MP3: Oh My My My by Envelope
Columbus’ number 1 son, Envelope, is finally dropping the follow-up to his local classic, Insignificant Anthems. The new album Sharkbolt comes out July 8th. Lope will have a release party July 11th at Skullys here in Columbus..
I don’t want to give too much at this point.,,, But I can say it is produced entirely by Blueprint, and Shark Bolt is much darker than his previous album. Dood also got a little cynical. Shit a lot happened in the past couple years.
Comments Off on New Envelope Album Coming July 11 – First MP3
Posted in Columbus, MP3, Wes Flexner
Tagged blueprint, Envelope, weightless
MP3: Cadillac Rap feat. Blueprint
The stock of Columbus hip-hop collective Bottom Brick has been on the rise as of late. Since the release of The Framework EP in late 2006, they have stayed in the spotlight with energetic live shows, side project EPs, and individual members showcasing their talents (like producer Seance’s involvement in a recent production showcase at So What Wednesdays). This weekend sees the release of the group’s first full-length album, The Groundbreaking, a self-released effort.
The Groundbreaking is 16 tracks long, boasting plenty “old-fashioned” boom-bap rap. Which is not to say that the material sounds particularly dated, but just that Bottom Brick will satisfy most fans of classic ’90s hip-hop. The beats (mostly handled by the group’s Seance and Mattinee) are solid backdrops for the MCs, highlighted by the horn-laced banger “Cadillac Rap” and the chilled out vibes of the aptly-titled “Cool Out.” The group’s MCs (Adjust, H.I.M Illaflo, and Seance) do the beats justice most of the time, ably handling varied subject matter and moods. There are a few questionable moments on the mic (the hook on “As It Is” comes to mind), but most of the time, the lyrics and beats mesh well. The album also includes vocal appearances by Columbus all-stars Blueprint (on the aforementioned “Cadillac Rap”), Illogic (whose unhinged verse contributes well to the ethereal “Anthropology”) and Grmm Diabolic. For a group’s first full-length record, it is not surprising that the album’s pace bogs down a bit in the middle, mostly due to a string of songs about life’s struggles. “Cool Out” gets the proceedings back on track, however, and paves the way for a more upbeat ending including the good-natured drinkin’ and partyin’ anthem “More the Merrier,” the lone carryover here from The Framework.
Despite a few missteps, The Groundbreaking shows a group of hip-hop artists getting more familiar with each other and their roles. No matter the mood, there are tracks here that will complement it well.
Bottom Brick will celebrate its album release with a show (including a featured guest appearance by Blueprint) at the High Five on Saturday, May 3rd. Also on the bill is a tag team performance from Illogic & Ill Poetic, sets from Grmm Diabolic and Ol’ Scandalous, and party jams from DJs Detox, Lefto, and Product. It is rare that all of a hip-hop album’s vocal contributors are present for the release party, so the show should be a fine display of what the album is all about.
MP3: Blueprint vs. Funkadelic EP
Blueprint is giving away his new EP, Blueprint vs. Funkadelic, for free on this and a selected few sites. The cd is a limited run of 500. It can be purchased on Weightless.net and a couple stores around the country. I chopped it up with Print a couple nights ago as he prepared for his Wednesday release party at Cafe Bourbon Street in Columbus. We talked P-Funk, Aliens, the future of Weightless, and the Sean Bell Verdict.
I used to hate on the West Coast for using so much Funkadelic in the Early 90’s. Its kinda died down now. What made you gravitate towards devoting a whole project to it?
I felt it was kind of played as well, but what I think the difference is that a lot of what they sampled was actually Parliament, and not Funkadelic. Granted, they’re both groups that George Clinton started and lead, but the Funkadelic catalog wasn’t pillaged as much as the Parliament catalog because Parliament was more successful than Funkadelic.
Until recently I personally didn’t really know the difference because people always referred to them as P-Funk as if they were the same, but as I started to listen to Funkadelic’s catalog i realized it’s a lot different than Parliament’s catalog, and it also sounds different. Truthfully, I didn’t even put much thought into the creation of it. One day I was listening to an album of theirs and I heard all types of good breaks that hadn’t been used. That by itself changed my opinion about Funkadelic and made me really see how different the two groups were.
Whats the difference between Blueprint vs. Funkadelic and a Mash-up?
Well i think the standard “mash-up” is basically about taking vocals or lyrics that aren’t really new, and are fairly popular mixed with instrumentals that are already sort of popular and bringing the two worlds together. The stuff I’ve done with the Greenhouse vs Radiohead and now with the Blueprint vs Funkadelic project is more from a fan and producer’s perspective. I sit around listening to these records and I do them as a fan first. I just start making beats out of everything that i think is usable then i start putting rhymes to it. Sometimes the rhymes are songs that I’ve had lying around for a while, and other times they’re things i write to the beats. Sometimes there may be something that I start on a record like this and eventually flesh out and take a little bit further on another project I’m working on. It’s something that only takes me about a week or so to do because I try to really be in the moment with it, but sometimes the looseness of it is what really helps it comes together. I don’t want it to sound like i really thought it out. I want it to sound really fun and as lo-fi as possible. The only thing that prevented this project from coming out sooner was that I couldn’t find any audio interviews of the members of the bad talking for a while, but after I found that it really helped bring it together.
Who Flipped P-Funk The Best?
I’d say the D.O.C “Diggy Diggy Doc.
Your last solo album, 1988 sold like 15,000 copies. What did you decide to do a run of cd’s limited to 500 and give it away as a free download?
Truthfully it’s kind of an experiment. When I first started doing records i had this tendency to hold back for a special situation or time before I put things out, but I dont think that’s really necessary anymore because the model for getting music to people has changed so much.
Personally, I’m not into holding things back anymore. I love doing music too much. As an artist or label, you can determine the scope of a release much easier now than you could before and that’s kind of what I’m doing this for. It’s primarily for people who last heard me on 1988 and have been waiting on something new from me. Right now, I look at it as just one release of many that will start seeing the daylight. I want to see how people respond to this and hopefully people download it and share it with their friends if they like it. Continue reading
Some thoughts on the two record breaking events we had this weekend to celebrate the 5 year.
Saturday
MIKE SHIFLET – really interesting stuff. loved the band. he mentioned in our interview with him that he’s hoping to do more shows with a band and i hope he follows up. it’s the making of something really cool.
MIRANDA SOUND – love the new stuff. i like when they play it a little heavier, something they don’t always do…. i think it adds a great extra layer to their music.
EL JESUS DE MAGICO – four years ago if you would have told me that i would have El Jesus play my 5 year party I would have laughed in your face. Things change, and I’m really happy that they did. Set was fucking FIERCE. can’t wait to hear their new album.
BRAINBOW/BLUEPRINT – I had intentionally stayed away from the rehersals because I wanted to experience the show for the first time with the crowd. And put it quite simply, I was stunned. Look, I love music, but this was seriously mind blowing. I felt something that I haven’t felt in a long time.
Instead of Brainbow trying to recreate the music of Blueprint, they approached it from their own point of view. It was Blueprint. It was Brainbow. Neither band sacrificed their integrity or created some sort of Frankenstein rock/rap thing that was only a novelty. I say this with all seriousness, it was epic! When Print said it was their last song, I was heartbroken! I could have used 5 more songs. I didn’t want it to end, and that’s a sign of a good set. Leave us wanting more….
I know it took a lot of time for Print and Brainbow to practice for this event, and I am really thankful that they did. It means so much that they took on this experiment for the 5 year anniversary of the site, and I can’t show my appreciation enough.
PS: Bob Ray Starker and Leslie Jankowski (from Church of the Red Museum) added a horn section in two of the songs. What a nice touch! Oh man. So good.
We did bill this as a one time only thing, and I hope they consider maybe doing it again in the future. Or maybe not. Maybe in this internet age when everything is recorded, Youtubed, and distributed to the world, it’s nice to have a “YOU HAD TO BE THERE” thing. I’d be happy either way.
This was the biggest crowd we’ve ever had for a single donewaiting.com event. It was great.
Update: Youtubed! This is Brainbow/Blueprint performing “Liberated”. Picture quality is dark but it’s the music that matters.
Friday
GRAVE BLANKETS – first time seeing them, won’t be my last. Really good sound. The recorded material they’ve put out there doesn’t do them justice…. they are a great live band.
SINKANE – Ahmed has always been one of my favorite musicians in Columbus and it looks like he’s finally firmed up his vision of Sinkane. Their set was hypnotic. Really cool. And with a solid indie label putting their album out later this year, things are gonna explode! Can’t wait! AHMED I WANT A PICTURE DISC RECORD.
THIS MOMENT IN BLACK HISTORY – haven’t seen them since they opened up for YEah Yeah Yeahs in Cleveland a few years back. Good set, liked the energy. First mosh pit ever at a donewaiting event.
DEATHLY FIGHTER – I am a believer.
This Moment in Black History Video from the Show
Comments Off on Notes on the Donewaiting.com 5 Year Anniversary
Tagged blueprint, Brainbow, Deathly FIghter, El Jesus De Magico, Grave Blankets, Mike Shiflet, Miranda Sound, Sinkane, This Moment in Black History
Y’know the Blueprint/Brainbow combination is fierce because it’s the first time an upper echelon rapper and an artistic-minded band from Columbus have gone the collab route that worked for De La Soul & Teenage Fanclub, The Roots, and pretty much no one else. Who remembers Sir Mixalot’s corny line on the Judgement Night Sountrack, “I Want to Put You In the Mud-honey?” We don’t need to even get into Limp Bisquit and all that other stuff that is the worst of the terrible.
So given that the locals in Columbus love to tell the story again and again about how diverse the music scene is. And how it’s prolly the only place in country where pretty much the most talented and successful in the city in all music forms from Noise to Hip Hop hang out in the same places, and support each other. It’s interesting that this is the first time this has happened.
We love to ride for how Daymon Dodson, 3cbsa, Thought Set, Weightless, CDR, Print/Black Keys at the Newport, Scotty, The Apes/Meta4ce, Killed In Action and Przm/Fonosluts changed the game forever with next ups like Triceratops, IGLU, PBJ, DJ Detox and Milk Bar’s DCKareem watching in the crowd . Who can forget the famous El Jesus Alive cover that solidified Daymon as the Mac Dre of this movement? I could site examples forever. Sweetheart’s crowd. Skylab. Carabar. Beat Lounge. Most Weightless bills. TNV’s support of a mourning Hip Hop scene. It’s embedded.
If you are in Columbus, you prolly already know what I am talking about.
Point being, cats shared spaces and bills for long enough that you can call it culture. But this show is a first. No one was dumb ever enough to do a wack some rap/rock jump-off just because people were friends. So you know this Bluebow thing is supposed to happen. And it will be epic. I caught up with Print and spoke to him about the perils of the live band/Hip Hop problem. He explained to me how Brainbow, and himself were able to prepare something that is locally historic and musically sound.
Hip Hop with a live band is always a very thorny endeavor. What common mistakes do people make?
Blueprint: The main mistake I think people make when they pair up with a band is to base it completely around what they’ve already heard so it comes out sounding like terrible imitations of what’s already out there. Or they just get a bunch of random musicians who love the edge of hip-hop but just want to jam out, so the results sound like a hip-hop jam band; the music goes on and on for 10-minutes at a time and the end up freestyling or rapping about complete nonsense.
What have Brainbow and yourself done to avoid these errors?
Blueprint: The most important thing to both of us is to avoid compromising the integrity of what we’ve done already. And I think the best way to do that is to make it about the songs. The arrangements and the spirit of the songs should be the first thing that determines how you present that music. Some hip-hop songs work perfectly as chopped-up samples, but they lose their effectiveness when they’re played out by musicians. At the same time, there are some hip-hop arrangements that translate extremely well live, and those are the arrangements you want to focus on. For example, the production work I’ve done that’s more layered, and spacey tends to translate better than sparse minimalistic stuff. Nobody in a band wants to be playing the exact same riff for 5 minutes straight anymore than i want to hear them play the same riff for 5-minutes straight. So before we ever met up to rehearse i sat down and brainstormed about what songs I had in my catalog that could translate well in terms of arrangement; songs with intros, verses, choruses, and outros, etc.. Then i sent them to Brainbow to see what they felt could work. Just by approaching it like that i think we eliminated a lot of the problems other people may have when they try to do this. Now, I’m not saying that we’re any better than anybody else because we have yet to play the show yet, but I do feel confident that nobody will leave the show saying that we sounded exactly like they expected us to sound, and I also think we sound like something brand new.
Brainbow and Blueprint will be playing with Miranda Sound, Mike Shiflet, and El Jesus de Magico Saturday at Skully’s. For more information, click here.
Comments Off on Donewaiting Five Year Saturday Preview: Blueprint
Posted in 5 Year, Interviews, Wes Flexner
When I was assembling the five year anniversary events, I I wanted to have some sort of special centerpiece to it all. Something a little extraordinary, something that we might not see anywhere else or ever again.
This was right after the time Brainbow decided to cover a whole bunch of Lord of the Rings music for a Halloween show. I figured if a band could dedicate themselves to doing something like that, maybe they’d be up for doing something for the five year. I knew the band was good friends with Blueprint, and thought that maybe combining the music of Brainbow with the lyrics and rapping of Blueprint could create something truly unique. You’ll be able to find out Saturday night!
I asked Will Fugman about the collaboration, and here’s what he said.
What can people expect from the Blueprint/Brainbow collaboration Saturday?
Will: Well, there’s kinda going to be a little bit of everything. First, as some people have been asking, there won’t be a bunch of Brainbow songs with Blueprint rapping over top of them. We have been approaching this as a collaboration, so we wanted it to be as much of that as possible, with the time constraints we had to work under. We (Brainbow) just started trying to play like we normally would, but with more emphasis on beats, or beats that lend themselves to hip-hop specifically. This was before Al (Blueprint) even came over, and we were just sort of trying to get into that mindset, and see if we could find some sort of compromise that could take both of our sounds, which are pretty different, and put them together.
That’s kinda what we’re going for, but the most important part of the mix, in our opinion, is the vocal element, which is something we’ve never dealt with before. Pretty much everything we’ve done was to work around the framework of Blueprint’s words, verses, choruses, etc. With the exception of one instrumental, which was written by Print, and then brainbowtized by us, you can expect to hear some mellow, some heavy, some funkier stuff (though that sounds a lot scarier than it actually is), some more psyche oriented stuff, as well as a few things that are more aligned with what you might think of when you think of Blueprint.
How has the process been working with Blueprint, an outsider to the band?
Sweet. It’s always a little horrifying to work with new people… We have our own way of working on things, which could be pretty annoying to an outside person. I would imagine it’s even more annoying to a vocalist, but Print knows what’s up with writing music so it wasn’t too bad. He started sending me some stuff over email, some things he thought would lend themselves well to what we’re doing, and we started with those as a skeleton. We took the overall feel of what he had, with the beats and the lyrics, and tried to throw a little of ourselves into it and see what happened. Al’s been really cool about us trying things out, or changing things around a little, which was great.
That’s usually a tricky subject, you know, someone gives you a recording and then you go and try to put your grubby hands all over it, and you’re worried that they won’t like it, or they’ll be offended, or whatever. Al’s been great about being there, being constructive, and being a really big part of the whole thing…which is all everyone could have hoped for. It’s cool, because we’ve shot the shit about doing something like this in the past, so it’s great to actually see what the hell it is we can do together, and it’s been a pretty positive, as well as difficult, experience.
EVENT TRAILER:
J-Rawls is taking part in a J-Dilla Tribute Night here in Columbus at So What Wednesdays.The show will consist of Blueprint, Rawls, Ill Poetic, the Rhythm Section and K81 showcasing their own production. Following the showcase Detox, and Pos 2 will spin Dilla songs. (The Detroit Producer passed Feb 10,2006)
I caught up with Rawls the other day and asked him what Dilla beats were his favorite. He had just returned to Columbus from L.A.. He was in Cali to take part in another J Dilla Tribute Show with The Stones Throw Crew and the Beat Junkies on the 9th.
Continue reading
Comments Off on J-Rawls, Columbus Hip Hop Pay Tribute to J Dilla.
Posted in Columbus, Music, Wes Flexner
Tagged blueprint, Ill Poetic, J. Dilla, J. Rawls, k81, rhythm section, So What Wednesdays
One Be Lo will be playing at Cafe Bourbon Street’s weekly Hip Hop Night. So What Wednesdays. Locals Apocalypse Inc will open. Blueprint hosts. Detox and Pos 2 dejay.
Above is a video of Michigan Rapper, One Be Lo performing an accapella about his troubles with identity during his adolescence. Lo was in need of, as Grand Puba would say, the proper education. The accapella is pretty poignant but it is not 100 percent indicative the sound of his new album, The R.E.B.I.R.T.H. It is consistant of Lo’s content which has always showed a soulful, personal and leftist slant . Hell, on his label’s website Subterraneous Records.com he lists Ho Chi Minh, Marcus Garvey, John Brown and Fela Kuti among his hero’s. However this record is different from previous efforts because it has the added punch of production by sometimey G-Unit/Freeway Producers, Jake One and Vitamin D. This has given, R.E.B.I.R.T.H. a more banging, neoteric sound compared to previous solid but a tad traditional efforts. But since he doesn’t have any MP3’s up for grab peep One Be Lo’s Myspace to hear what it sounds like.
One Be Lo has always been in an interesting cat to me because he has a strong National following in spite of not being on Def Jux, Rhymesayers, Babygrande or Stones Throw. When I worked the merch table for Soul Position’s San Francisco show, One Be Lo had a long rabid line front of his table that he was posted up at after his opening performance. Lo is an anomaly in indie hop. He is an ardently DIY , Black Muslim from Pontiac, Michigan that doesn’t have a publicist, or booking agent. Like I said earlier. No big indie label ties like an Ali, Lif or Doom. He isn’t emo like Sage Francis, Slug or Aesop. He isn’t shocking like Necro or Cage. Lo isn’t artsy like El-P. Dood is for certain not a hipster like The Cool Kids or Spankrock. He doesn’t have the Questlove co-signatures like Little Brother. Blueprint calls Lo “the gliche in the matrix”. He did have a Pete Rock Remix on his last record but other than that somehow dood has a career without being in the machine.
Posted in Music, Wes Flexner
Tagged Apolalypse Inc, blueprint, Detox, One Be Lo, Pos 2, So What Wednesdays
Hand printed by Clint Reno.
This show is awesome 500 different ways, but the thing that you will probably never see again is Rhymesayers/Weightless/Soul Position rapper Blueprint performing his music in collaboration with music by Brainbow.
Details on both shows here.
Friends, we’re putting together two great shows in February to celebrate our five year anniversary. Get them on your calendars pronto:
On Saturday, February 16 at Skully’s, we have a really special one-time collaboration between Columbus’ favorite hip hop MC Blueprint (Rhymesayers/Weightless/Soul Position) and instrumental rising stars Brainbow. This is going to be something really amazing, and I can’t wait to see this go down.
Joining Blueprint + Brainbow in the bill will be El Jesus de Magico, Miranda Sound, and Mike Shiflet (Ecstatic Peace). Mike’s going to be putting together a great band of all-stars.
On Friday, February 15 at Carabar, we’ve got another great show assembled by Doug Elliott. This Moment in Black History, Grave Blankets, Deathly Fighter, and Sinkane. This show will be free as hell.
We’ll keep you posted on additions, etc.
