Don’t forget: Jade listening social tonight at RdV.
In promotion for her party tonight, Jade and Blind Benny accomplice J. Carmelli stopped by the TONY offices to play one of their new tracks and talk a bit about the remix release and what else they have planned for the rest of ‘10. Check the post out over at The Volume
If you haven’t, be sure to RSVP to tonight’s bash, open bar dude.
First off, thank you to Flavie, Ben and the entire Thrillist team for making Hotel Thrillist one of the most interesting and fun weekend getaways a writter/web dude could hope for.
A couple weekends back I had the opportunity to tag along for the weekend adventure and sit down with Roc Nation’s rising talent J. Cole. We spent about 30 minutes kickin’ it in an empty, over air-conditioned club LIV to talk about his journey over the last year. The results of that conversation are now up over at Time Out New York’s music blog, The Volume. Click here to check out, “Roc Nation rookie J. Cole on the keys to success”
As for the picture above with me looking suuuupppper white and both Cole and I getting caught mid eyes closing of the handshake/pound, gotta thank Nick McGlynn of RandomNightOut. Also shout out to Ashley who had this to say of the photo in emailing it to me: “How sweet…It’s kind of heartwarming, actually. :)”
I don’t know what that says about myself or young J. Cole, but it was a hell of an experience to chop it up with him. Cole, enjoy the DMX shirt, and we hope to catch you rockin’ it sometime soon.
Chiddy Bang at Quad Studios
Between my regular day job and the additional Keap Hope work, it has been a minute since I put together a video interview for Time Out’s The Volume. A week and half back, my good friends over at the Chambers Group asked if I would be up for interviewing Chiddy Bang while they were in town, and there was no way I was going to pass up the chance. KH has been supporting Chiddy for a minute, so I rolled through with Gus and his co-worker Anthony, extened KH family from Bikini Edit, to chop it up with the kids about their upcoming release.
Below, I’ve pasted in the text from the TONY site, and the video is up top. These guys gave us about 20-25 minutes of their time and only about 8 or so made it to the video. When I have a chance, and if anyone shows any interest, I’m debating on putting the full, unedited audio up here. I’ve got a handful of interviews like that, and it might just be something that we start sharing more regularly. So often these are cut around my questions and we frequently lose some good responses because the context of the question is lost. Keep an eye out for that extended version, and more from the archives, sometime soon.
From the Volume:
Philadelphia duo Chiddy Bang is flying high after their mash-up single, “Opposite of Adults (Kids),” secured them a deal with Virgin Records/EMI Music. Since then, the MGMT-sampled banger has topped the charts on Hype Machine and iTunes. Following in the footsteps of classic MC/producer tandems, Chidera “Chiddy” Anamege and Xaphoon Jones are crafting a fun-loving, sample-driven sound that sets the party off, mixing up hip-hop with electronica and Afropop; their first mixtape, The Swelly Express, scored over 100,000 downloads in its first month, and now there seems to be no stopping the 19-year old Drexel dropouts. TONY caught up with the pair at Quad studios in Time Square to find out how they moved from making bedroom beats to working on their major-label debut.
TWON NYC
In the ever changing street wear and fashion world, sometimes all it takes is one idea to take a crew from nothing to something. The Chinatown team of Twon hit their big break a couple years back when their now creative director was applying for an internship with Staple Design. The founder Jeff Staple commented on the design for their “Canal St’ t-shirt and after a little hardwork-and a lot of t shirts later-the crew of Twon became the brand Twon NYC.
We caught up with co-founder Cory Ng at their Lower East Side offices to learn about the history of Twon and what’s in store for 2010.
Behind the scenes teaser for our upcoming interview with Cory from TWON NYC. You may have seen the photos of their space from a while back and now we’re putting the finishing touches on the video, set to go live by the end of this week.
I put this together for Time Out a week or so ago and truthfully the editing of this was beyond painful. I wanted to kick myself for not having better audio. I met with Mick at the TONY offices and he was nice enough to give us about 45 minutes of quality video time, talking through all of the projects I had pulled together on a list.
In the end, this was edited down to show only the biggest projects and cap out the time at around 15 minutes. We ended up focusing on the artists Drake, Donnis, J Cole, Mike Posner, Wale, Daytona, Wiz Khalifa and Curren$y, Lupe Fiasco, Lil Wayne and Chip tha Ripper.
I have some really cool exclusive clips of Mick talking about projects that never saw the light of day and I’m going to take all of the audio that is fit to print (with a few things off the record being cut) and post this up as a Podcast later this week. It will be probably around 30 minutes plus and will feature my questions and a bit more candid listen to my conversation with Mick. I think its only right to showcase everything we discussed.
An important note, this interview frustrated me so much I went out the next day and purchased this wireless mic from Amazon. Lets hope the next video is better.
Tweet
This video just went live over at TONY. It took me a minute to find some time to get around to posting and I wanted to share over here as well. Big thanks to Chris from CtotheJL for hooking up the interview. Here is the blurb with the original post:
TweetThis week Nick Diamond, owner of the West Coast street wear brand Diamond Supply Co., walked TONY through his new pop-up shop. Taking over space at Prohibit on the Lower East Side (152 Allen St at Rivington St; 212-673-6773; noon–8pm), the store features some of the regular Diamond line, along with a number of New York–inspired pieces, including limited T-shirts, hoodies and laser-engraved skateboards. Be sure to check it out soon, as Diamond will be available at Prohibit only through early January.
A couple weeks back Dan and I had the chance to swing by the DD172 venue and sit down with its creator Dame Dash for an interview. I was really excited going into the interview, having seen a lot of exposure for Dame and the projects he was working on and and I was not disappointed. I ended up getting close to 20 minutes with Dame to ask a few question, all while having Mos Def and Curren$y sitting alongside the former Roc-a-fella founder and eating Bubby’s.
continued below with the video interview
Wiz Khalifa stops by TONY
On Nov 24th Wiz Khalifa came by the Time Out offices to chop it up on the release day for his new album, Deal Or No Deal. It was nice to finally sit down with an artist that I’ve been supporting for some time. I had a been interested in his work for a while but it was his collaboration with Curren$y that really turned me into a true fan.
The week prior to CMJ I got a call from a member of the music team saying they were stuck with an opening for the CMJ preview to run in print and for me to pick out an artist to cover. I was out of the office but more than willing to help out. I suggested a few shows including Mike Posner and Foreign Exchange, but the story of Wiz moving from a major to an independent seemed more compelling. This ended up being the blurb I wrote for his show at Southpaw:
The fact that tattooed 22-year-old Wiz Khalifa is opening for Wu-Tang member U-God is already something of a seal of approval—though it’s unlikely to surprise anyone who saw his jaw-dropping set at Girl Talk’s Pool Party over the summer. The Pittsburgh MC has reinvented his sound since his techno-inspired “Say Yeah” hit the Billboard charts in 2008. His best work to date is his recent offering with New Orleans rapper (and onetime Lil Wayne sidekick) Curren$y. The two dropped the collaborative effort How Fly in August, showing Khalifa in a new light. Sounding almost Kid Cudi–esque as he maneuvers effortlessly between crooning and rapping, the young spitter seems to have found a new, mellow side within the melodies.
Funny enough this article still sits in the top results for the music section and the site in general, showing just how big a fan base Wiz has earned. Dan and I ended up checking that show at Southpaw and Dan posted photos here while I put up some photos and a video at The Volume. I visited those photos again a few weeks later to put together this mock cover for Wiz’s mixtape.
While running around the week prior to Thanksgiving I met up with a friend who is working on a new collaboration with Streetwear brand Twon. The guys are working out of a realy intersting space, behind a workshop in a basement in the Lowe East Side. Its a dream office for someone on the grind and even if the guys kinda hate it, there is one thing to love–the work they produce. I got a sneak peak of a few shirts and concepts for next year, and it seems like they are really on to something. Follow them on Facebook and Twitter, and check out their sick line of rappers gracing the classic currency look from their Fall 09 lineup.
Full gallery of the space after the jump.
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