The Musik Lounge

Episode 52! Thank you for all your support this last year, it's a blessing and an honor to get to share these sounds with you all week in and week out. Lots of fresh grooves, new and old this week along with a set from Yakoob! As always catch me live every Sunday from 1 - 3 PM PST @ KTQA.org ! UPDATE: This show is no longer available to stream. If you'd like to hear it, holler at me! Tracklist: Beyonce “American Requiem” Take “Circles & Squares (Mr. Supreme Remix)” Vegyn ft. John Glacier “A Dream Goes On Forever” Edan “Fumbling Over Words That Rhyme” Roy Montgomery “Audiotransport” Eye Q “Something Different” Xoliso “I Can’t Tell” Tune Recreation Committee “Abazingeli” The Alchemist “Falling Out Of The Sky (Instrumental)/Wishing Bad (Instrumental)” Balthvs “Hooked (Hazy Nights)” Roy Ayers “What’s The T (Delfonic Edit)” Lauren Faith “Los Angeles In The Summa” Jay-Z “Interlude (DJ Scratch Remix)” Carlos Nino, Nate Mercereau & Idris Ackamoor “Time On Earth” DJ Premier “Ma...

Happy Sunday morning to you and yours! Mizo and I are here to louden up your day and bless you with some tunes to chill too, groove too, turn it up loud and dance too. As per usual this week is a genuine grab bag of sounds running the gamut of our crates. You will catch the usual vibes in the form of abstract electronic, funk, jazz, rap, soul from around the globe. It’s all meant to be a nice stew of auditory bliss, sometimes going exactly where it seems it should and sometimes hitting that sharp turn and blasting your mind to another zone. We slid some guitar heavy tracks in this week just to keep y’all guessing - if we as purveyors of this podcast have any goal it’s to keep it a surprise and always exciting. Thanks for rocking with us! Sons of Kemet “Field Negus” Sam Wilkes “Descending” Al Green “Hanging On” Janis Joplin “As Good As You’ve Been To This World” Visible Cloaks “Wind Voice” The Mellow Dawns “I Don’t Believe” Akbar “The 5th Element” Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers “...

In the early to mid 90’s Hip Hop fans would have been ecstatic to be treated to new Jay-Z and Raekwon albums in the same month, let alone the same week. Today it generated a moderate amount of media attention and a whole lot of internet attention. Bloggers love the superstars and the legends. While Jay-Z may be a bit of both he showed the superstar side of himself a bit more than the legendary skills he took the thrown with. Raekwon on the other hand has never been one for big numbers or mainstream appeal. He has however always repped for the Wu Tang and maintained a loyal following – all of whom should be saluting the man right about now for delivering a suburb follow up album to an album that it could easily be said should have been left alone. What makes Only Built 4 Cuban Linx Part 2 succeed is exactly where Blueprint 3 fails. While Raekwon didn’t go back to RZA entirely, he has the abbot doing what he does best – fitting the appropriate pieces where they should be. Getting Dilla...

After much procrastination I decided it was time to stop and get this review done. It is almost February after all and I have the next artist already picked out to receive my dissection (even if I did loose all their music this week, damn hard drives!). You're just gonna have to wait for that (don't spoil it for 'em Caroline!) - right now it's time for American Gangster , the last studio album we have received from Jigga. After watching the Denzel epic of the same name about Frank Lucas' rise to power in New York, Shawn Carter hit the lab with Puffy's latest incarnation of the hitmen LV & Sean C and banged out one of his most impressive works, albeit a step in the wrong direction for the man who will one day be viewed as the first to deliver a true grown man rap album . Not that I don't blame him, while critics tended to enjoy Kingdom Come his fans (this one included, at the time) were filled with rage due to his choice to talk about his current life in...

I know, I know I've been off an on with these Jay features but I only got two left and I'm determined to knock 'em out! Of course The Black Album didn't end up being Jay's parting shot to the game and form the looks of things we might be many years and several more albums away from Shawn Carters departure from the mic. With Kingdom Come Jay-Z proved once and for all that his talk of laying down the mic was just that, talk. But was it bad? Most took it as less than top form Jay that we all expected from his return effort but time is a funny thing and listening today it stands in his discography as a different record. From less street talk to an elevated level of reflection and introspection this is grown man rap for the older heads to vibe with – but even if you are in your twenties, or teens for that matter, you should be able to find songs here to rock with. While Hov has always blessed us with impressive rhymes if you listen throughout the album you will be trea...

Jay-Z has done it all. While Biggie may have told the ultimate rags to riches story (what up Pomz?) , Shawn Corey Carter has lived it. From record sales, to sold out concerts… As the Dynasty began to crumble leave it to the man who built it to come through with one final (we all knew it was a joke) farewell. It was a great idea, and he gave us a great album that would have served him well in the annals of rap if it had in fact been the last. But it wasn’t and those most recent two are up next, right now it’s time to ask where does The Black Album stand next to the rest? As with any Jay-Z album this has it’s flaws, but they are minimal. DJ Quik contributes a weak track that should have been scrapped when the sample they had intended to use was denied (Why Madonna, why?) and the still unknown Buchannans lace a ridiculous track in “What More Can I Say” but even in all it’s glory it doesn’t do the rhymes Hov delivers justice, and that is a crime. There's never been a nigga this good f...

It's that time once again... So I took a little break from the Jigga man but what better way to return than with his Unplugged project which found him backed by The Roots band for the MTV show. Turning out as a pretty good greatest hits package was probably just an added bonus, but over the course of the fourteen tracks here you will be treated to the biggest songs of Jay’s career plus those classics even the Reasonable Doubt heads respect. Coming out on the heels of The Blueprint (I know, I messed up the chronology) the disc is a little heavy on songs from there, but it’s all good – you all know what I thought about that joint ! While it’s easy to get nervous about a band backing a Hip Hop artist The Roots aren’t just any band and ?uest and company do a great job of giving these tracks the live treatment, it’s only on originally synth heavy songs that things sound a little unfortunate – but these are few and far between. For the most part you are treated to a selection of beats...

Upon the delivery of The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse Jay-Z was subjected to a lot of hate. While not fully deserved, it’s hard to listen to The Blueprint next to it’s predecessor and believe that it’s the best Jay-Z could have given us. Filled with his typical commercial fodder, the sprawling two disc effort might be the Jay album you’ve been sleeping on. Let’s just get this out of the way: This album is not The Blueprint . Aside from the similarity in name and a few producers you shouldn’t expect to hear the same style that was executed to perfection the first time out. Instead be ready for club hits and a more studio oriented sound. The samples aren’t completely gone, but just as present are keyboards and synthed out effects a number of producers continue to perfect so as to avoid the expensive penalty of clearing a sample. Bringing back the two stars of The Blueprint , Kanye and Just Blaze are in heavy attendance here with them contributing four and seven beats respectiv...

The Blueprint . Some say it’s Jay’s masterpiece. Nothing will ever touch Reasonable Doubt but to drop a record like this after 5 years in the game is testament enough to the capabilities of its creator and its significance in the Jay-Z cannon. While Jay-Z has always had those tracks that scream “single” he has always walked the line closely and chosen his beats well in order to never alienate his original fan base. It worked to an extent, but by The Dynasty (Um... It was here? I'm not sure where it went, but I'll repost it for y'all!) he was far more significant player to the TRL crowd than to any head. With The Blueprint he lined up a strong trio of beat makers to ground the album in some of that old classic soul that sounds so good when chopped right. Introducing to the world Kanye West and Just Blaze (Yes, they both had appearances on The Dynasty but let’s be honest this was the coming out party) and giving Bink! an equal amount of shine, we are treated to some of the...

For those that know me they might not believe this, but there was a time that I wasn’t a Jay-Z fan. It was the same time that this album came out, and no this album didn’t change my opinion – that would take a couple more years. I picked this album up almost entirely on Jay’s name alone, and while I wasn’t disappointed you can bet I was banging …And Then There Was X far more often. X never did release another solid record and as I listened to Jigga more I found him to be the far superior rapper that he is. Unfortunately Vol. 3: The Life and Times of S. Carter isn’t the best demonstration of said skill. Sure it has its moments – I’ve been quoting Skyzoo’s recent line about “So Ghetto” for a reason, but after listening to this album all week I’m still just as confused and disappointed as I was on Monday. As I’ve gone back over these albums from Mr. Carter it’s becoming more and more clear that Jay is at least as motivated by the money as he is by the art and here I think the money got ...

Last week I reviewed Termanology’s new album saying that he was bringing back a sound missing from East Coast Hip Hop. This might be the album responsible for the loss of the traditional NYC aesthetic disappearing from the public ear. Jay-Z is three albums deep in as many years, proving that his hustler mentality could be applied, and applied well, to the rap industry. This album represents the birth of Jay-Z the superstar. I picked this album up along with Jay’s discography through one of those CD clubs (Don’t front, you know you were in one!) and listened to it for the first time while driving home along the Umpqua river - Oregon stand up! While not the greatest local to be listening to tales of the streets, I did… and I hated it. But my hate for Vol. 2 wasn’t because I couldn’t relate to what Jigga had to say. It was because he was making his music for kids like me, and the pop feel that killed certain tracks on Vol. 1 turned into a pop album that, while still demonstrating credi...

It’s 1997 and the reigning king of NY has been shot down in LA. A young emcee out of the Marcy housing projects that made a name for himself off the strength of an Illmatic like debut returned to the scene to carry the torch for his fallen brethren. Where Reasonable Doubt was a raw and unabridged look at the streets Shawn Carter had sprung from, In My Lifetime, Vol. 1 is like the sprawling step child filled with the same great lyrical voice but missing the sense of reality. In place are glossy beats and R&B hooks courtesy of Puffy and his Hitmen production team – a pairing much more fruitful a decade later with Jigga’s 2007 release (I can't wait to talk about that joint!). While Jay has commented that he believes he may have gone a little too far with the “pop” styling’s Puffy was so famous for – listen to “I Know What Girls Like” with the trademark Puff jacking on the hook. It’s pretty bad, but thanks to an amazing Lil Kim guest verse I’ll over look it. Speaking of Kim, any...

A friend had asked me to get her the The Black Album and it’s companion The White Album so she would have some Jay-Z in her collection. I’m gonna make her learn a bit more than she may want to, but before the end of the year you’ll have those two requests miss Caroline! But before we get ahead of ourselves let’s make it clear from now until the two double 0 nine I’ll be delivering a Jay album on Wednesday’s – it’s Jay Day. Jay-Z has been around this game for a long time now. While he has become a household name, at one point he wasn’t even able to command interest from the big dog majors and had to deliver his debut through the lesser known Priority records. But Priority also let him and his partners Dame Dash and Kareem ‘Biggs’ Burke establish there own label. Roc-A-Fella Records and a dynasty was born. That dynasty that ruled the end of the 90s and the beginning of this decade began with one record, a record that was suppose to be the only one from one Shawn Carter. But you all kno...