Estelle At #1 In UK, Roots Listening NYC, New Roots BLOG!, B-Day Girl Video, Yo! MTV Raps Re-Cap, Hezekiah Vid.
Congrats to British singer Estelle who’s got a number one single on the UK charts with “American Boy” featuring Kanye West! If you haven’t already, make sure to watch the video. Then, read this interview with the BBC for the full scoop, including her take on being a black artist from across the pond.
Rising Down Rehearsals, Day 3
Day 3, and we’re in New York City. I’m not sure the Big Apple is ready. ?uestlover and Black Thought performed a marathon press day, giving interviews to everyone from VH1 to allhiphop.com, from The New York Times to RollingStone and many, many in-between. After a long day of in-studio press activity, a posse of photographers snapping away throughout, it was finally time for the big event. Now I’ve been to a million of these little studio listening sessions but I’ve never witnessed a mob scene quite like this, complete with a line wrapping around the block in Times Square vacinity. I felt like a sardine up in there, sweltering in the 90 degree heat of the body-filled room. No matter, the discomfort didn’t bother anyone once the album began to play. Read Candace L.’s account of the day and then peep the beautiful photos from Sol-Exposure. Then take a look at these flicks from the Philly listening session from The Studio on Tuesday.
As we reported on Tuesday The Roots single “Birthday Girl” is still not on the album, but is an iTunes exclusive and International single. News has surfaced that a viral video will be shot in the coming weeks for the song. The video will be starring Sasha Grey, if you don’t know who she is you’re going to have to do your own googling (and I don’t suggest you do so at work).
Since we have so much new and behind the scenes content from The Roots, we decided to give them their own blog. You can even subscribe to the RSS feed, imagine that. This is the first in a series of blogs we are launching and as always, is a work in progress.
The 20th Anniversary of the classic Hip Hop show Yo! MTV Raps is this April, and to pay respect MTV will re-broadcast the show throughout the month of April. To keep that oldschool theme going, over at MTV’s “The Hottest Videos of 1993″ section the first video is The Roots “Proceed,” damn talk about a throooowback.
Hmm this one is a little out of left field. Here’s a vid of Lupe Fiasco and the lyrical wizard Chris Brown in a freestyle cypher after a show…yeah hopefully Chris won’t pull a Tyrese and convince himself he’s a rapper now.
Yay, videos! Watch this one from Philly’s own Hezekiah, featuring Jamal, for “Let’s Get Involved”/”I’m Single Now.” Clever juxtaposition. Bonus points if you spot sometimes-Roots-saxaphonist Lamont Caldwell in there!
Just in is Part 5 of Atmosphere’s “Paint it Gold” series, Live from Slug’s basement, him along with his partner in crime Ant answer questions emailed in from the fans. They’re really building up that album buzz with this, what ya’ll think about that “Shoulda Known” video? Hit the boards and discuss.
OKP Rookies of the Year CunninLynguists while over in Paris did an interview with French Hip Hop site Abcdr du Son before they got on stage and performed. They get into what they’ve been up to and where they plan on going. Link via Tunji
- gingerlynn, dantana & NiKaun