Back in 2004, when Jadakiss was prepping the release of his second album Kiss of Death, him and DJ Green Lantern teamed up and released arguably the best mixtape of all time, The Champ is Here. It was filled with everything a good mixtape should have; exclusive cuts, freestyles, blends, guest appearances, ill rhymes, and dope beats. Now Jada and Green are back with The Champ is Here Pt. 2, Kiss My Ass. At first listen, it sounds like they’ve followed up their last effort very well, using the same formula, and they even got my boy Peter Rosenberg on the intro. Download it for free here….
“Spicy spicy rice, spicy spicy rice, spicy spicy rice, it tastes so nice!” That’s the chorus of the first song from the BGC Beat Club, a middle school rap group formed in association with our Wednesday night hip hop workshops with Lord Judah. This is the first song they fully completed on their own, with an original beat and original lyrics. None of these kids ever rapped before making this song, it’s their first attempt, and they had a blast making it up. And one of our high school staff, who has never rapped either, jumped on the track for fun. Check the video, it’s a hoot…
Stay tuned for more original songs from the BGC Beat Club. Looks like the album is going to be titled, THE MENU….hollerrrr.
Every year at the BGC, I put together a Fine Arts Festival, comprised of club members artwork. We have a Saturday art class that pumps out some really great stuff, in addition to the Fun Club art projects that are showcased. The festival winners work is sent to a regional competition, and then those winners go to a nationwide competition. This year there were some awesome pieces. Check out a few of them, and keep in mind all the work is done by kids!
Our photography exhibit is coming up next….peace out…
There’s a great baseball book of essays by Donald Hall titled “Fathers Playing Catch with Sons” that my Dad gave to me when I was a kid. We used to play catch all the time together in our backyard, and have shared many other father and son sentimental moments through sport, like battling in ping pong in our basement, or going to Knicks games together. And non-sport bonding too, like when he taught me how to parallel park, or when we drove to Maryland together for college orientation the day after my last high school final. This video below sums up the beauty of the father and son moment, the true male bond. It’s a video of a 7 year old kid in the backseat of his Dad’s car riding home after his tooth surgery, smacked out of his mind on dental drugs. His Dad, who filmed the video, definitely got a kick out of how twisted his son was off those drugs. The kid is totally bent, like he’s in a cab riding home after a night of college bar hopping! It’s hilarious, and truly a beautiful father and son moment…
There’s all sorts of white rappers out there, from all different walks of life. Some of them I actually like (The Beastie Boys, Eminem, Evidence, Folk & Stress), and some of them I just get a big kick out of, because they are mad funny to me. It’s not that they aren’t good, I just can’t really take them seriously. And I’m not sure they want me to. Especially this guy Bo Burnham. Wow! One of the kids where I work put me on to this video, and I loved it instantly. Dude is hysterical, and I think he knows it, and as silly and weird as he is, he actually spits crack. Check this video of him performing his song “Bo Yo”. It’s got almost 7 million views!!!
On the other side of the white rapper spectrum, there’s self proclaimed “King of da Burbz” John Brown, who is best known for coming in second place on VH1’s The White Rapper Show. I always liked this guy. His personality is hilarious, and “Hallelujah Holler Back”, his catch phrase, is just plain awesome. He’s not a bad rapper, I just can’t tell if he’s being serious or not. Watch his latest video, I kinda like it. The song is called “Another Day in Da Burbz”, filmed in his hometown of Davis, California. As he says, “It’s so religious”…..Ha!
Not sure where I fit in to this wide spectrum of white rappers. I definitely want to be taken seriously, so don’t compare me to these guys. The spectrum actually gets wider than the distance between Bo Burnham and John Brown. There’s white rappers out there that are really from the hood and spit serious gangster shit, and super nerdie ones that went to Ivy League schools who try to fit as many syllables into each word as possible. And there’s everyone in between. It’s tricky finding the good ones sometimes, but I guess there’s room for all of us.
Ok, I just discovered Melanie Fiona, Universal Motown’s latest Pop/Soul diva (she’s also Asher Roth’s labelmate at SRC Records but we won’t hold that against her!!!), via everyone’s favorite new way to communicate, Twitter. She must’ve had a showcase last night or something and a couple people were tweeting off about her. I’ve actually found out about alot of new stuff from Twitter, I can’t front, so I keep my ears to the tweets. Anyway, I checked out her new single on Youtube this morning, and I instantly understood what all the buzz was about. She has a hit!!! It’s called “Give It To Me Right”…
I admit, I’m a sucker for girls who can sing soul. I’m a huge Amy Winehouse fan first and foremost though, she’s the illest, even if she is a total mess. Still, I wanted to give Melanie Fiona some shine here on Westcheddar, especially after I saw this video of her…here’s some dope raw backyard footage of her singing “Somebody Come Get Me”, a song she had on the 2008 Reggae Gold album…
So yeah, she’s from Toronto, Canada, and has roots in the West Indies, has an album coming out called THE BRIDGE, and she’s already opened up for Kanye West on tour overseas. Check out this EPK video about her upcoming album, and definitely watch for her in 2009.
I used to bust John Halas up in one on one back in the day on Ogden Avenue. Sure, I was five years older than him (and 10 inches taller), but still, we would play all the time growing up. Our houses shared a driveway that had a hoop in the back over his garage, and we would battle after dinner or on weekend mornings all the time. And I would always win. He’d drive to the hoop and I’d swat his shit into the nearest shrub. That is, until the day I came home from college and he was suddenly just as tall as me. I couldn’t believe it. Little Johnny Halas is 6′ 3”?!?!?!
I never really gave him a chance to beat me at one on one. It was enough that he was on his way to play college ball at Trinity and raining half court shots at our local Highlands courts like they were layups. The kid was nice. I figured I’d just stick to rapping and let him carry the b-ball torch for our block. And that’s what he did. Now, he plays professionally in the Premier Basketball League for the Rochester Razorsharks.
But what exactly is the life of a PBL player like? It’s not the NBA, but from what I’ve heard, the Razorsharks get treated like celebs up in Rochester. And hey, he gets paid to play basketball, which is pretty sweet. Recently, John Halas, who we from Ogden Avenue call YNOHJ (pronounced EEEEE-NODGE, his name spelled backwards…stupid but fun), started blogging for the league, giving us a courtside view of his life as a Razorshark…
Oh, and doesn’t John have a striking resemblance to the Jason Street character on Friday Night Lights? Ha!
Friday Night Lights is a great show. If you haven’t seen it, check it out. Seriously, it might be the best TV drama out there right now…Stay tuned for more updates from John Halas…hollerrrr…
I posted about Mr. Youtube (above) before here at Westcheddar, one of the stars of the Get Light dance craze that is sweeping across the 5 boroughs and up to where I work in Westchester County. My interest in the dance style, which is very popular with urban youth right now in the NYC area, started mainly from having so many kids come into my Cultural Arts Center wanting to Get Light, watching all the youtube videos of battles and new moves, and practicing their own moves in the center. Eventually they started making their own videos to post, and continue to do so. In fact, last night we just filmed a new one.
After forming a friendship with my boy Craig at Bombin Magazine, who interviewed me for a Stan Ipcus online feature a few months ago, I expressed an interest to him in doing a story on “getting light” for his next issue. I put him on to the dance videos of Mr. Youtube and others I posted here at Westcheddar and he was really into the idea. So from there I contacted the man behind the movement, D Cole.
I figured D Cole (above) was the guy to get at, since almost all the videos I watched online had his label on them and were from his youtube page. I shot him an email through youtube, and he called me that day, and invited me to his upcoming event, promising he would have Mr. Youtube and other big names like Chrybaby Cozie (bottom left, who has appeared in some popular music videos including Ron Browz “Pop Champagne” and Chris Brown’s “Kiss Kiss”) in the building for me to talk to. It was exactly what I needed for my story.
The event took place during the holidays at a dance studio in midtown Manhattan, and it was awesome. There were kids from all over New York, many who traveled quite a distance to get there, ready to battle and make a name for themselves. I quickly found out that it was no longer called Get Light, but rather GET DARK, a movement D Cole leads and promotes heavily through his videos, clothing, and of course his DARK WARS. He organizes all the events, shoots and posts all the videos, and acts as a father figure to many of the dancers involved (though I must note there were a bunch of parents in the building, all in support of their kids and D Cole’s movement). He’s a great guy, and after being around him, it’s easy to see why everyone looks up to him. Keep an eye out for the new issue of Bombin Magazine for my full story behind D Cole’s DARK WARS, and check out the 4 part Behind the Scenes video I put together, filled with interviews and dance footage that explain and show exactly what it means to GET DARK, and a slideshow of pics I got at the event…
*Slideshow*
Part 1 D Cole Interview etc….
Part 2 Mr. Youtube, Chrybaby Cozie Interview etc….
Part 3 More Interviews and an Ill Battle!!!!
Part 4 Exclusive Mr. Youtube, Chrybaby Cozie, and Rayn Dance Footage
Shout out to Bombin Magazine, check out the story on their blog too:
With the partnership of Howard Meyer’s Acting Program, the BGC Cultural Arts Center just finished the first cycle of acting classes for our club members. In two different sections, one for Fun Club members, and one for older middle and high school Teen Club members, the kids are learning all sorts of techniques through games and improvisation (see pic below of a sketch involving a cab driver picking up different passengers around the city)…
Led by Jacob White (above middle), a Brooklyn based acting instructor, the first six weeks were a success, and we raised enough money thanks to Howard Meyer’s fundraising assistance to participate in another six week of classes, all on site at the BGC and free for club members. Here’s some behind the scenes videos from the last day of both sections, featuring a look at some of the games and improv exercises, and a guest appearance by me at the end of the second video!!!!
Piggybacking on the acting classes, Fun Club 5th and 6th graders (and my 7th grade dude Izzyfresh) created, filmed, and produced their own BGC commercials last week…check them out, they’re cute…LOL at the BGC Energy Drink clip, it’s the third one…
Lots of new exciting stuff going on in the BGC Cultural Arts Program right now, so stay tuned…
Here’s my latest sneaker coloring sheet, the BGC Force, based on the Nike Air Force 180 Charles Barkley’s…Check out some of the finished products done by our club members, kinda hot…
And here’s my attempt at a fresh color scheme…pardon me I’m color blind…it looks fly to me!!!!
More sneakers to come in 2009…not sure what I’m gonna do next, any suggestions? leave a comment if you’d like and let me know…peace….
More sneakers to come in 2009…not sure what I’m gonna do next, any suggestions? leave a comment if you’d like and let me know…peace….
Westcheddar 