sundance director Terence Nance.  As someone who suffered from asthma growing up, I can definitely relate the experience being conveyed via this video.  I was fortunate that only once did it get so serious that I, literally, couldn’t breathe.  It’s a serious problem in underserved communities, and a reason that folks like Majora Carter are out fighting for environmental justice. The air we breathe is just as important as the food we eat.

Nice, too, to see the filmmakers lighten the mood a bit.  I mean, here’s Monch talking about asthma, all the while Jean Grae is lighting up a cigarette there in the studio.

Shout out to Shawn Peters, who gave me the heads up on this and for his work on it. Enjoy!

 Addtitional link:

• Pharoahe Monch official
• Boldaslove.us Q&A with Pharoahe Monch

@jeangreasy

Here’s the first single from Jean’s forthcoming album Cake Or Death.  Looks like the album, originally slated for this past fall, will drop late spring/early summer.

In the meantime, check out the single here:

U & Me & Everyone We Know by Jeangreasy

If you dig this, then check out “Live Up” featuring Talib Kweli here.

Additional link:

• Jean Grae official

@jeangreasy

If you don’t already have it, you should head over here and grab Jean Grae’s mixtape Cookies or Comas, which was released about  a month ago.  The 11-track mixtape serves up a taste of what’s to come this fall when she drops her new album,  Cake or Death. (Yes, she’s into stark dichotomies.) What it does is provide a great  showcase for the Brooklyn MC’s razor-sharp wit and sense of humor (love the whole “marzipan” riff in the opener “Casebaskets”), alongside her verbal dexterity.  And it’s clear she’s having fun with brothers-in-arms Kweli, Pharoahe Monch and Styles P.

I can only hope that Cake or Death, when it drops, brings Jean Grae the wider audience and acclaim she so rightly deserves.  In the meantime, get your Cookies or Comas right here.

BTW, nice to hear Kweli change up and sing the chorus on this one.  Check it out.

Additional link:

• Jean Grae on Facebook
• Jean on Twitter

@pharoahemonch

I mentioned to you all yesterday via Twitter that I’d had a great conversation with Pharoahe Monch.  In addition to talking about his new album W.A.R. (We Are Renegades), we also got into a discussion of

• How Jean Grae impacted his approach to being an artist
• Where he stands on the use of the N-word
• And who the artist is that you’ll meet Saturday at Weeksville

The whole convo runs about 25 minutes, but I think there’s a lot of good stuff here.  Besides, it’s always a pleasure to talk to optimists!

Anyway, check out Monch this Saturday as he kicks off the 2011 Weeksville Garden Party.  Congolese-Belgian MC Baloji opens.  It all starts at 6pm.  And it’s FREE!

Enjoy!

Pharoahe Monch Interview–June 29, 2011 by boldaslove

@tamar_kali @jeangreasy

Those of you down in Austin are in for a treat tonight, as Tamar-Kali, Jean Grae, along with Invincible and Waajeed take the stage for the official unveiling of the Born In Flames tour.  Should be hot.  The rest of us, will have to make due with this video for “Pearl,” taken from Tamar-kali’s debut album Black Bottom.

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking: You wish you were in Austin. Yeah, me, too.

Karma Mayet Johnson

My now monthly stint on WRFB-Radio Free Brooklyn continued last night.  Good to be back in the Bed-Stuy studio.  Here’s a list of what I played (song/artist/album) :

1. The Reins    California King    La Belle Epoque    Rock
2. Bridge (prod. by RJD2)       Jean Grae
3. Revelation        Sabatta    Yinka Music Vol 1 – Sex Power Death
4. Mama Don’t Like My Man     Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings    I Learned the Hard Way (Bonus Version)
5. When I Lay You Down     Chocolate Genius    Swansongs
6. Davey Rockit    Pigeon John    Dragon Slayer
7. Revolution    Method Of Defiance    Jahbulon
8. Power     Kanye West    My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
9. All Matter   Robert Glasper    Double Booked
10. You Ain’t Changed    Karma Mayet Johnson    September Songs
11. We Portal Rose   MuthaWit    MuthaWit @ Rose Live

Here’s the actual show.  Feel free to download and take the show with you.  In addition to the music, you can check my commentary on both Kanye and Bilal.  Your thoughts? Leave ‘em in the comments section below.

http://official.fm/track/182672

This review was originally published on TheRoot.com.

Many lament the fact that hip-hop’s BS-to-substance ratio is still relatively high. But here’s some good news: Shad — short for Shadrach Kabango, born in Kenya but raised in London, Ontario, Canada — is a great example of what’s good in hip-hop these days. Add him to a short, but hardly exhaustive, list that could include MCs like Mos Def, J-Live, Invincible and Jean Grae. His third album, TSOL, is literate, optimistic, self-deprecating, and so full of deftly turned phrases and boom bap that you’ll forget that the album is curse-free. You could easily bump this in the car with the kids, enjoy it and not feel like you’re poisoning impressionable minds.

Optimism doesn’t mean that Shad isn’t realistic, and he acknowledges that two songs in, on “Rose Garden.” And he doesn’t shy away from taking responsibility for himself: “If I’m gonna point fingers, better point ‘em at the mirror,” he says in “Lucky 1′s.”

“Keep Shining” is a well-done tribute to women that’s in no way schmaltzy. In it, he points out the thing that hip-hop sorely lacks: more voices of women. “There’s no girls rappin so we only hearin half the truth/What we have to lose — too much/half our youth aren’t represented/The better half of dudes.” He finishes the song by shouting out all the women in his family who influenced and inspired him — Mom, aunts, sister, cousins, Grandma.

Dude’s funny, too. Here’s a chuckle-inducing line: “Maybe I’m not big cuz I don’t blog or twitter …/Dog, I’m bitter … ” from “Yaa I Get It.”

The album reaches its most poignant moment with “At the Same Time,” where Shad talks about feeling two diametrically opposed emotions at once. Perhaps it’s the proximity of the midterm elections and my awareness of the vitriol and fears that those on the right are co-signing that made this first line of the song resonate: “I never laughed and cried at the same time/till I heard a church pray for the death of Obama/and wondered if they knew they share that prayer with Osama.” Indeed. Based on his examples, he’s laughed and cried at the same time more often than maybe he initially thought. Perhaps it’s an indication of the times in which we’re living.

Shad’s TSOL is compelling not because he’s a talented MC — and he is — but because he’s got enough humility to understand that the world doesn’t revolve around him. It’s okay to be realistic and honest, particularly about oneself, yet optimistic about the future and proud of your own accomplishments without being bombastic. We have plenty of hip-hop that keeps it real. Maybe it’s time for more artists to take a page from Shad and look on the bright side.

If this were Twitter, I’d tag this #hope4hiphop.

Here’s some video from the Restoration Rocks event a couple of last weekend.  Thanks to Tamar-kali, Lisa Yancey and Centric’s Mary Pryor for giving me this shot at interviewing the artists that day.  Enjoy!

subCentric// Restoration Rocks from Centric TV on Vimeo.