Flashback Friday: So Far Gone - @Drake (@RamseySaidWHAT)

Flashback Friday. Let's take it back to high school, better yet the summer before my freshman year of college.

As you could imagine it's a crazy dope transitional experience for a young man trying to figure out who he is. At the time I wasn't sure how much music impacted my life then as it does now. I was really into R&B and Gospel growing up so it took a lot for a Rapper to catch my eye (I mean ear). Enter Drake. Best I Ever Had was killing the radio and I hadn't heard Comeback Season yet.

Turns out this random killing the airwaves has already got the cosign from Lil' Wayne and Trey Songz. This guy must be nice. With a little more research it turns out this is Wheelchair Jimmy from Degrasi. Go F*cking Figure! Anyways, So Far Gone is still one of my favorite Drake projects through and through. Hits like Best I Ever Had blasted through common hour speakers on my campus as greeks strolled along.

As I said I was in a stage where I was trying to find myself. I'd always loved music but this is right around the time I knew it would follow me for the rest of my life. So intrigued by the hits I went back and listed to the tape itself. Drake has always been good at being vulnerable and showing sides of him that most artists would keep secluded. He rapped with a chip on his shoulder and at the same time talked about love and hunger for the top. There are two tracks I enjoyed and still bump today. They are Say What's Real and Fear, the bonus track. Say What's Real is over Kanye's Say You Will instrumental. The track is exactly as the title. Drake breaks down his adjustment to success and money and how it affects his relationships with his mom, uncle, and girlfriends.

Fear is similar. "I think they call this venting," he begins. The instrumental plays and he makes himself vulnerable. Successful, also featured on Trey Songz Ready album as a bonus killed the airwaves as well. November 18th was perfect for the cypher and A Night Off with Lloyd was the one for the bedroom. So Far Gone was full of gems and will remain an instant classic for me. It was even nominated for a Grammy. You don't ever see that happen to mixtapes. Omarion, Bun B and other big and small name artists made appearances on this project. To this day I could argue that this stood out as one of Drake's best pieces and will be remembered for a long time. Reminisce with me below and stream Drake's So Far Gone

 

Gangsta Party - @YoungJeezy a synopsis by @Best_ofda_Worst

If you haven’t heard already Jeezy came out with a new mixtape, and of course he did his thing with this one.

The aptly named Gangsta Party is a dope tape that any Jeezy fan can enjoy. That means Jeezy flexing on trap beats, spitting his usual making money, and of course ballin lyrics. I was happy to see the producers on the project (Sonny Digital, London on da Track, Cordo, Zay Toven and D. Rich). From the lineup, I imminently knew why this mixtape was called Gangsta Party. Even for a causal Jeezy listener or a person who can't understand why people like Trap Music (I'm talking to you Niles) one could find some enjoyment with this mixtape,

I think this is a good starting point for anyone who wants to get into Jeezy or trap in general. It's a short mixtape though with only 10 tracks. I feel like Jeezy made this one for his fans, especially to enjoy this Memorial Day weekend. So when you're on your way to the cookout make sure you turn this up on your headphones or have heavy bass in your car. My favorite songs include: Everything Back, Type of Party, Birds Could Talk, She Know, and Wit Me. You can listen to Gangsta Party yourself below via datpiff. Enjoy after the break.

#TBT #FridayNightLights - @JColeNC by @AQueensCrown

The first song I ever heard from J. Cole  is Who Dat . I hated it, still Do.

It wasn't until a friend I met in class told me about a mixtape The Warm Up. With a little urging from him, I finally gave it a listen. Listening to Losing My Balance spoke to my soul. Adjusting from high school to college is usually a difficult period for most people. Today I can say Cole helped me thorough stint of transition. From then on I was hooked. I became an official fan. I spent a lot of the time afterwards listening to everything he already had out. From there I just had to wait until he dropped his next mixtape.

It was November 12, 2010. Everyone,and I mean everyone in my building was talking about his next tape, Friday Night Lights. We discussed our favorite tracks, and argued about what certain tracks meant. For a few weeks it was all I listened to. This mixtape helped established my love for music. Suddenly I wanted to share my thoughts with anyone that would listen on everything music related.

Later on, Cole even came to my school for our inaugural "Spring Jam." Tickets sold out immediately! In the week leading up to the concert, my friends and I listened to nothing but young simba. Whether it was either The warm up, or The Come up our rule was no listening to anything but  nothing but J. Cole until the concert. Although he was opening up for Fabolous at the time, he tore the stage down performing songs like Grown Simba, Lights Please, and a special treat of In the Morning (that featured Drake) a few days before Friday Night Lights dropped. He even performed his verse on Jay-Z's Star is Born.

Friday Night Lights is the project what told me J, Cole was going to be a big deal. Hits included the before mentioned In the Morning, Higher, and You Got It where he battles wits with Wale. Another song I enjoyed was Villematic which uses the Devil in a New Dress beat by Kanye West. This was the mixtape of my first fall semester in college. He related to the average college student and what goes on in our daily life. Cole gave hopeless broke kids hope while being able to tell a story while doing so.

Royal Throne: Drink More Water by @AQueens_Crown

Drink More Water, It's good for you! 

That's exactly what I've been doing with Mick Jenkins sophomore mixtape The Water [s]. The Chicago native, dropped the tape in early August. I randomly stumbled upon his mixtape through twitter,and I'm so glad I did.

It's a well put together tape.The recurring theme being water aka the truth.  He raps about the state of mind young boys being just about " Imma get all this money...Imma f*ck yo b*tch.", and how people have lost sight of what really matters.

His slick wordplay had me replaying his songs get to catch some of things he was saying.

"They callin me conscious, a Jimminy Cricket. Unfortunate events, got me writing it like Lemony Snicket."

With this mixtape it had me thinking Chicago has a surplus of great talent coming out of there these days.  With artist like Chance the Rapper,and Noname Gypsy. Right now Mick Jenkins is opening for Method Man and Red Man for there The Smokers Club Tour.  

You can check out Jenkins mixtape here: The Water [s]

#RoyalThrone Review: STN/MTN & Kauai - @DonaldGlover by @AQueens_Crown

Last week Childish Gambino's mixtape STN/MTN was released first through his website. I like to call this "The mixtape for Atlanta." Gambino raps about his home town, samples interviews from radio shows, and talks about having a sold out show in the Atrium.  

Honestly, the first time I heard I was expecting a extension of Because of the Internet. Instead reminds me of Royalty. Over all this mixtape was fun. It sounds like when you get a bunch of your boys, and look up instrumentals on YouTube, and start freestyling .You can check it out below.

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A couple days later, Kauai was available to stream via Spotify. The EP has more mellow flow compared to STN/MTN, with Donald singing throughout most of it. Giving you that dreamy lover flow. Jaden Smith even makes appearance on a couple of hooks. What stood out most was his spoken word. "My n*gga Jaden Smith dropping jewels and n*ggas don't believe him cause he's Jaden Smith. It's all about the packaging right?" says Fam of the Royalty crew.

If you listen to the last track 3005 Beach remix you can hear that there is only an instrumental Apparently, it is to accompany the secret track. That if you read the script that was accompanied with Because the Internet on the website. There was speak of a secret track, but no one seemed to be able to find it. A user on reedit found it and Glover even confirmed that it was the secret track via twitter.

http://t.co/jBXEmYnXhL
— childish gambino (@donaldglover) October 5, 2014

All and all Kauai was good, you can give it a listen here. You can buy Kauai on iTunes now.

Tomorrow Night! @DJDanaLu LIVE on WTM!

DJ Dana Lu will be spinning on What's the Movement Tuesday Night from 7-10 PM Tune in to the Live Mix!!!

Check out some of her mixes on https://soundcloud.com/DJDANALU. We're expected to get more snow so since you're just gonna be inside your dorm, house, apartment, etc. listen and tune in. You don't have anything more important to do. While you're doing your homework, reading, studying you can listen live on MTV Woodie Nominated, Brave New Radio.

You can tune in on 88.7 FM in the greater NYC metro area and stream it online at www.gobrave.org. Also, for iPhone & Android you can download that TuneIn app for any mobile device. To make things easier you can just go right ahead and click the "Stream WTM" button on the top left of your screen.

Deeper Than the Music with Sir Moore & Khalil Jibran

Snowed out Tuesday equals Late Night Friday.

 Between chilly weather, precipitation, and campus police alarm settings, hosting WTM on our normal Tuesday night time slot was impossible. All setbacks lead to a better opportunity. The station gave us the go so we convened WTM on a prime time Friday Night from 10 pm-1 am. Well we didn't let the snow stop us from this dope sit in with Sir M00RE & Khalil Jibran. Of course we spoke about both of the artists and their projects and upcoming events. 

Khalil came in with a few announcements to make. The first of which was an announcement of his upcoming mixtape Rain On a SUNday which is expected to release on February 14th. I asked why Valentine's Day and he explained the oxymoron of the title. He got into his R&B roots and disclosed the smoothness of the project. "We don't have music for rainy Sundays where you can just look out the window and listen," he says. Valentine's day seems perfect in my eyes for something that soulful. Later on in the broadcast we played one of the tracks off that tape titled Please Just Get Away from Me featuring The Olawumii. 

#RainOnaSunDay
— The Chosen One (@KhalilJibran_) January 25, 2014

Throughout the segment we chopped it up with Sir Moore. We talked about his first ever EP, August Rush. He discussed the name and inspiration behind these six tracks. We also got a little off-topic and broke into his relationship with The Strivers' Row Poetry members and fellow NJ Emcee, Moruf. He filmed the show Moruf had with Jasmine Mans earlier this month in Newark. Joe V and August Rush was featured in Garden State Hip-Hop's "10 NJ Rappers to look for in 2014" article ran by Rodney Coursey.

Following the inteviews both artist had a killer freestyle to multiple instrumentals old and new. Both of them killed their spot. All in all both artists have a crazy 2014 coming up on the way. Glad to have gotten them on the show before greatness occurs. Clips from the freestyle will be posted at a later on, tune in.

Your Editor,

Royal Throne: L-O-E Vibes

Ghost town native Moruf  dropped his latest LP Shades.Of.Moo. and I cant stop playing it. The project contains 15 songs with three Bonus songs (lucky us) and with it starts his new movement Love Over Everything aka L.O.E. Which tells you what Shades.Of.Moo is all about.

Tracklist:

01.Neighborhood

02.RealEyes

03.Respect(Skit)

04.Respect94

05.Soulhop

06.TOGETHERNESS

07.Restwell

08.her.

09.Homie.Lover.Friend (ft.Jesse Boykins III)

10.Compromise

11.tangerine (demo)

12.BuckleUp.

13.JoyTears

14.Fallen.

15.DYV.

16.SoulRich (Bonus)

Overall Shades.Of.Moo tells you what Moruf is about in this stage of his life. Those chill L-O-E vibes. Each track giving a soulful feel to the listener.

It reminds me of a chill summer hanging out . Like he said this mixtape is that  “ type of shit you listen to on your porch watching the mail man.” And I highly recommend you give it a listen you can check it out here along with his other works. Below is the visual for track seven, Restwell.

Jean Grae,The Phoenix

Jean Grae NOT Jean Grey, and no I'm not talking X-Men. This female emcee is currently signed to Talib Kweli’s Blacksmith Records Records. Jean Grae original came to the underground Hip-hop scene in the mid-1990s under the name What? What? with hip-hop groups Ground Zero, then later on joining Natural recourse. She later took the name Jean Grae in relation to X-men charter Jean Grey. She was born to south African jazz musicians Sathima Bea Benjamin and Abdullah Ibrahim. Jean Grae has this intelligent humor about herself. She’s not the typical rapper were she needs to act a certain way to get the action of the masses. She just is herself, very well-spoken, and driven to tell her story. What she does is very different. Her approach to rap is not something we are used to compared to what we hear in the media these days.

Jean Grae is only the beginning of a wave of new female emcees with real skills. Now we are seeing artists like Angel Haze, Rapsody, and herself. I guess that's why I call her Phoenix.  Keep on the look You can listen to Cookies or Commas on datpiff below and her video to Kill Screen. Enjoy.

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