Yo Gotti Cover Story for Ozone Magazine

I wrote Yo Gotti's Ozone cover story this month. You can check it out there.

Photos and Recap: Heineken Red Star Soul feat. Big Boi, Mickey Factz and Kevin Hart

Last night I fell through the Velvet Room for the first time (I DO NOT MESS WITH THAT PLACE AT ALL) for Heiniken's Red Star Soul concert series where you pretty much get to drink free Heiniken and hear good music. No complaints there. Anyway Mickey Facts and Big Boi were the featured performers and I must say I enjoyed both...







I never really got into Mickey's music but from what I heard tonight, I kinda mess with it. Dude was dancing, having a good time, the whole nine. Not comparing him to Kane, but it kinda reminded me of seeing BDK rap and dance at the same time, and do both of them well. Can't say the rest of the crowd felt the same way though. While he may have had a couple fans in the audience, it was obvious that alot of them didn't know who he was...which once again is because of Atlanta radio and DJ's failing to broaden the scope of music the play for "the masses."









As for Big Boi, you already know. Dude rips it everytime he hits the stage. And each time he does it get you more and more angrier with Dre. Not on no personal shit, but just like, damn dude? When you gonna join the party again? But yeah, Big Boi did his thing and even did a couple new tracks from the fie ass Sir Lucious Leftfoot: Son of Chico Dusty album he let me hear earlier this week. As usual him and Blackowned C-Bone put on a good show together. But I ain't gonna lie, since Killer Mike was in the building too, I thought they might've brought him out to do the hook to "Kryptonite" but no haps.

















Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, Kevin Hart did a good job hosting the event and keeping everone laughing. He was giving some no-name rapper and his sunglasses wearing security guard the bizness for 7 minutes straight. I recorded it on my Flip cam, I'll put it up later though. He also got down for a minute when Big Boi did "B.O.B."











And oh yeah, I have to post this pic of Big Boi in his red Jordans. Ever since the Lucious Leftoot fiasco he makes sure I see that his footwork is proper. haha.







Over all the show was pretty good. While a couple of my friends (whaddup Kaos, I feel ya brah, believe me I do) got turned away because they didn't fit the dress code, it was still a pretty cool night. I got a chance to run into Janelle Monae who I haven't seen since forever and of course the homies from Hollyweerd and Kei of LLSC was in the building as well. You can peep the rest of the pictures I took here:

Random Jam: Triple Six Mafia-"Where's Da Bud" (1996)

After hearing Tony Yayo completely desecrate this beat earlier today, I felt it was my duty as a Southerner to post the original, just because. Back when I was a chiefer this was one of my favorite songs to smoke to. Still sounds good to this day, to me at least.

Future note to New York rappers, stay off our shit if you're not going to at least attempt to make it better. All parties involved with that Yayo song should be adamnshamed of themselves.

Mikkey Halsted-"Rebel To America" [preview]

Shouts out to Decatur Dan for sending this over. For the next few weeks Dan is teaming up with Chicago's Uncrowned King, Mikkey Halsted to give you some sneak peeks and listens to his upcoming “Chicago: The Photo Album” project. "Rebel To America" is the first shot from the series, dope ish.

And oh yeah, just because I can, I'm re-posting one of my all time favorite songs ever...Mikkey's "Liquor Store" after the jump. Deal with it.

Big Boi Speaks on Sir Lucious Leftfoot: Son of Chico Dusty Album

Last night the homie Big Boi invited me over to Stankonia Studios to let me hear Sir Lucious Leftfoot: Son of Chico Dusty in its entirety. And I must say...the shit is fie. Twelve straight tracks of nothing but that funk. I didn't hear a song that was skipworthy. Dude really put his Leftfoot off in this album. Hell, with it being 2 years and 9 months in the making, we can't expect nothing but that fie at this point. But yeah, after the listen we chopped it up for bit and I recorded some of our conversation. He spills a couple good beans (confirmed he will be at the Goodie Mob reunion show) and bad beans (he's not signed to Def Jam?) in the video, so watch the whole thing.

Their had been a argument on Twitter recently about ATLiens ranking in the Outkast discography. Its my personal favorite but some of my peers disagreed about it being a classic. Well, Big himself said its his favorite and the favorite of most people that he comes across. That said, Sir Lucious Leftfoot reminds me of ATLiens in that while every song sounds different, it also sounds the same. Meaning that its a very cohesive body of work. Cohesive in that every person that was brought in to contribute, from the producers to the featured artists, all stayed on the same page and kept it sounding like a Big Boi album. I jotted a couple notes of what I heard in the BlackBerry, peep them after the jump...

yeah, the notes are on some stream of consciousness shit, but you should be able to follow.

Mr dj did "daddy fat sax"
"Follow us" is fie
A opera sounding song-"General Patton" fie
"Shutterbug"--fie, got a bay area feel to it...scott storch
"Turns me on" by ONP
"Tabourine" still fie has TI on it
"Terrified" has BoB on the hook
Debra killings played bass on the whole album
Erick Sermon prod. "lookin 4 ya" shit is fie...its the song with Dre verse on it and both of them will have 2 verses each, big finishing his last verse tonight.
Lil Jon and Big Boi did "waiting for this day to come " Has jamie foxx on the hook...he said he took it back to the edward j bedroom boom days with this one
George Clinton and Too Short are on "for your sorrows"--the way Big segued into $hort part is pretty dope.
"We go thru this everyday" is pretty cool too
Damn "shineblockers" don't sound shit like what was on that zach wolfe video...thats actually the "wasted" beat now to think of it. "shineblockers" sampled harold melvin and the bluenotes, shit is fie! Gucci and Project Pat on it

Goodie Mob x Big Gipp x Sept 19th

Here is the first of four promo spots for the upcoming Goodie Mob reunion show on September 19th at the Masquerade Park in Atlanta, GA. Shouts out to Shameless Plug and the Motion Family. Please $upport.

Spark Dawg-"Where There's A Spark There's A Flame"

Check out this new song from the homie Spark Dawg. Aside from being a cool dude, he's also one of the hottest rappers coming out of Texas, Killen to be exact. If his name sounds familiar you may know him from his time in Lil Scrappy's G's Up crew or more recently as a member of Scarface's group Green City.

Unfortunately he recently lost everything in a house fire and this song is a first-hand account of what happened and how he's feeling right now. Dude is in pretty good spirits right now in case you're wondering. But check for my dude though. He can really spit. I recently reviewed his Doin' What Ya'll Can't mixtape and its a pretty good listen.


Spark Dawg-"Where There's A Spark There's A Flame"