This is a Stalley video for his song S.T.A.L.L.E.Y. off the upcoming Ski Beatz Mixtape, 24 Hour Karate School which also features Mos Def, the Cool Kids, Jay Electronica, Curren$y, Jim Jones,Nicole Wray and more, out March 30th. This video has various people rocking Stalley’s trademark beard.

No he isn’t from Philly.

Stalley is from Massillon. Thinks about that for a second. He has already dropped a jazzhop mixtape called Mad Stalley:The Autobiography that would make Scott Storch beg to rejoin the Organix Roots and not be funny and has a bunch of projects with whose who in modern Low End Theory land on deck.

But he isn’t from Philly or Queens.
Fucking Massillon.

Stalley is performing in Austin for South By Southwest this year:

March 18-SXSW Urb Magazine Showcase Light Bar,

March 19-SXSW  Last Rights Showcase Firehouse Lounge .

March 20-SXSW Kenny Dorham’s Backyard.

For this interview, we talked Massillon sports, Hip Hop, Islam, Ohio weather, Jamaica, J-Rawls, and mainly how the fuck someone goes from small-town Ohio to being Dame Dash’s latest discovery. You should read it. He is from Massillon and is in a rap group with Mos Def, Curren$y, and Jay Electronica called Central Edge Territory.

Have you been to Massillon?

ME:We are in Columbus, which is close to Massillon. I know you got you’re thing going on in Cleveland with Terry Urban and them. But I’m going to try to get Columbus up to speed. You grew up in Massilon your whole life?

Stalley:I grew up in Massillon until High School  I left Massillon when I went away to college That’s when I left.

So you played for the Massillon basketball team. Sports is big up there uh?

Yeah. Football is huge. As everyone in Ohio usually knows. If they do know about Massillon that’s what they know is football (more…)

Jay Elect’s buzz is reaching Nas pre-Illmatic levels…In the above video Jay brings Mos Def and Puff Daddy onstage to “civilize an 85er”.

Still buggs me out how he tied the F.O.I, Nicholas Telsa and Mgmt together.

Actually, the most bugged out thing is that Jay Electronica puts a Ancient Moorish Science Fez on Diddy’s head.

You gotta feel the “We Love Haiti” chants before Jay sets it off.

MP3: Blakroc ft. Mos Def – On The Vista

This is the Mos Def - Blakroc jump-off. 

Hype is building on this album set to drop November 27th.

Blakroc even got a MSK endorsement

Official video for the the Black Keys, Mos Def and Jimmy Jones Blakroc modern blues “Ain’t Nothing Like You (Hoochie Coo)” jump-off.

Blakroc in stores November 27th.

You peeped Blakroc.com,yet? They have webisodes of the making of the Blakroc album.

From webisode 1, I learned that Dame Dash keeps pretty indie rock girls around like every true Hip Hop visionary should in 2009, and we also find out that Jim Jones takes awhile to craft his songs. I guess smoking weed and threatening to give bouncers wedgies disrupts a man’s concentration.

Webisode 2 documents the mighty Mos Def’s recording session with the Midwest’s best, the Black Keys, for the Blakroc project.

Lock-in!! Blakroc drops November 27th.

Photo Credit:Danielle Kline from last years Jim Jones show. Not to be confused with the one I am mentioning in this blurb.

MP3:The Black Keys ft. Mos Def and Jim Jones – Hoochie Coo -

Dipset shows in Columbus, and Jim Jones in paticular were always an interesting spectacle throughout the duration of the crews artist thug -in-residency here in the C-O because there was always an feeling in the air that admidst that there may be some sort of animosity in the room.

witnessing what maybe  the source of stress in jim jones life after the jump

(more…)

UPDATE: Blakroc’s official website is now live.

Here in Ohio, the rumors of a Black Keys produced Hip Hop project intially started by a Jim Jones on Twitter awhile back are becoming a reality by Patrick Carney twittering ” Blakroc” a few hours ago. The current word swinging around Columbus graffiti and weirdo creep circles about the Blakroc project like chains and exhaust is this:

Blakroc is a hip hop album produced by the Black Keys that features Rza, Raekwon, Mos Def, Jim Jones, Pharoah Monch, Q-tip, Ludacris, ODB, Billy Danze of M.O.P., Noe and Nicole Wray.

The album has 11 songs and will be released 11 weeks from today on Black Friday (the Friday after Thanksgiving).

The album is being released on a label started by Dame Dash and The Black Keys management.

Given that Rae, and Mos Def both put out their best albums in a decade this past year, I have a pretty good feeling about this record and NYC golden era Hip Hop artists in general.

(And I live in a city where we throw parades for our lost local Hip Hop icons. So us Ohioans take our Hip Hop seriously)