The Musik Lounge

With his latest video Avatar Young Blaze takes some time away from the streets and relaxes off that fine Cali Kush before taking some aggression out on the bloggers who just don't seem to buy dude's stories. You should. I first started hearing about him sometime last year, maybe once prior to that but he has been out here in Seattle making a name for himself in two circles. The streets will never let Avatar's name be smeared. In rap circles he is starting to capture more attention and with just cause. I hit up his manager about doing an interview, discovered that he no longer calls Seattle home, but was invited to converse via email. If you thought this was just your average 21 year old knuckle head you are only kidding yourself. TML: Who is Avatar? Where were you born, when? Avatar Young Blaze: Avatar is the embodiment of a concept, being music, destined since birth. I was born in 1989 in Tallin, Estonia although my mother is full Russian & father is full Ukrainian. TM...

These Heatrock compilations never seem to make it up to the blog in a timely manner? The two jobs are over and summer is about here. I took a brief hiatus this weekend from the antics of Seattle life to come home and visit with my mom. Always feels good to return to the place of my beginings but I'm ready to get back and keep things moving. Shouts out to all my Jet Set fam, rock tonight for me! Download the May Heatrocks here . May saw the release of the Jeezy tape Trap or Die 2, picking up from the last tape and as is usual with mixtapes things stay just a little harder than you would hear on a full length issued by a label. The Clipse and Jeezy are three of the only emcees who own the coke raps today. This song doesn't really pull on their mutual trade but they deliver a high energy banger for you to rock out with none the less! Detroit is a cold hard place. People say the grey skies round Seattle keep our youth depressed more than anywhere else. Maybe so, but depression has...

It's finally time. Kush & Orange Juice . It's been out here, cats are listening to it. Wiz performed practically the entire tape this past weekend. The show left a bad taste in my mouth, but that isn't anything new when it comes to acts I dig on. The crowd was eating it up and the venue was packed out. Can't be mad at all of that. Still curious about what all the hype is for? Download this tape and spark something up, the picture will get clearer the hazier the room is. If I've come to one conclusion in my time reviewing all his projects it's that while he probably can get deep, it's not in his repetroie at the moment. This also coincides with my feeling that Wiz is an artist to watch. I see a vision behind what he is doing and am incredibly excited to see where he takes it. He has a lot of potential and as he grows I think his music will too. We aren't their yet though. He is still a 22 year old kid having fun, enjoying life and the perks of his car...

I had some false impressions of Burn After Rolling that had me hating on a tape that is actually quite good, certainly a worthy follow up to the excellent Flight School he had dropped several months prior to this. In '09 he also released his record with Currensy and his full length dropped a few weeks after B.A.R. - it serves as a great representation of Wiz and certainly was a great marketing tool for Deal or No Deal . All this work and he doesn't even begin to sound tired. Here he rocks over a lot of jacked beats. "Say U Will" brought it out of people last year and Wiz was one of many who dropped some deeply introspective lines over Kanye's masterpiece. He rocks over "Mafia Music" and "Best I Ever Had" as well - I certainly could be missing some others, I'm not sure of the origin of many of these tunes. Regardless of where they came from, Wiz owns them all. He is simultaneously at his funniest and most serious throughout the tape. Wh...

My favorite feature of iTunes has to be the play count and top 25 most played lists. I love being able to see what is getting the most plays from me. With my computer crashing and the subsequent reloads I found myself loosing the valuable information that makes up my play count and helps determine what you all are blessed in these here posts I like to call the heatrocks. A few of the songs from last month were so ingrained in my ears i couldn't forget them, others just jumped out as I scrolled. Just 11 bangers this time around due to technical difficulty but you'll enjoy them! J Rocc, Daedelus, Ras G & Nobody all participated in a little project with Dublab outta LA entitled Secondhand Sureshots and it is one of the dopest documentaries about diggin I've ever seen. They all went out with 5 bucks and picked up 5 records from thrift shops in LA. Took them home and made tunes out of them, dublab pressed em on to dubplates (and subsequent full 12" vinyl) and had each ...

It's only proper to have something rolled up when listening to Flight School , front to back the best project Wiz Khalifa has dropped in his career. Kush and Orange Juice is hot, I'll get to it, but this is his shining moment in my ears. Having listened to Star Power finally it makes perfect sense as a follow up, capitolizing on every dope aspect of that tape and simeltaneously dismissing all the weak ideas that were probably dead before he really tried them. What you get is an awesome project I've already declared as one of the best - I can always give my thoughts on a tremendous record though. The production here is awesome. He grabs a few beats, Santogold's "Starstruck" and a Pharcyde classic which he nimbly rides perfectly. His flow is on full demonstration here and he never disappoints. It's an awesome listening experience as he selects such a diverse array of backdrops to rip it's just fun to hear him always execute with ease. He doesn't ...

In between Prince of the City Vol. 2 and Star Power Khalifa's weed consumption had to have gone up. The references are far more on par with what we have come to expect and the sound is that spacely party and chill vibe he has used his in house team of beatmakers to mold into their thing. Here we still see moments of that block talking young kid whose first project welcomed you to Pistolvania. Most of these projects have utilized a quick intro and it remains the same here which just means the music starts that much sooner. Kicks off proper with a Johnny Juilano feature "I'm a Star" that is a filled with an awesome hook taylor made for clubs. Wiz spends the time telling you just how star lived his life is. Truth or fiction, it doesn't really matter he owns the image and paints it to be pretty fun. Of course it can't all be fun and parties. The guests keep coming through which add another element to this tapes walking of a line between where Wiz came from and w...

Upon first listening to Prince of the City Vol. 2 I was scratching my head. It wasn't that it sounded terrible but it didn't really seem like the Wiz I had been listening to. Perhaps this contributed to why I was delayed in running it yesterday like the plan has been. Sometimes delays happen and Mothers Day was no joke in the resturant biz! Cash money in my pocket makes things all better though. So what's good with this second mixtape of '07 from the Khalifa man? It's head and shoulders above Prince of the City Vol. 1 for a multitude reasons. He is finally coming into his own. Don't get me wrong, the projects before this one were definetly instrumental in his sound, but here on Vol. 2 you will hear what it is you know Wiz for. The tape starts quick with a vocal clip from the movie The Wiz before the celebratory anthem "Got Damn Love It" about how much he loves life. It's up beat and fun as are many of the beats to be found on this disc, done by ...

Last week Grynch came through to the radio show and chopped it up with us about an assortment of topics. We played some cuts as well so download this return podcast with vigor and stay tuned for the next one, it will be coming as I'm in the studio as I post this. Download TML Radio w/ Grynch .

For how hard I've been riding for Wiz, I'm suprised by myself having not delved deeper into his back catolog sooner. Shouts out to my Oregonian brother Sunn E.D. for hipping a kid! We've made it to 2007 and Wiz third project, Grow Season . At this point he was signed to Warner Bros. and the major label hands are all over this project. You have a big name DJ (Green Lantern) and industry beats rocked over (Common's "Go", Snoop's "Vato" to name a couple) along with annoying drops and rewinds. No matter how you feel about these things this tape is still worth some listens and is far superior to his first offering, Prince of the City Vol. 1 , yet leaves something to be desired after Show & Prove . The weed references have been upped here, telling clubs flat out he doesn't care about the rules he will smoke when he wants on the anthem "Lifted." "Talk To Me" has a great auto tuned hook and it's probably a jacked commercia...

If Prince of the City sounded like the first offical mixtape from Wiz Khalifa, Show & Prove is obviously his debut album and demonstrates exactly what it is that has kept him on the tips of cats tongues nation wide since. Show & Prove is a great album all the way through with a wide range of beat styles present and the content Wiz spits is far more thought provoking than much of what was present on Kush & Orange Juic e. The street edge present on his first mixtape is still here but it has lost some of its bite. He has grown into a comfortable story teller and is more inclined to address the negatives to a life surrouded by questionable actions. He still shouts out packing pistols at times and references bagging up product, rarely without a resolution that makes you feel as though he is looking for a moral to the things he has seen. Woman and sex are the second and third most discussed topics on Kush & OJ , here he dedicates a few songs to the ladies. "Keep The C...

Wiz Khalifa has been a quite storm brewing for years. After parting ways with Warner Bros. after years on deck but never seeing anything come to fruition he has been working harder then ever to keep his fans satisfied with material to burn to. As the date of his arrival in Seattle approaches I've wanted to shed some light on who this young kid is and what he has been doing. At 18 he dropped Prince of The City Vol. 1: Welcome to Pistolvania . A typical mixtape affair, devoid of pretty much anything that would make it stand out from any tape you could find on canal street back in the day. That is not to say you shouldn't listen to this. If you like Wiz it's a great demonstration of how far he has come and how well he has developed his strengths. While on his latest offering Kush & Orange Juice he doesn't fully show it (due to a lot of more sung vocals, not coming weak), he can ride a beat with the best of em. Sounding good on a track goes a long way to making you lis...

If you haven't gotten onto Bandcamp and just perused the mass amounts of FREE music readily available on their network you really should. Routinely finding multiple new artists or projects throughout the week on Bandcamp, it's been in my head for awhile to feature some of these finds here. Perhaps this will become a new Sunday trend. Bodega Man is someone I plan to feature more on the site in the future but I couldn't sit on his album any longer, The Jazz Album: Recession Thinking , it must be heard. I'll let him break it down: The concept of this album was the reflection of the average 9-5er American worker who struggled daily thru this recession. It was also for the people at the bottom of Americas pyramid. I wanted to put the peoples pain in each song from the ghettos of America, middle class America, and I myself who struggles every single day. Needless to say he is tackling some topics very few are addressing with their music these days and it's refreshing. The...

Mick Boogie is a pioneer of the current internet mixtape game. Having dropped routinly fresh and consistently filled with new material projects, along with teaming with more artsits then I could list for promo mixtapes to create hype for their respective offical full lengths. Quiet as kept, more times than not, these "street" releases could pass as their album and be far more respected. For his latest tape he has decided to round up the best of those he has worked with over the years, along with a few suprises to keep you ahead of the curve. Expect a number of usual suspects such as U-N-I, Talib, Outasight, Joe Scudda and Big Pooh. He also calls up the "blog" rap generation in the form of Shawn Chrystopher, Fly Union, Curtain$ and more. Bottom line, heat is here from a number of generations of talent. Boogie puts Oncue on for the intro and outro cuts, having never heard this dude he exemplifies why this tape is titled The Changemakers and why Mick Boogie can claim...

Enjoy this remix from DJ Dials reworking parts of the Euro club anthem of last summer "Hyph Mngo" from Joy Orbison and placing the Cash Money crew's A Capella over it. Download it here . If you didn't hear Hollis cover "Money To Blow" last week, watch it now.

It's been a hot minute after a little break from being on the air things got sorted out and we are back on! This week I invited my friend and fellow SU alum Rob LaGatta in to kick back and drop some tunes. We basicaly went back and forth playing a wide variety of cuts. Peruse the tracklist and download TML Radio Vol. 11 here ! TML Radio Vol. 11 (4.3.10) Examples of Twelve "Pt. 2 The Madness? I" Wheedle's Groove "Baby Back" Aleke Kanonu "N'Gwode" Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings "Window Shoping" Why?Arcka "Out of School" Why?Arcka "Come Teach" Why?Arcka "GSH J Dilla Interlude" Why?Arcka "We Be Burnin' It Up" Impressions "Long Long Winter" Hudson Mohawke ft. Dam Funk "Allhot" Edie Hazel "California Dreamin" Sapient "Make More (Budo Remix)" The Final Solution "Never Coming Back Again" OC Notes ft. Cat Satisfaction "On A Clear Day (You Can S...

I'm making it a priority to get the heatrocks posted in the first week of the new month from here on out. This month was a slow one on the new music front, at one point I was convinced this was gonna be a short collection. Shuffle knew better though, hitting me with a number of gems that I just had to add to the mix. In the end I had enough to make this the first "double disc" heatrocks edition. Keep reading for what Vol. 1 holds and tune in tomorrow for Vol. 2! Download March 2010: Vol. 1 Here I have a folder of Jazz releases from '08 that a particular blog dubbed "best of" and of the handful that I've listened to they live up to the title. Quiet Village was among that collection and while the album has never gotten a full length play from me cuts come into my mind frame from time to time. "Too High To Move" is a great example of a smooth and melodic track letting you ride along with it. Don't be afraid by it's long nature, a trumpet ...

Without music life would be a mistake. ~Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche DOWNLOAD those February Heatrocks! It's about that time once again y'all! New month, time to run through those tracks tht got me through the last 30... well 28 in this case. February was a great month, stayed busy, partied and listened to some great music! Did you cop that Magnectic Blackness 7"? As per usual in the first months of the year it's always slow to hear new music. But I still stayed at it digging up just a few jams and going back into time to bump some older gems. Dibia$e has been making a name for himself in the LA beat scene and his 10" with P.U.D.G.E. def deserves some shine. The track "Smoke It Over" is a great stoner vibe out jam that you are gonna have to get blunted to. Take (who will be dropping the follow up in that 10" series soon) dropped an album called The Dirty Decibles of Thomas Two Thousand . While not quite as dope as his debut from a few years back, ...

The show Saturday didn't record and it's a shame cause we had a special guest in. But Mr. Jack Devo of Bring That Beat Back hit me with some tunes and I put together a special Seattle edition of TML Radio for y'all! Featuring 10 tracks from Jack by artists in the town in the 90s and 10 (plus an extra remix) from me by the current crop of talent, we weave a story of Seattle Hip Hop then and now. Peruse the track list and get the podcast! DOWNLOAD TML Radio: Seattle Special Jake One ft. Kutfather "No Introdeezy" The Good Sin, Young TH, JusMoni & Tay Sean "Turn You On" The Flood "Purple Rollin" J. Pinder & Spaceman "SXSW/CMJ" The Silent Lambs Project "Comrade" Grynch "Biological Didn't Bother 2010" The Ghetto Children ft. Truth "I Wanna win" Helladope ft. Isabella Du Graf "Gods on a Mission" Elevators "Elevator Music" Brainstorm "Blameyaself" Source of Labor & ...

Late, late, late pass! My bad, just kinda slacking on the podcast game this week. But here it is for ya. Ficticious came through to the studio, played a few jams and chopped it up about their forthcoming debut release. Be at Chop Suey March 19th! Aside from that we played some cuts like we always do on TML Radio. Spark one up and sit back, thanks for riding with us! TML Radio Vol. 10 Tracklist D Black "Blow The Trumps" Helladope "Rainwater" Amos Miller "Paint My Eazle" Bean One "Super Twerk" Ficticious "Walk With Us" (Live In Studio) Hudson Mohawke "Gluetooth" Ficticious "Dark Numbers" (Live In Studio) Bobby Hutcherson "Air" Ficticious "Give Me The Hay" (Live In Studio) Take "Lie-Twerx" Sims "15 Blocks" Sage Francis "Escape Arist" P.O.S. "De La Souls" Aesop Rock "Daylight" Slumgullion "Springers" Fresh Espresso "Girls & Fast Cars...