Drawn by Daniel Clewell

So my latest project, The Cyndi Lauper Beat Tape, is being well received despite my lizard brain’s reluctance to ship. Well, its been a week and has garnered about 1k downloads so I want to take a second to shout out all the blogs that have showed love so far to the little up & coming dude. Support new indie artists and producers…..dope ones that is.

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Get Right Music, Beatbox Radio Show, Street Logik, I Love Graffiti, Rock the Dub, World Famous Naija Blog, Rule 4080, DJ Mayhem, The Diggers Union, All Beatz, Bomb Atomically, Blogger House, 77e, YNotMyDream, To Eleven, Lifted Loud, PMP Rockers, Underground4Life, Dot Got It, Urban Flair, You’ll Soon Know, Rebellen, Them Fighting Words, Harry Roman, Jennifer, Tarik, Art Nouveau, Different Kitchen, Rapohnelizenz

To anybody whom I forgot or didn’t catch….drop me a line in the comments and I got you.

Dope piece by Ether of the MUL crew (MadeULook) drawn while he was incarcerated on Rikers. Copies were signed by Wayne with a Sharpie that Ether had “to buy with some commissary soups from a gay inmate who would get sharpies from program offices and use them for lip liner.”

Be sure to stop by the Ether blog to read the rest of his post ‘When A Wolf Cries’ which talks about his stay on Rikers Island at the same time as Wayne. Great read….

The homie Ritzy has informed me that she will be partaking in this dope group show at Mid City Arts on the 26th. For all you L.A. folks, make sure you don’t miss this one. Speaking of dope, Ritzy and Jen E has also taken their successful collabo venture online and have launched their Supreme Goods Etsy store. Be sure to stop by for some quality handmade goods.

Whatuppers my fellow nerds….it’s been awhile. I have been having internet woes as I await the cable company to come and install internet which is why the reason for no posts as of lately (if you noticed). In the meantime, I decided to try one of those personal wi-fi dongles and needless to say….I would rather use dial up. There is an upside though. When you don’t have internet, you learn to be creative and find other ways to get your online tasks done.

1. Find a locked network and spend your day trying to guess the password – I haven’t had any luck with this yet, but I’m determined to guess one password before the day I die.
2. Hang out with people that have iPhones – Being the nerd that I am, you would figure I have one but I don’t. The thought of touch screens scare me. Plus, everyone has one of these things so why buy one?
3. Go to the Apple Store – free internet and use of their products. Need I say more? Just be sure to keep rotating through the different machines so the employees don’t catch on to you.
4. Forget technology – remember paper and pen? What happened to the good ‘ole days? Send a real letter….the recipient will be more appreciative (although you may lose the client due to slow response time)
5. Go to the library – Yes nerds, remember those? People actually used them B.G. (before Google). Give it a try, you’ll be surprised at what you find (or don’t find).

With that being said, the slow ass cable company will hopefully be here this week so I can get back up and running. To all those who I owe emails/responses, I haven’t flaked….the letter is in the mail.

Spotted this over at Revok’s place and thought I would help spread the word.

PRESS RELEASE
Los Angeles, California, May 25, 2010

We are reaching out to get your ear for a minute about this critical situation in Arizona.

If you haven’t heard, the Arizona state legislature passed a bill (SB 1070) that was signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer that legalizes and sanctions racial profiling. Straight up.

It forces the cops to hunt down and target anyone they “reasonably suspect” that may be undocumented. And if the people they harass don’t have proof that they were born in the U.S., they can be detained and arrested. This must be stopped.

Fans of our music, our stories, our films and our words can be pulled over and harassed every day because they are brown or black, or for the way they speak, or for the music they listen to. People who are poor like some of us used to be could be forced to live in a constant state of fear while just doing what they can to find work and survive. This law opens the door for them to be shaked down, or even worse, detained and deported while just trying to travel home from school, from home to work, or when they just roll out with their friends.

Some of us grew up dealing with racial profiling, but this law (SB 1070) takes it to a whole new low. If other states follow the direction of the Arizona government, we could be headed towards a pre-civil rights era reality. This unjust law was set into motion by the same Arizona government that refused to acknowledge Martin Luther King Jr. day as a national holiday.

When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, they arrested her. As a result, people got together and said we are not going to ride the bus until they change the law. It was this courageous action that sparked the Montgomery bus boycott. What if we got together, signed a collective letter saying, “we’re not going to ride the bus”, saying we are not going to comply. We are not going to play in Arizona. We are going to boycott Arizona!

Signed,

Zack de la Rocha

Here’s a list of the courageous artists who have taken a stand for civil and human rights in this collective decision to boycott Arizona:

Cypress Hill
Juanes
Conor Oberst
Los Tigres del Norte
Rage Against the Machine
Cafe Tacvba
Micheal Moore
Kanye West
Calle 13
Joe Satriani
Serj Tankian
Rise Against
Ozomatli
Sabertooth Tiger
Massive Attack
One Day as a Lion
Street Sweeper Social Club
Spank Rock
Sonic Youth
Tenacious D

We are asking artists the world over to stand with us, and not allow our collective economic power to be used to aid and abet civil and human rights violations that will be caused by Arizona’s odious law.

Artists sign-up here: http://www.thesoundstrike.net/

Ok, so if you nerds are brain dead or just simply don’t pay attention….I’m not only a fan of music but I produce it as well. Check out my guest post over at Gen-Y Rockstars on a new cloud based DAW. If you create music in any way, shape or form….this may interest you.

CLICK HERE TO READ

If you haven’t heard as of yet, a New York judge has sentenced Poster Boy to 11 mos. in jail. You can read about the full details here. Poster Boy is well known for taking subway advertisements and putting his own “spin” on them transforming billboards into art. Originally Poster Boy was to serve 210 hours of community service but it was his failure to appear in court that gave him his 11 month sentencing. What do you think?
Too harsh of a sentence?
Is the judge using him as an example to send a message to other street artists?
Was Poster Boy an idiot for skipping out on his court date?

Click on the image for dates and to buy tickets

You all know one. He may even be a family member….or co-worker. Let me start by saying there is nothing wrong with being an MC. Hell, hip hop is in dire need of them (good ones, that is). But it seems twitter has created a new breed of “MC”….an annoying one. The kind that constantly updates “at the studio, yo!” or “I’m goin’ in right now on this verse!”.

But wait, it doesn’t stop there. Said rapper will then spam the hell out of your timeline with the worse pitch known to mankind. I know you’ve seen it, it looks something like this: @yourname this shit is hot yo! I got that heat, holla at ur boi. And yes, Mr. Rapper will copy/paste this awesome pitch to everyone he is stalking…er…..I mean following.

Now I’m not here to hate on Mr. Rapper but I would like to help make Twitter a better place. So here are a few suggestions:

• Follow people that already like music in the style in which you do. Don’t spam Common with links to your new single titled “Replacin Dem Hoes”. Do some research, use Twitter’s search, use Google.
• Engage in conversation before spamming the hell out of me with links. Would you walk up to someone on the street and shove your CD in their face before saying “hello”? (well, you probably would)
• Use services like Fairtilizer or Bandcamp. People like to hear the music without having to download first….also a plus if your link doesn’t have flashing banner ads that can cause epileptic seizures if stared at for too long.

Hopefully this helps, if not….I’m not sure what else to say. Google is your friend, anything you need to know is out there. Trust me.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXIAaKN3bT4

What up nerds….well today is the final day (actually final 8 hrs) to vote for me on the Eric Roberson Remix competition. If you haven’t voted yet, head on over and put your vote in for the best remix (that would be mine). Win or lose, I’m thankful for having my remix picked as part of the top 5 by some of the biggest names in the music industry. That’s big….

So yea, I’m good. My bday is this week so if any of “yous” want to wish my old ass a happy birthday, I take checks and credit cards. Oh and as well, I’ll be attending the Jus Blaze vs. Alchemist soundclash next week in east london.

I’m good……

I spotted this over at Revok’s site and is very inspirational in and of itself. Watch the whole thing….

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-JAp2HHntA

Watch as Alex Pardee reveals his drawing secrets from hunting monsters to eating his drawing….LOL

www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9lNbNGbo24

Now I never ever write R.I.P. posts, but this one is having a huge effect on me. Guru, 1/2 of the legendary group Gangstarr, passed away yesterday after a long battle with cancer. His music has played a huge part in my life as far as what has made the producer/Dj that I am today. I remember when I first heard Mass Appeal (I taped it on VHS) and thought it was sooo dope, I grabbed a pen and my rhyme notebook (you know the ones with the black/white snow covers) and jotted down all the lyrics just so I could recite them to….myself (I know I’m not the only one that did this). Anyways, we lost another great but he will be remembered and celebrated through his catalog of classics.

Rest in Power

So last week I started a Twitter contest for all Relatives Abroad listeners to participate in. I have narrowed down the entries to these top 5 and now you, my readers, will decide which listener should receive a free CD. Click inside of the post to vote for the 5 word review you find most creative/funny/quirky….etc.

“I don’t got no lyrics” – Wocka Flocka

Get the gas face....

So I was planning to mentally block my first interview here in London, but I can’t bring myself to. It was an interview for a small art/music events company which I figured would be some fresh a$$ ish to get into. So I meet with the owner of the company at a small cafe in….let’s just say not the best part of London. Long story short (you like how I skip to the end?) it didn’t work out on either side. But my reason for this rant is not the fact that this woman wasted my time, but more about what she said to me. At one point in the interview we started talking about what kind of art I’m into (keep in mind she saw my resume before hand….or supposedly did) and she looks at me and says “Well, I know urban and street art is considered contemporary art, but I don’t consider it art at all.” Then the cherry on top was when she proceeded to say “I only deal with pretty/happy art and happy people”. Umm….what the fuck is that supposed to mean?!? Anything that’s not suburb is angry and ugly?? Maybe I’m overreacting but I took offense as if I was an urban artist myself. I guess I am in a sense but in the music world. I guess it just surprises me that people are still blatantly classist in this day and age of new money. The age where more and more inner city kids are turning into successful entrepreneurs off of art and/or music. Will it ever change? Who knows, all I know is that I want my 2 pounds 20 back that I spent on the tube transportation to the interview. She gets the gas face!!! Now pardon me as I go hang out with my ugly and angry urban friends….

p.s. If for some odd reason you don’t what the gas face is, click here

**Names were omitted to protect the guilty

1. The first telephones did not have bells and were connected all the time. In order to attract the attention of someone on the other side of the line, one would have to yell, “Ahoy!” into the receiver.
2. After publishing his famous dictionary, Noah Webster rewrote the bible, replacing all the words he considered were “naughty”.
3. A nepheligenous is someone filling a room with tobacco smoke.
4. Van Gogh sold only one painting during his life.
5. In the original Star Trek series Captain Kirk’s middle name was Tiberius.
6. 17th president Andrew Johnson was the only president to sew his own clothes.
7. Ernest Hemmingway founded an annual fishing tournament in Cuba, where he lived for many years. Fidel Castro was the winner of this contest in 1960.
8. Mark Twain’s favourite cats were named Sour Mash, Sin, Apollinaris, Beelzebub, Buffalo Bill, Zoroaster, Blatherskite, and Satan.
9. In 1968, Steve McPeak traveled from Chicago to Los Angeles on a unicycle. The trip took him six weeks.
10. The longest word used by Shakespeare in any of his works is “honorificabilitudinitatibus,” found in “Love’s Labours Lost.”
11. The original title of the musical “Hello Dolly!” was “Dolly: A Damned Exasperating Woman.”
12. Spam is so resistant to spoilage that, if kept in the closed can, it may well outlast eternity and will certainly live longer than you.
13. Spam was first promoted as a health food.
14. In Korea Spam comes in gift boxes.
15. If placed end to end, all the Spam ever sold would circle the Earth more than ten times.
16. When Pedro I became King of Portugal in the 14th century, he had his dead mistress dug up so she could be crowned queen alongside him. Many of the nobles at the coronation even kissed her hand. After the ceremonies they put her back in the box and returned her to her tomb.
17. It’s illegal in Alabama to wear a fake moustache that causes laughter in church.
18. In parts of Alaska, it’s illegal to feed alcohol to a moose.
19. You’re subject to fines and/or imprisonment for making “ugly faces” at dogs in Oklahoma.
20. In Utah, birds have the right of way on all highways.
21. Mao Zedong, like many Chinese of his time, refused to brush his teeth. Instead, he rinsed his mouth with tea and chewed the leaves. Why brush? “Does a tiger brush his teeth?” argued Mao. As you can imagine, his teeth were green.
22. Chairman Mao also loved to chain-smoke English cigarettes, when his doctor asked him to cut down, he explained that “smoking is also a form of deep-breathing exercise, don’t you think?”
23. The groundhog is only accurate in predicting the weather 28% of the time.
24. Gene Sarazen, a golfer from several generations ago, set the record for the fastest golf drive: 120 mph.
25. Michael Sangster, who played in the 1960s, had tennis’ fastest serve, once clocked at 154 mph.
26. Since 1949, the LEGO company, based in Denmark, has produced more than 200,000,000,000 of the plastic elements that make up the Lego System.
27. There are 102,981,500 ways to combine six of the 8-studed Lego bricks of one color.
28. The name LEGO came from the Danish, “LEg GOdt,” which means “play well.”
29. In England there is no difference between a pig and a hog, but here in the states if a pig is over 180 pounds, it is considered a hog.
30. The specific gravity of your skin and Silly Putty is close enough that doctors have actually used it to align and test CAT scan machines.
31. Lake Titicaca is known as the largest lake in South America.
32. The Dead Sea is the world’s saltiest body of water.
33. The earliest known legal text was written by Ur Nammu in 2100 B.C.
34. The population density of the state of Alaska is 1 person per square mile.
35. The original host of “Jeopardy” was Art Fleming.
36. David McConnell used to sell sets of Shakespeare door-to-door. In order to make books more appealing, he offered free perfume to his customers. Realizing the perfume was more popular he began selling cosmetics door-to-door. And so began Avon.
37. Some unwrapped mummies had a total bandage length of about 1.5 miles.
38. Although it’s only 2% of our body weight, the brain uses 20% of all oxygen we breathe, 20% of the calories we take in, and 15% of the body’s blood supply.
39. Income tax was first introduced in England in 1799 by British Prime Minister, William Pitt.
40. The coccyx is the only bone in our 200+ bone system that serves no purpose.
41. The Aztecs had a primative form of basketball called “ollamalitzli.” The difference from today’s sport is that the first person to get the ball through the ring high above the ground had the right to collect the clothes right off the backs of everyone watching the game.
42. If you were to guess at a number chosen between 5 and 10, you would be wrong five out of six times.
43. Donna Griffith is credited with the longest recorded bout of sneezing. It lasted 978 days, from January 1981 to September 1983.
44. According to old historical opinion, Valentine’s Day is a good day to prepare eels for the purposes of magic. It was once believed that eating an eel’s heart would give sight of the future.
45. The youngest person to receive a driver’s license is a 14 year 8 month year old by the name of Andrezej Makowski.
46. The most miles ever put on a car is 1,615,000 miles on a 1966 Volvo P-1800.
47. Renee Descartes, the 17th century philosopher and mathematician, is the person responsible for “x” being the universal variable in algebra.
48. If you counted at the rate of 100 numbers a minute and kept counting for eight hours a day, five days a week, it would take a little over 4 weeks to count to one million and just over 80 years to reach one billion.
49. Every day, more than 1,000 gallons of water are lost into space from the top of Earth’s atmosphere. Yet there is about as much water on Earth as there was 3 billion years ago.
50. Les Miserables has a 3-page, 823-word sentence which is divided by 93 commas, 51 semicolons, and 4 dashes. Rumor has it that someone suffocated from lack of oxygen in the 1940′s just short of the 73rd comma while giving a dramatic reading from the work.
51. Flag semaphore invented in Europe in 1791 by Claude and Ignace Chappe. Using this form of communication, Napoleon Bonaparte was able to send a message from Rome to Paris in about 4 hours at the rate of 15 characters per minute.
52. About 40% of the world’s varieties of freshwater fish and more than half of the 8,600 species of birds in the world are in the Amazon River basin area.
53. The largest stick of incense ever created was nearly 15 feet long and 6 inches in diameter.
54. Jackie Bibby sat in a bathtub with 35 live rattlesnakes, procuring himself a world record.
55. The word ‘byte’ is a contraction of ‘by eight.’
56. The word ‘pixel’ is a contraction of either ‘picture cell’ or ‘picture element’.
57. The longest one-syllable word in the English language is “screeched.”
58. The dot over the letter ‘i’ is called a tittle.
59. Duddley DoRight’s Horses name was “Horse.”
60. Charlie Brown’s father was a barber.
61. Of the six men who made up the Three Stooges, three of them were real brothers (Moe, Curly and Shemp.)
62. Ohio is listed as the 17th state in the U.S., but technically it is number 47. Until August 7, 1953, congress forgot to vote on a resolution to admit Ohio to the Union.
63. Only 1/3 of the people that can twitch their ears can twitch only one at a time.
64. Ingrown toenails are hereditary.
65. The largest city in the United States with a one syllable name is Flint, Michigan.
66. On the cartoon show ‘The Jetsons’, Jane is 33 years old and her daughter Judy is 15.
67. Only humans and horses have hymens.
68. The word “set” has more definitions than any other word in the English language.
69. The state with the longest coastline in the US is Michigan.
70. We will have four consecutive full moons making two blue moons in 1999 (January 2 and 31, March 2 and 31.) The only other time it happened this century was in 1915 (January 1 and 31, March 1 and 31.)
71. The longest U.S. highway is route 6 starting in Cape Cod, Massachusetts going through 14 states, and ending in Bishop, California.
72. The first man to sail solo around the world was Joshua Slocum, who couldn’t swim.
73. It took 20,000 men 22 years to build the Taj Mahal.
74. Vincent Van Gogh painted a picture every day for the last 70 years of his life.
75. If you stand at the bottom of a well you would be able to see the stars even in the middle of the day.
76. STASI, the East German secret police, managed to duplicate the scent of a female dog in heat and apply it to the shoes of people they had under surveillance. If they needed to track them down, they just had to let some male dogs follow the scent.
77. Arnold Schwarzenegger began his transition from Austrian bodybuilder into an American film star when he made his screen debut in 1970 under the name “Arnold Strong” in “Hercules Goes Bananas.”
78. The Hundred Years War of the 14th and 15th centuries actually lasted 116 years.
79. Trees, not whales, are the largest living organisms on Earth today.
80. Karen Roman grew the world’s largest cauliflower, weighing in at 22 pounds.
81. Charles Dickens kept the head of his bed aligned with the North Pole, believing the earth’s magnetic field would pass longitudinal through his body and ensure him a good night sleep.
82. The Titanic’s rudder outweighed Christopher Columbus’ Santa Maria.
83. Scientists find as many as 10,000 new species of insects a year.
84. Worms can have up to ten hearts.
85. The dragonfly has about 30,000 lenses covering its retina, enabling it to see many images.
86. More employees are injured in the meat packing industry than any other line of work.
87. By the time you’re 70 you will have lost half your taste buds.
88. Low fat foods are more likely to contain harmful bacteria than regular foods.
89. The largest ball of twine in the world resides in Cawker City, Kansas, USA. It is over 12 feet in diameter, weighs 8+ tons, and never stops growing. More
90. Average wait in the waiting room of a doctor’s office: 20 minutes.
91. Black was the only colour that Ford produced the Model T. It was the only paint available which would dry fast enough to keep up with the fast pace of the assembly line.
92. About 50 ant farms are sold an hour.
93. The world’s longest mustache is more than eight feet long.
94. The world’s largest squid was 35 feet long and weighed 2.2 tons.
95. The fastest speed that a rail vehicle has gone is 6,121 mph or mach 8.
96. The world’s largest gum drop was 11 lbs, 9 inches tall, and contained 15,250 calories.
97. The largest tumor ever removed intact weighed 303 lbs.
98. On the South Pole every direction you look is north.
99. The world’s first coffee shop opened in 1554 in Constantinople. But it wasn’t until 1683 when coffee was served with milk, sugar, and a strainer was used to separate the grounds from the beverage.
100. The tuna fish never stops swimming.