Hot Raps for the Masses

I would order Mr J’s Art of Broken Glass EP.  I caught a track off the latest Sphere Podcast which reminded me how much I loved Of gods and girls plus all his legit work with the Procussions. I’m sure this piece of work is a gem as well. I steer away from downloads usually because I just prefer the hard copy (check the background of the site) the, but this work is worth the instant gratification. I’ll hit this up as soon as I get a job. Who could argue with this talent?

Partial Procussions gooey goodness. You know what IS free though? Change’s new The Stimulus Plan album. Check it out at the Sphere. Be prepared for some really pretty beats plus a track with Manchild and Sintax. When (not if, I mean, it’s legitly free) you download this album be sure to check out Not a Stranger. Real nice.

Speaking of the Sphere, Josh has been on top of the HHH news scene lately. Odd Thomas signs with Syntax Records. Now you won’t have to beg at him through his myspace, offering your first born and praying for a response just to get some recorded material! It’s tough (though not impossible) to bump youtube videos in your car.

Breaking news: Just in case you needed more reason to spend $6. Wow. This is Holding On off Mr J’s upcoming Friends Enemies Apples Apples coming out soon. I guess Up isn’t the only thing that will make me well up this summer…

Mr.J.Medeiros’ single: “Holding On”

Quick post. Vinyl is an important part of  hip hop. From sampling, to juggeling, to just scratching, it’s an instrument. Here’s a tribute that features Lightheaded’s Ohmega Watts and some cool cinematography. Enjoy.

Word. School is officially done for a few weeks. So with my free time today I found my Ipod, dusted it off, updated to the latest Rockbox (which actually makes it worth buying an Ipod), and fixed the FM transmitter Beth gave me that her dad ran over with some solder and a screw. I can finally listen to my Ipod in the car again. Huzzah! In honor of such a momentous occasion, and the fact that it’s almost Christmas, I’m going to hook everybody up with a huge pile of hot raps. First, some mood music.

Dert Floyd (aka Dert) – The Westside of the Moon 03

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Tunnel Rats producer Dert Comes strong on this track with a hot beat. This track has a great into into the main body of the song which I could rock all day. I’m going to be spending a good part of this next week writing some more hot raps and you can bet I will be listening to some Dert instrumentals. Check out the Sphere’s MP3 page. There’s currently over 70 Dert instrumental tracks for you to download and rock for free. This particular track comes from his Westside of the Moon project. If you’re trying to figure out where to start with Dert, I highly suggest getting the tracks from his Sometimes I Rhyme Slow project. Very chill with really beautiful beats and some nice guitar work. I’ve picked out a good example of what you will find. If you’re not a fan of Hip Hop and just read this blog to find out what’s happening in my life I would suggest listening to at least this track.

Dert Floyd – Sometimes I Rhyme Slow instrumental 05

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I haven’t even made it through all of Dert’s stuff up at the Sphere yet so look out for future posts highlighting some more gold. Speaking of the Sphere, be sure to check out their holiday sale. Biggest discounts of the year, some stuff up to $10 off. If you’re looking to get into the HHH scene, now is the best (cheapest) time to do it. Check out my previous post on ideas for spending.

70+ free tracks isn’t enough for this holiday season though. I also want to introduce you to a few Podcasts I’ve recently been getting into. First is the Sphere podcast. Check it out Here. Currently up is a holiday mix by Ohmega Watts with some classic raps and newer gems with a Christmas theme. Be sure to check out Podcast 23 for John Reuben’s Thank You featuring Manchild and Othello, one of the first songs that hooked me into HHH. You can subscribe to the Podcast on Itunes, or not.

Another Podcast you might want to check out is The SynCast. If you’re a fan of Redcloud, Kaboose, or Sackcloth Fashion, you’ll get plenty of them from Syntax Record’s Podcast.  They also have a holiday themed Podcast out currently hosted by MaxOne. If you’re still on the fence about getting that latest Kaboose album, check out TheSynCast 46 and it’ll convince you.

Is ~60 hours of music enough for this post (70 tracks plus 75 Podcasts)? I think so. Until next time, PEACE.

P.S. Sorry for hating on Apple.

Heh. Mini update here. Caught this out of the sphere forums. If you hate autotune as much as I do you’ll enjoy this little project. Reminds you of so many artists who didn’t need that crap to be dope. Check The Death of Autotune. Some of the songs have explicit language so just watch for your kids and enjoy.

Word. So in the last post I had just gotten some fresh raps from the Sphere. I originally thought the old school double CD would be my favorite, but they new Kaboose CD is simply ridiculous. I don’t have any of his other work, but I’m going to have to pick it up. Thanks to my bro for the heads up on this one. I’ll throw a post up here just on Kaboose once I finish chewing on the free mixtape. Then, after that’s up and I’ve made it through the 36 tracks from Syntax Records circa 2000 I’ll enlighten you on why that label is so important. For now, I’m dropping you with some Scribbling Idiots live footage.

Scribbling Idiots is another mega-crew along the same lines as Deepspace5 and to a degree Lightheaded. The Scribbling Idiots hail from Cincinnati Ohio and you can hear them here dropping some major science. I stumbled across this footage while looking for some Kaboose stuff (he’s a part of the SI crew) and it really makes me want to go to another show. I was hoping to catch Redcloud in West VA recently but the show got moved around. It’s been at least a year since I’ve seen anybody. Today at church one of the members who raps got up and did a song for the special music. It was pretty sweet. He actually got like 70 year old people to throw their hands up and wave them like they just didn’t care. That gave me a really good feeling, but it also made me miss being able to throw my hands up in the air and rap along with some of the best Christian MCs on the planet. I’m always checking the show section of the Sphere Forums, but VA doesn’t get a lot of love. It’s hard to keep up with shows too with so many artists and myspace pages and all. I’m determined to go to whatever show is coming anywhere near me. I will dust off my grove thing and bust a move.

Anyway, the Scribbling Idiots are dope, as demonstrated in this video which has surprisingly good quality despite being on youtube. I first heard them in the legendary first pack of CDs I ever got from the Sphere. They had some mixtape of like 6 songs that I got thrown in for free (Plastic hooks his customers up for real). It made an impression on me too. The first track is still today one of my favorite with JustMe (one of the SI front men) just absolutely killing the flow. I wish I knew the name of this song/CD. It’s not the SI mixtape. It was burned on a CD that said… Free Stuff EP or something. 7 tracks. The hook on the first track goes:

Ya’ll can’t attempt to write away, these tears to hide away, these fears, so right away so right away I
adjust the mic to reach just my hight to plant seeds of life with what I say ’cause

Plastic if you read this and recognize it let me know, it’s such a dope track.

I promise to get into some serious analysis of tracks again soon. Looks like my twice a week posting ambitions are down to once a week. I’ll try and keep that up though. If you’re interested in writing for HRFTM hit me up and maybe I can hook you up with some CDs. Peace Ya’ll.

Word. Sorry to go a week without an update. It has been a crazy week but I’m about to go to Westmoreland Park for a retreat with the  Sunday school class. A much needed weekend of R & R. Before I go though, I want to leave all the non-retreaters this gem from the procussions. Introducing:

The Procussions – Introducing… (What’s your name?)

This is just an entertaining music video. The flows are dope, the beat fits perfectly, and it’s funny. You might remember The Procussions from my previous post on their video The Storm. The Procussions are very talented and have a unique sound that may be tough for some hip hop heads to get into. Some of their songs have a lot of power, some are stories, others are just raps. There’s a lot of diversity in the three members, which kind of works to their disadvantage I think. I have three of their CDs (not sure if there are more), but none of them are CDs I can listen to without skipping some tracks. Maybe it’s because the tracks I do like are too phenomenal, or maybe the others are just too out there for me.

Despite the tracks that aren’t my taste, the gems are worth the CD purchase. Check out The Life of Brian on Up All Night or Celebration (Revisited) off As Iron Sharpen’s Iron. Lot of meat and power (respectively) in each of those two songs. Lookout for Water’s Edge coming up in a future post.

Irregardless, Introducing is a dope track. Download is here or the remix (courtesy of the Sphere). Peace Ya’ll. Grab some rest this weekend.

Quick post of a funny video with the dope DS5 member Playdough.

Sometimes hot raps are hilarious also. Enjoy.

Well what an exciting week it has been. Me and Beth went to Assateague national park where our tent was nearly trampled by ponies at 1am, we swam in the freezing cold ocean where I forgot about my cell phone (it’s busted), walked on some really pretty trails, beth gave me a 101 course on photography, and I developed a rash that has kept me from sleeping more than 3 1/2 hours the past two nights. However I think the rash is on it’s way out and a good time was had by all so I can’t really complain.

So at some point, perhaps in my delusional insomnia, a random thought ran across my head. This often happens when I realize I’ve made a crucial mistake in some recent task and is usually unrelated to anything I am currently doing. This thought was of dinosaurs. My website, and thus this blog, is built on the gag that I am a dinosaur (hence sperlazzasaurous.) Dinosaurs, however, do not spell their names with an ‘ous’ as I had previously though, but simply ‘us’ such as tyranesaurus, stegosaurus, brontosaurus, and one day sperlazzasaurus. When I do manage to get a dinosaur named after me I can’t have it spelled differently than all the other dinosaurs. The scientific community would not give the sperlazzasaurOUs the respect due as the largest, hungriest, deadliest, godzilla-stomping, flying, swimming, land-mamoth-sky-beast. Plus when the merchandizing hits the scene and somebody else buys sperlazzasaurUs.com how am I going to sell the “my parents were incinerated by a sperlazzasaurous’s fire breath and all I got was this singed but comfortable t-shit” t-shirts?

All this to say that I set up blog.sperlazzasaurus.com which will be the official site for the blog now. If you go to blog.sperlazzasaurous.com it will redirect you to this site for the next 10 months before it’s up for grabs. If you have this blog linked, take out the ‘o’. Hot Raps for the Masses is now at blog.sperlazzasaurus.com. I hadn’t planned on doing shtick on the blog but it’s late, I’m loopy, and whatever. I will have an actual new post tomorrow morning with some fresh, and perhaps controversal music in a two part series on ‘non-traditional Christian’ rappers. In the mean time, keep hunting through the Name That Rap lyrics. All three prizes are still up for grabs.

PEACE.

UPDATED: see below.

Here’s your chance to show that you’ve been following HRFTM (or at least hunt back through the posts.) I will offer up three partial lyrics to three different songs that have been featured on HRFTM. Your task is to find the song (title and author/group) and finish the line. Once you do so make a comment on this post with your guesses. Anyone with an e-mail address can post a comment. The first person to correctly identify all three lyrics, authors/groups and titles will win a free CD of their choosing from the Sphere courtesy of me. If you can only identify one song, post it anyway! Two runners up will receive a free iTunes download. Feel free to post more than once but you can only win one prize (of course the free CD takes priority.) Remember, the first person to post with correct answers will win so you may want to post once you have one song. Your comments will not show up until winners are announced so don’t worry about giving away your guesses. I will be on vacation until Thursday July 31 so there will be no contest updates until then.

Without further adieu, here are the partial lyrics. NAME THAT RAP!

1. I let my feet speak truth to those ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
‘Cause one act of love is worth ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
Give your boss ___ ___ , the lost a lift
‘Cause they can tell by the ___ ___ ___ , who you’re with

2.tic a tack with a ___
better ___ what you know
there’s a way that seems right to a man but ___ ___ ___

3. so bring it on. oh you want to ___ ___ ?
i’ll let ___ handle that but first ___ ___ ___ ___
let’s ___ , your ___ ___ verse my ___ ___
the tongue is like a sword ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

Good luck!

P.S. – Patrick (trickpat) if you’re reading this: these are too easy for you, you can’t win the grand prize.

UPDATE (8/15/08): To make the contest a little easier I’m going to amend some of the rules. To win one of the two iTunes downloads you just have to name the song (artist and title). Jason Pelt has already named the first. To win the grand prize (a free CD from the Sphere) you’ll need to provide the song info and fill in the lyrics for all three songs. Remember all the songs have been featured on HRFTM before this post. Keep on keepin on.

UPDATE (10/5/08): Contest closed. I’ll come up with another one and let people battle out for prizes.

Othello – Peace Download

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from: Sphereofhiphopmp3.com

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So I scrambled until about 12:30am the night before warped and managed to finally find somebody to go with me to warped tour. Hooray for Steve my buddy from the BCM at UMW for coming through. During the year we rock out in the praise band LAMP (Lighting All Mankind in Praise; also the first thing we saw in the room when coming up with the name.) We were all ready to get down there but ended up being a little late and missed Othello. I was bummed out. Othello’s from Oregon so he’s rarely, if ever, on the east coast let alone VA. I briefly considered buying another ticket for the next day and going up to see him in MD at the next warped stop. Truth is though, his set was only for 20 minutes on this totally wack stage surrounded by people waiting in line to get As I Lay Dying to sign their whatevers. Braille actually had just finished his portion of the tour the day before and was already back in Oregon by the time of the show. I think I more just wanted to get to talk to him and say I appreciated his music. I did manage to score a t-shirt though so all was not lost. Plus I got to see Anberlin, Relient K, and Family Force Five who all put on energetic shows. Also Pennywise. My brother would have killed me if I had skipped out before their set. Their drummer is ridiculous. PLUS I got to hang out with Steve all day which made the whole trip worth it. Seriously, Steve is a good dude and I thank God for making him free Tuesday.

In honor of Othello here’s a solo track off his CD with the Hipnotics, Classic. Not completely sure of the back story of the CD but most of the beats are done over the live jazzy band the Hipnotics. Peace however is not. This is just a dope track about peace in the sense of rest. Here’s the chorus:

Searching, for a place that I can call my own, a home where I can chill alone,
a zone to shelter me from what I’m
Finding, another cluttered crowded, kinda chaotic
corner of constant conflict to challenge me to keep
Moving, to a place where I can call my own, a home where I can chill alone,
a zone to shelter me from my
Arriving in another cluttered crowded, kinda chaotic
corner of constant conflict to challenge me to seek peace

Othello has a great flow and delivery. He says a lot but he’s not wreckless with it. He stays on beat but leads the track. Next time he’s within 4 hours of where I am I’m going to go see him. Seek peace ya’ll.