The final installment of the Forum On Writing. Check out the series in its entirety by clicking here.Forum: On Writing - CB TruceI write because it’s the closest I can come to representing the world I see on a momentary basis. I write because it helps me organize my thoughts, but most of all I write because I need to write. Writing connects disparate generations and disparate cultures. My grand.
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Forum: On Writing - CB Truce
Monday Music Mention: Cold Duck Complex
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I still remember the first time I listened to Cold Duck Complex. For a while last year, my friend Nate (aka Moonshine of The Temps/Mad Wow/Soul Kat Too) had been telling me about this live hip-hop band from Western Mass where he grew up. As I always am when people tell me about local bands they grew up listening to, I was interested but skeptical, so I had him send me a few tracks. 8 bars int...
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CunninLynguists - Strange Journey Vol. 2
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Album:Strange Journey Vol. 2
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Track:Runnin Wild
This may seem extravagant, but I'm going to say it: CunninLynguists are making the best hip-hop music coming out of the south right now. I am not trying to slight any other artists by saying that, I love a lot of southern hip-hop with a passion, but the dynamic trio of Deacon, Kno, and Natti are just that good. Their new release, Strange Journey Volume 2, is the second part of a two-disc proje...
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Obie Trice Gets Hungry on Special Reserve LP (Download)
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Album:Special Reserve
As Eminem works to reclaim his stake in the game, former label mate and collaborator Obie Trice (one of Shady Records top-selling artists back when that bond was still working out) is grinding on his own. He's getting ready to drop his first LP since leaving Shady Records, Special Reserve is set to hit stores 12-15-09 and feature production exclusively from rising star MoSS.This first single is...
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Dubstep All-Stars Vol. 4 (CD2) - Hatcha Mix
Get grimy, really, really grimy. Skream, Digital Mystikz (Mala and Coki), Hatcha... This is a great primer for those of you looking to get into hard-hitting dubstep -- it's just dirty, so, so dirty. Download/Listen: Dubstep All-Stars Vol. 4 CD2(Mixed by Hatcha) Tracklist:2-01 Skream vs. Hijak — Babylon Timewarp (3:36)2-02 Digital Mystikz — Old Hope (1:34)2-03 Kromestar — Iron Dread (2:48)2-
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Damien Hirst x Supreme Skate Deck Collection
{via FreshnessMag}I've said it before and I'll say it again: skate decks are fast becoming the new sneaker. The caliber of artist/brand collaborations soars even higher this week as British artist Damien Hirst (who made his name for, among other things, giant medicine cabinets filled with perscription pills, suspending dead animals in formaldehyde and smearing elephant poop all over an image of...
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I'll Give You a Topic, Discuss: Christmas Music
Nowadays, Christmas preparations start earlier and earlier each year, so I figured it was okay to bring this up now... I was at a local thrift last week shop digging through the dollar bin records, when I realized that about of the dust-covered albums I was thumbing through were discarded Christmas LP's -- that's about 9 feet of just Christmas records! If we base what people don't like on wha...
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We Were Once a Fairytale
Spike Jonze and Kanye West teamed up in this trippy little short film. Kanye plays a plastered pathetic loser. I won't tell you what happens because you should watch it. Surprisingly Kanye does an amazing job acting, and Spike Jonze accurately portrays the feeling of being drunk to a tee. This is a cool little vid, enjoy!
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Talking to Roses in the Library - The illDefined
Let's workshop it, eh?Talking to Roses in the Library We’re lonely in these books,The shelves can’t speak to the empty dreams Fainted to shadows between the lines and we’re. still. alive.Faded beyond the perfect windows we never, quite, touch.cans out of graspair Falls over hands,thoughts come last:the self-owned laughs of a laughable past we deny the children we will never have Greed for th
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Jay ElecHannukah
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Artist:Jay Electronica
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Track:Exhibit C
And so the ever-elusive, ever creative Jay Electronica returns with "Exhibit C," a new track produced by Just Blaze. My first thought upon seeing this was, "about time." Jay hasn't released anything in an oddly long time, especially after building such a strong buzz in 2008 when he released "Act 1: Eternal Sunshine (The Pledge)." Then again, he and Ms. Badu had a baby this year, so I'll cut...
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Some Kind of Love
File this one in the "It Doesn't Have to Make Sense" category... just let me know if you enjoy it.peace, love and level vibes,- The illDefinedThere’s nothing better than an ice cream cone on a Sunday afternoon in late spring when it’s not too hot, with a light breeze. I honestly don’t have any idea what the fuck I am talking about I haven’t had ice cream on a Sunday afternoon in late sprin
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Dert - Westside of the Moon
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Track:The Westside of the Moon
Boom Shaka Laka.Rest assured that this download will probably be the best use of your bandwith this week (if not this month). I've been playing this in every situation from studying to house parties for the last three weeks, and I still can't get over just how ridiculous these beats are. As the title and cover suggest, the whole tape is filled with tracks that are sampled from Pink Floyd -- I say
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EMINEM IS BACK: 50's "Psycho" + Cypher w/ Black Thought
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New Verses Show Legend Has Returned to FormI never thought I'd see the day when TheNewConfusion would have successive posts featuring 50 Cent and Lil' Wayne -- but credit where credit is due: these guys are making some good music.Some songs have started leaking off 50 Cent's upcoming Before I Self-Destruct, and, honestly, I don't really care, but Eminem KILLS this track. 50 Cent gets thoroughly...
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NEW WEEZY!! -- No Ceilings (Free Album)
For avid Weezy fans like myself, this is a day of reckoning. After eons of suspense, lying in wait and memorizing the profoundly nonsensical distortions of ill-logical shit Lil' Wayne says on his verses, Young Carter finally dropped a new mixtape last week: No Ceilings. On No Ceilings, Wayne does what he is wont to do: dominate. Weezy never fails to create a metaphor I've never heard before. Hi...
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NEW WEEZY!!!
For avid Weezy fans like myself this is a day of reckoning. After eons of suspense lying in wait memorizing profoundly nonsensical distortions of ill-logical shit Lil' Wayne verses, last week he dropped a new mixtape. No Ceilings. And he does it once again, Lil' Wayne never fails to create a metaphor I've never heard before. His similes are so creative one wonders if he actually hails from Mars...
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Forum: On Writing - ThePseudonym
(ThePseudonym)ESC and illDefined already shared their thoughts. Now, ThePseudonym, as expected, drops some serious science on the utility and justifications for writing. But is he right? Is writing just a means of communication? Or is there more to it?Forum - On Writing - ThePseudonym In searching for what writing is, I took a moment to reflect on characteristics that make writing “good”. Whe
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Introducing MAGr - No News is Good News (free DL)
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Artist:MAGr
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Album:No News Is Good News
LATE PASSDespite my best efforts, a lot of the emails I get end up slipping through the cracks and marinating at the bottom of my inbox for a while. This is one of those cases. I got word of this project by MAGr (NJ-based Al Mighty and DistantStarr) a while ago, but never had a chance to check it out.I finally got around to downloading No News is Good News earlier today. I had it playing in the...
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Gift of Gab ft. Del the Funky Homosapien & Brother Ali - Dreamin'
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Track:Dreamin'
When I was in 6th grade I bought four albums that would change my life. They were the first hip-hop records I ever bought, and two of them were by Blackalicious. I've listened to a lot more music since then. Some is better, some is worse, but regardless of where Blackalicious stands in the pantheon of great artists, they will always hold a special place in my heart as the ones that got me hooke...
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NaNoWriMo WTF?
It's cold and pouring, but there are still some reasons to get excited for November. For starters, it's really the only month that us Knicks fans can maintain any slight tremor of hope, but it's also National Novel Writing Month.NaNoWriMo challenges participants to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel in the 30 days between November 1 and November 30. Given the circumstances, the goal is quanti...
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Hijacking Street Signs
This is brilliant. The artists of Cardon Copy are taking standard, run-of-the-mill signs -- the kind we see everywhere -- and applying their creative genius to them. The end result is an announcement that is actually effective because it's eye catching, not generic. Cardon Copy's mission reads as follows: CARDON COPY, TAKES THE VERNACULAR OF SELF- DISTRIBUTED FLIERS AND TEAR-OFFS WE HAVE A...
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