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New 2017 Fiasco (Lupe)

Felipe — Thu, 19 Jan 2017 20:39:39 +0000

Chicago native, Lupe Fiasco, was born Wasalu Muhammad Jaco, and rose to fame in 2006 after his album “Food & Liquor,” which coincidentally were the only two things on my New Year’s Resolution list. Unlike the majority of bands I feature, Fiasco is no fledgling, starving artist. Beyond rapping, he runs a company called Righteous Kung-Fu, that designs fashions, sneakers, toys, comic books, other random stuff, and video games (Lupe loves himself some video games and was a competitive Street Fighter V gamer – he uses Ken – and is competing next week at GENESIS 4, after his challenge to play Super Smash Bros. was accepted by the current champ, Gonzalo “ZeRo” Barrios – he will be using Ryu). Mr. Fiasco has a major footwear deal with Reebok, using other rappers to design and promote gear. The anti-establishment, Grammy winning rapper was removed from stage while performing a 30-minute rendition of a song that contained anti-Obama lyrics, while in DC, performing at Obama’s 2013 inauguration… I wonder if DT asked Mr. Fiasco if he’d perform, or maybe they thought his name was a little too on the nose for tomorrow. This new song came out earlier this year and is the happy fresh jam needed today.

Feli Says Fiasco

Vic Mensa: genius?

Felipe — Mon, 17 Oct 2016 13:00:54 +0000

Contrary to popular belief, Vic Mensa is not a member of the largest and oldest high IQ society in the world, Mensa. In order to gain access to Mensa, you have to score in the 98th percentile or higher in a supervised IQ test (Stanford-Binet = 132 or higher; Cattell = 148 or higher). Mensa was originally formed in October of 1946 in Oxford, England. Subsequently, the American Mensa became the second major branch, and not surprisingly, runs its own exam and entrance process. Notable Mensans include the dude who created the Dilbert cartoon, 90s rapper Chino XL who feuded with Tupac (see: “Hit ‘Em Up” and “Riiiot!”), and multiple award winning porn actress Asia Ferrera (along with like a bajillion chemists and writers and whatever). Even though Vic isn’t in Mensa, he can still write it on his business card since, well, it’s his last name…(Mensah with an “h”). He’s the founder of the rap collective Savemoney, which included a whole bunch of cool artists working together, including Chance the Rapper – kinda like an young rapper incubator. Anyways, Vic reps his South Side of Chicago roots pretty hard and it seems is evolving in to an activist rapper of sorts (according to Joe Ciolli), even with Kanye as his mentor…

Fun fact: as a teenager, Vic Mensa nearly died twice. He fell off a 30-foot bridge while sneaking into Lollapalooza and needed fifteen thousand volts of electricity and three days in the hospital to bring you this song. As for this song, it’s the opening track for the soundtrack to the new movie “Birth of a Nation” – about a slave rebellion in 1831 Virginia. Movie looks decent, has a 77% on Rotten Tomatoes and the Soundtrack is worth a listen too.

Feli Thinks he belongs in Mensa

Run the Jewels & DJ Shadow don’t confirm homage to No Doubt

Felipe — Mon, 26 Sep 2016 13:02:25 +0000

We’ve covered Run the Jewels a few times, so we all already know how awesome they are. For this track we’ll focus on the DJ Shadow aspect of it, since I guess technically it’s “his” song. DJ Shadow’s Wikipedia page makes a point to let us know that Joshua Paul Davis (aka DJ Shadow) has a nickname, and that nickname is “Josh.” Just Josh. smh. I encourage all Feli Says Listen subscribers to go and edit DJ Shadow’s wiki page nickname to something more appropriate. I think I’m gonna go with “Pauly D” for now. So Pauly D is a 43 year old white guy from Davis, California who has a collection of over 60,000 physical records that he keeps scattered in storage lockers throughout San Francisco. Although some would argue a massive and fruitless expense, I guess his shtick is the skill in which he manipulates samples, taking largely unheard of pieces or rare parts or phrases and working them in to his songs. But don’t worry, Run the Jewels is on this track.

This is from Feli

Leikali47 – AIM screename?

Felipe — Fri, 02 Sep 2016 13:00:01 +0000

A Bed-stuy Brooklyn native, Leikali47 is an anonymous rapper, currently in favor with Mr. Jay Z himself (he put one of her tracks on his summer playlist). Leikali47 (pronounce Leh-kay-lee) wears a ski mask (following the trend that 21 Pilots and Masked Intruder paved) and when probed, claims to wear it “at all times.” Just like Masked Intruder, the media doesn’t actually know who she is. The similarities to Masked Intruder end there though, as MI are an outlaw band on the run from the cops, play dopey pop punk, and hail from Wisconsin; while Leikali47, a rapper, wears the mask so people focus on her music and not her, so she says at first. It seems to also help with her performance and stage fright, as she was always a shy kid growing up and mostly a loner. I have to think those folks performing masked, Slipknot included, must have to lotion-up all the time, have tons of spares, and really struggle with acne, right? Why do we wear masks though? You could say the use of a mask is the physical manifestation of the concept of providing the wearer the means to transform themselves and their personality. Masks have been used since the dawn of humankind for use in everything from medicine, religion, simply decoration, and in this case, entertainment. Maybe in this case she is protecting herself more than she leads on. She can transform herself in to a new person without fear of judgement or ridicule outside of her artistry (I’d imagine a welcome reprieve many artists would like to enjoy), not to mention flipping the script as a female artist, where judging music and looks tend to go hand in hand. So ya. Her new track “Girl Gang” is pretty cool and mixes lots of sounds. I can’t say I’m huge on her other jams, but GG is tight.

Feli (& Jay Z) Say Listen

Shad & Skratch Bastid – Classic

Molly — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 20:50:22 +0000

I’ve been looking forward to the day when I could post a new Shad track, and that day came sooner than expected. Niiiice. Honestly, I don’t know much (read: anything) about Skratch Bastid. But these beats, especially the old-school scratches (love it!), have left me wanting more. And as always, Shad brings the clever rhymes to complete the whole package.

You can download the whole The Spring Up EP for free from their Bandcamp, and you really should, because the whole thing is choice.

[VIDEO] Awkwafina – NYC Bitche$

Max — Wed, 15 May 2013 13:48:59 +0000

We’ve got an exceptional contributor starting soon and I literally can’t wait…she’s too busy partying and I had to post this without her. Although we haven’t officially got Katie on the board yet, she did break away from the books last week (yeah, she’s just finishing up college) to send me a manifesto of whats hot right now. We look forward to a formal intro soon, but in the mean time peep one of the many gems she dropped on us. Rising NYC rap star Awkwafina…

“And adorkable as all hell Awkwafina is still tearing it up; NYC Bitche$ emphasizes her self-aware hipster flow over some really fun and well-produced beats…

and her newest drop Mayor Bloomberg (Giant Margaritas) is magnetic, suave, AND trolls Mayor Bloomberg’s pathetic attempts at Spanish all while showcasing the rapper’s totally goofy personality.” [busting on Mayor Mike could not have come at a better time, this is my personal fave – Max]

Alright, I can’t stop…