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Waajeed’s The War LP is now scheduled for a mid-June release on Fat City Recordings. The album will be a double CD with mixed and unmixed discs.
In other Waajeed news, a European dj tour is being scheduled to coincide with The War LP’s release. Check the Bling47 site for more updates.
Check out a video Waajeed diggin’ the crates in a Roseville record store posted at Crate Kings.
It’s hard to believe that a few years have passed since Royce Da 5′9″ unveiled his kid brother and his “vicious” rhyme style to the world.
This is Royce along with his younger brother Kid Vishis with “2 of a kind”
Hear Vishis go at his own brother on this track from DJ Butter and Royce’s Defending the Crown part II mixtape.
With Wallstreet and D-Elite now defunct, Kid Vishis is the only artist Royce is actively pushing on his M.I.C. Records roster.
AllHipHop has published a Royce Da 5′9″ interview originally conducted by Biba Adams for the Michigan Citizen. A few new questions surface in this one.
AllHipHop.com: It seems like your career has had so many ups and downs, why do you think that is?
Royce da 5’9”: I’ve been in situations where I haven’t been able to put out music that best captured me. The only album that I ever really sat down and crafted was Death Is Certain. I grow so fast as an artist that by the time the label gets around to looking at Soundscan and radio and the marketing picture and this and that, that the music is old. It’s like it’s good, but you should hear what I got now. Most of my problems with labels have all been creative. The best situation for me to be in would be to be signed to another artist.AllHipHop.com: Speaking of, have Diddy and Nas contacted you?
Royce da 5’9”: I talked with Diddy while I was [writing for his Play album]. He likes me as an artist, and expressed that when I’m ready. he is interested in listening, but I wasn’t ready at the time. And Nas has made public comments about me, but he hasn’t contacted me personally.
AHH: Do you want another major label record deal?
Royce da 5’9”: I’m going to get one. That’s the plan with this album. We are going to finish it, shop it and find the right place for me.
I don’t want the interview to be like I’m hanging my head like there is so much that’s bad for me. I’m good. You know, I mean, Proof, God rest his soul, I feel like that could have been me, because I’ve been in that situation so many times. I feel like everything happens for a reason. I’m at a point where I’m standing on my own two, and doing for myself.
Maiya Norton at AllHipHop.com has reviewed Phat Kat’s Carte Blanche, giving it 3.5 stars out of 5.
“Carte Blanche” translates into “having free reign to choose whatever course of action you want.” If real Hip-Hoppers are listening Detroit might have a heydey part deux courtesy of Carte Blanche.
Bol also reviews Carte Blanche offering track-by-track thoughts on his site.
Obie Trice continues to release a flurry of new tracks. Maybe a result of him opening his own studio.
Obie Trice - “Detroit Summer”
This one is getting pushed to radio.
If you explore Detroit Hip Hop history and it’s pioneers, you will definitely come across the name Awesome Dre. Maybe the most recognizable early Detroit Hip Hop figure, Dre has long been out of any sort of limelight. His tracks continue to surface on Detroit mixtapes, paying tribute to the city’s pioneers but the question regularly comes up, “Whatever happened to Awesome Dre?”
Murder Dog magazine caught up with Dre and had this to write in an issue last year.
Detroit rap pioneer Awesome Dre, who moved to Georgia two years ago, is working on a new album and DVD. Meanwhile, he’s located the masters to three previously unreleased albums, which were recorded in 1989, 1996 and 1999. “I’m sitting on a lot of material people need to know about,” said Dre, who plans to release the lost albums and new material in an effort to reintroduce himself to the younger generation of hip-hop fans. …
New Phat Kat features continue to surface in the press with Carte Blanche’s release approaching. The first is with Real Detroit.
Keith N. Dusenberry of Real Detroit outlines Phat Kat’s average day while in the ‘D’.
When he’s in Detroit, Kat’s daily routine goes like this: “I get up like six or seven every morning, meditate, drink some tea and smoke some herbal … ah … ‘mediation aid’ and open up my blinds and just look at the city. That view, man … that view is crazy.” Kat says of his high-rise vantage point. “Watch a little news, see who got stabbed or who got carjacked or whatever. Make a little breakfast. Play some Tiger Woods (video game). I’m like The Man at Tiger Woods … After the Tiger Woods, I’ve been doing phone interviews … so, I’m like basically on the phone all day.” Kat laughs at this, and I ask what he does once night comes. “At night, man, I’m a Trekkie,” he says, completely serious. “I watch a little Family Guy waiting on Star Trek to come on. Star Trek and Sanford and Son — I’m old school.”
Slightly stunned, I ask if he ever goes to Trekkie conventions. “Nah, nah. You ain’t gonna see me at the convention with one of them tight little shirts on!” Kat laughs, patting his belly. We get to talking about Spock. “Did you know he used to be a singer?” Kat asks. “Me and Dilla used to just sit back and smoke and die laughing over the Spock album.”
SixShot.com also speaks with Phat Kat about the Carte Blanche release and hip hop figures in Detroit.
Phat Kat speaks of major players in the rise of Detroit such as Proof, Eminem, D12 and Dilla with the insight of a sibling. “We all knew Detroit hip-hop had some real lyricists, more than the drug dealing, violent types that everyone assumed Detroit would be full of, and whether it was in 5 or 15 years the songs we were putting down would get their due. Unfortunately for Dilla, he had to be gone for people to come out and say he was the greatest – I’ve always said that,” says Phat Kat. In the wake of Dilla’s passing and with the national spotlight securely focused on Detroit Hip-Hop for more than a minute now, Phat Kat puts it on his shoulders “To give the world a crash course of Detroit Hip-Hop. This is what it is.” Almost everyone associated with Carte Blanche represents the D. Dilla contributes five tracks, but the work of up-and-coming producers Nick Speed, Young RJ, and Black Milk is just as impressive. Other guests include SV’s Elzhi and T3, Truth Hurts, Melanie Rutherford, Fat Ray, Loe Louis and Guilty Simpson. Rather than pursuing cameos and features from overexposed stars, Phat Kat chose instead to work with his peoples from the D, figuring “The people I got on my album is just as hot as people that’s out.”
Detroit Hip Hop in the news