Once upon a time, there lived a talented young girl. Twenty minutes away lived a talented young boy. About 20-some years later, the two met and like all fairy tales, they lived happily ever after. The girl is DJ Shortee, the boy is DJ Faust and the fairy tale is Faust and Shortee. The world’s […]
K8 Erwin
Posted inMusic
Built to Scratch
The time is around ’88, and the place is New York City. Some battling DJs calling themselves the X-Men had just begun to practice together and win competitions. Then, with a mission to take over the NYC DJ championships, the X-Men took it a bit further, collecting numerous national and international titles. With their worldwide […]
Posted inNews
Jean Grae
At first listen Jean Grae is every record label’s dream: a female who can rap her a** off. But Grae, as an artist and freethinking person, has been around long enough to know how the business works. Grae first began playing the rap game when she was just a teenager. Her first group, Ground Zero, […]
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Musical Makeover
Excuse my nostalgia, but life seemed easier when the simple pleasures were scraps from the grip tape box at Endless Grind and posters from Schoolkids Records. They would call you when they were taking them down and the posters would be all yours to display in your bedroom. It was a time when CDs came […]
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Old School New School
J-Live reminds me of my middle-school small engines course teacher, Arthur Koop. Koop’s other job titles included father and guitar player in the band Blue Nation, and if you went to Ligon Middle and you took a Koop course, it was your favorite. We learned more from him than from most of our other teachers–we’d […]
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El-P’s New Spin on Hip Hop
El-P doesn’t have a car but he might get one … eventually. “I wouldn’t mind dipping out of the city on my own. Especially since it’s wartime,” says Jamie Meline (aka rapper El-P) in a monotone. The 27-year-old rapper and owner of the Definitive Jux label is talking to the Indy via telephone from his […]
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Stimulated Vol. 1
Where can you find De La Soul, Dilated Peoples, The Liks, Rah Diggah, B- Real, Del, Everlast and Prodigy on the same album? Stimulated Vol. 1 has got all the above and then some. Stimulated Records, whose mission is to “declassify” hip hop, is the nephew of Loud Records. Stimulated Dummies, aka Dante Ross (who […]
