Santogolden shower!

The video for LSGHLS just came out, which is just one of the great songs on Santogold's eponymous album.

It and another cut, appear below. Yay!

Lights Out

L.E.S. Artistes

Weezy is totally the new R Kelly

Beckstar blog lovin' Lil' Wayne.

Beckstar blog what the hell is he talking about at 0:55?

Beckstar blog Weezy invented a new style of talking.

Beckstar blog I am seriously considering replacing R Kelly with Wayne in my heart.

Beckstar blog Weezy considers good sex to be a job.

Beckstar blog how do I become one of Weezy's goons?

Beckstar blog WOW WOW WOW.

Beckstar blog watching this video over and over while hungover from Pride fun.

Beckstar blog you will love this.

Some beef is big and some beef is small...

...but what y'all call beef is not beef at all.

I don't know if you're following the old skool versus new skool beef between Ice-T and Soulja Boy, but if not, the Beckstar provides.

The play by play goes as follows: Ice-T disses Soulja Boy on the MixTape, Soulja Boy responds with video, Ice-T answers in kind. Kanye chimes in. Enjoy:

Ice-T --> "Soulja Boy - let me talk about Soulja Boy. I know you're young enough to be my kid, but you singlehandedly killed hip hop"

Soulja Boy --> "Real talk though. Mr T. you gots to- you must understand, shit is different now. When you was born, niggas was still driving in wood cars, god-damn Walmart wasn't made yet, you know. There wasn't no internet, there wasn't no video cameras to record this, to diss your whole ass on."

Ice-T --> "If any war, it's going to be good hip hop versus bad hip hop, you understand what I'm saying? And if there has to be a war on that battlefield, then' I'm proud to be the general, nigga. And I will never shoot a round off."

BTW, I'm on team Soulja Boy. Ice-T's comments are solid, but he's about twenty years past his best-before date, and should probably stick to acting and doing whatever it is he does with the frightening Amazon he's married to. I don't really want to know.

iTunes by the Numbas

This little iTunes questionnaire comes to me by way of Sean Klassen via Kevin Broome, and is a cute little 'why not' meme.

This is my work iTunes library, which is fairly different from the one on my home laptop. I will repeat this exercise from home, and use it to draw over-stated conclusions about the difference between homeBeckstar and workBeckstar.

Here goes:

TOTAL LENGTH: 814 items, 2.2 days, 3.42 GB

FIRST AND LAST SONGS (BY TITLE):
-Abaixa E Pega :: Brazilian Funk Compilation [noted: the Alta Vista translator translates this as 'It Lowers and it Catches'. My hunch is that it translates more accurately to 'Drop that Booty and Get Yo' Man']
- 3030 :: Deltron

SHORTEST AND LONGEST SONGS:
- Vault Character :: Calvin Harris - 0.08
- Avalanches Mix for the BBC - 1:04:18

FIRST AND LAST ALBUMS (BY TITLE):
- The Action Packed Mentallist Brings You the Fucking Jams :: Kid 606
- 6 Feet Deep :: Gravediggaz
- (Z by Gonzales if we go by alphabet only)

FIRST AND LAST ARTIST (BY TITLE):
- Aesop Rock
- 1337 G33K B3AT
- (Zookeeper if we're going by alphabet only)

TOP FIVE MOST PLAYED SONGS:
Follow the Light :: Dungeon Family
Paper Planes :: MIA
I'm a Slave 4 U :: Britney Spears
Sweet Jane :: Cowboy Junkies
Tribulations :: LCD Soundsystem

SEARCH FOR THE FOLLOWING WORDS. HOW MANY SONGS SHOW UP?
Sex: 5
Death: 3
Love: 31
You: 76
Home: 4
Boy: 16
Girl: 55
Robot : 4
Nerd: 23

FIRST FIVE SONGS THAT COME UP IN PARTY SHUFFLE:
- Side Effects (featuring Young Jeezy) :: Mariah Carey
- Solstice :: Pit Er Pat
- Civilization Day :: Quasimodo
- The Undercover (Remix) :: Encore & G Luv
- Crazy On You :: Heart

Have I told you about my newish co-worker Kevin Broome? Yes, check him out, but please don't leave me for his articulate, interesting, insightful and amazing blog. I loved you first readers! I LOVED YOU FIRST!!!!

Betweein Kevin and the other new playa on the work scene, Leigh Peterson, the digital/interactive department is off the hizzy with talent. Makes it fun to come to work in the mornings. Awwwww...

Do some ho shit.

I love me some Erykah Badu.

Random Robot Content Hour!

It's the anthem of the summer. It's the video of the year. It's the cutest robot ever.

Lupe Fiasco has been quietly ruling for a while, so stop sleeping and bear witness:


Praise due also to Jill Scott, who brings the vocals.

And this... is the weirdest commercial of the year. It's extremely disturbing and creepy, but hey - when you're trying to sell Slurpee's to kids, you do what you can. Noting, of course, that one of the more successful Slurpee flavours/promos in recent history was the Bloody Zit. Yeah. Maybe this works.


What, exactly, is he supposed to be drinking?

It all started with Teletubbies...

... like so many great things.

I love the new viral 2.0 paradise in which we find ourselves. Exhibit A:



Like woah. As I said, it all started with a Teletubbies video that did the same thing, and which is only slightly less awesome than the video above.

Good times... good times.

And for those that want to know - the song is by Unk, who is also pretty awesome, in a somewhat ironic sense.

MixPlay Mixmaster!

Why can't all advertising be this clean, engaging, compelling, fun and stylish?

This is Uniqlo's campaign for it's new series of coloured parkas. My sense is that they are a Japanese company, pretty similar to the Gap here in N.A., but daaaaaamn this is a nice series.



The accompanying interactive website is intuitive and a complete blast to play with.



They also did a series of in-store demos, like the one below.



Simple, eye-catching, cool, in-brand... awesome.

Double Up Hits Stores!

Don't front. R. Kelly is the man.

Check out the song to the right, and enjoy the delicious goodness.

"Don't trip - I got a giant rocket
Gliding through just hitting your pocket"

If that's not enough, he drops a Uranus reference. AND it means just what you're afraid it does.

Amazing.

The spirit of hip hop just keeled over and died

This is wrong on so many levels it may as well come over in a gimp suit and make out with your mom.

MC KARL ROVE?!?!? Have mercy. This is from the recent Radio and Television Correspondents' Association dinner.

The fact that Karl Rove, evil old white dude and living embodiment of "the man", thought that it was acceptable to clutch himself awkwardly and gyrate with a cellphone while a cheap mc drops embarassingly bad corporate rhymes about him, like

He can't be beat because he's so white from his head to his feet but he will rap it when you give him a chance.

Look at him move, doing the rapping dance. That's true, he's a dancing resident. He is a sidekick to the president.

is unequivocal proof that hip hop has become completely divorced from the political context it was born from.

I mean... DOING THE RAPPING DANCE?!? What on earth is the rapping dance???


I had to watch this twice in order to blog it effectively. I am going to cry in the shower now

Alanis humps Fergie...

First of all: on this post's title. Ewwwwww and sorry. I couldn't resist.

So who knew I would be writing a pro-Alanis post?

Yes, this is probably one of the twenty-seven harbingers of coming apocalypse, but seriously - can you tell me her parody of The Black Eyed Peas insipid and asinine My Humps song isn't totally amazing?


I think I just forgave her for this song.

EDIT: There is also (thanks Nikki!) a great Peaches cover of this song, called My Dumps that she was performing long before Alanis did this version. That last one is live footage from a burlesque performance for SXSW, and so it's definitely a nsfw kind of link. In an even more meta kind of move, Peaches recently did an Alanis-style cover of My Dumps, which really isn't all that funny.

Dancing is dreaming with your feet...

Dance is the world's most famous metaphor. You know, that's probably true. And it's oldest.

Okay, so this is a little bit Chariots of Fire: Electric Boogaloo, but seriously - can anyone say they haven't had a religious experience on a dance floor or two in their lives?

Circle Circle Dot Dot

Jamie Kennedy and Stu Stone made this. I think Jamie Kennedy is played here by the African Legonian actor.

This is pretty random, but infectious and funny.

Gangsta lego guys? Obviously awesome!

It took me a second to figure out the title. Then I was all 'ohhhhhhhhh, I get it'.

Gold Pants Lullaby

Leslie Hall, gem sweater collector and conceptual/media artist. Such goodness!

I can promise one thing:

when the day comes that I spawn mini-Beckstars to dominate the multiverse with their inestimable radness...

...this will be the song that lulls them to sleep every night.

The Other Evolution of Dance...

Sure, you could watch that guy doing the Evolution of Dance comedy performance. You know, the one where one guy performs the entire history of popular dance, from the twist to the robot and beyond. Yeah, it's pretty good I guess.

But, if you will, let me present an alternate, more compact, little history, focusing on funk styles which are obviously awesome and rule:

Let's start with an all-too-timely video from one of the first hugely popular masters of the style, Mister James Brown:

Grab your notebook, because the Godfather is taking you to school.

And after James of course came Michael:

This video compilation of MJ's best dance moments? Reason #4510 that I love YouTube.

And... do I even need to 'justify' including the current master of pop dance?

Haters can hate, but I'd like to see them dance like JT.

As an additional bonus, check out this video of one of the many, many unsung masters. This guy, Pop N Taco, taught Michael Jackson to dance. Word.

Breakin'. One of the best movies of the 80's by far. After Revenge of the Nerds, obviously.

Missy said it best I think:

Big Daddy Kane and Public Enemy, Salt'n'Pepa, Lyte,
EPMD, LL, Run DMC, KRS-ONE, Rakim.
Most of them artists used to dance
and still get respected in the street.

Don't be scared to bank-head or bowl-gowl [??]
Or moonwalk as far as I care - it sold Michael Jackson 43 million.
Shoot, everybody had a zipper jacket, and have of these thugs had the glove to match it, you feel me?

Yo it's okay though.
If you wanna be hard and ice-grill,
and Harlem-shake at the same time.

Whatever - let's just have fun.
This is hip hop, man. This is hip hop.

Dear Penthouse: I'd just defeated Bowser when...

Okay now seriously.

A basement-recorded hip hop track about getting Mario laid, set to visuals from various Nintendo games?

It's like my subconscious has a YouTube account.


Note: This video is NSFW. Which means Not safe for work, BTW.
Which means by the way, FYI.
Which means For your information. I'm just saying!

On sneakers and foot cred.

< billy-madison-voice>

Puma is better! I came out first and made sneakers cool!
Nike is better! I make your feet cushy and styled!
Adidas is better! I rocked Run-DMC!

</billy-madison-voice>

Okay, so the point is that designer sneakers have been around for ages, continue to stay current, and have a cultural significance very separate from their constructed brand personalities.

The Puma video below, a short film produced by Imperial Leisure, articulates this beautifully, don't you think?


Puma: Foot Cred

Okay, now for some random shoes of goodness. These are from solepedia.com, a site that is all over the latest and greatest.


Clockwise from top left:
MadFoot!'s Mad Professor denim sneaker; the amazing Vaughn Bode-inspired Pumas; Clot Air Max 1’s - designed for Kanye West and Edison Chen, for one show only. What?!?; Japanese movie star Kubotsuka Yosuke's signature New Balance; glow-in-the-dark Nikes

Why stop the thrill ride there? Check these fun shoe-related links for more hot leather action:

- Adidas has high-res images of all kinds, like the 2003 ad on the right, in its image bank.

- Puma has a crazy addictive shoe customizing tool called Mongolian Shoe BBQ.

- Flight Club took first slot in the Dime magazine best boutique sneaker shop in the U.S. rankings. Their site is easy to get lost in.

- nicekicks.com is a sneaker blog. It is way current, with lots of eye candy.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY R-KELLY!

A huge happy birthday to one of my personal heroes. A man who is ghettofabulazy to the ultimate degree. R. Kelly, I love ya.

Tony Danza, you hapless bitch

I hate this guy.

Partially because he plays characters named Tony so much it's become an obvious joke, and really, what is that?

Partially because he's just such an unbelievable douchebag*. I mean seriously - look at the guy.

Partially because he says stuff like this in interviews:

I think in a crazy way Eminem has got a sound. There’s something very different about what he does.

I mean I wish it wasn’t as vulgar as it is at times, but, there’s something about it that’s different, that I respond differently to, or the same way I used to respond to stuff when it was new. We may be in a little bit of slump.

In my act I do some songs from 1951, the year I was born. I say that’s the prevalent music of ’51 and now the prevalent music of today is rap-----and then I rap. I got an alter-ego. I don’t know if you know that. Italian Ice. (Laughs). I do some rap.

There is some rap put there that’s very good and different and not as vulgar, and uplifting. Even Tupac Shakur, if you ever heard his song “Dear Momma”, you say wow, this guy could’ve really been something as far as uplifting as opposed to the thug life that he chose.

* Douchebag is one of my 'Top Ten Socially-Acceptable Insults', coming soon!

Fear the nerd revolution...

I love, love, love nerdcore rap, and nerd culture in general. Who doesn't?

So how excited was I when I found this trailer for a documentary about nerdcore rappers?

Most of the people featured in this video are also on the Rhyme Torrents website, where of course they have their music available for free download, as diligent nerds would. Awwww!

On a side note, if you've got an hour and half to kill, be sure to watch one of the greatest films in the history of mankind - Revenge of the Nerds, here in full on Google Video.

Betty: Are all nerds as good as you?
Louis: Uh-huh.
Betty: How come?
Louis: Because all jocks think about is sports. All we think about is sex.

Classic!