Tuesday, June 23, 2009

DJ CORNBREAD PLAYS THE NORFOLK TAPHOUSE JULY 3RD!!!!

Photobucket



Ok people... here's the kronkite. I rocked a show at the BOOT on may 23rd( memorial day weekend). The show was spotty because of the holiday weekend and the need for everyone to be inclined to rock the barbeque grill in leu of the dancefloor. If you missed it... i rocked an eighties set that you can check out the consolidated version rebroadcasted via my podcast on djcornbread.podomatic.com...but I was not happy with my performance because I did not have the luxury of hype ass crowd to back the skills and tunes i put on display that night. It's all good though...can't sweat the technique.
The Friday after next is somewhat a day of reckoning on the tables. I every intention of getting the booty juice out of a killer ass crowd. as usual you can expect the random...the ol school... the king James(James Brown)...the other king James ( J Dilla aka James Yancey)...the classic hiphop...the classic rock....all the stops will be made on the Bread train....So get juiced up for the freedom set to celebrate 238 years of democratic bull-ish. dj Cornbread is performing at Norfolk Taphouse on Fri...July 3rd. from 10 pm sharp to 2 am. No stops....No talking...No shoutouts..just cuts for the real heads that know what time it really is....(talking to you Justin...)
Keep your eyes open for a freedom 45 live podcast coming soon to the cornbread chronicles...featuring exclusive cuts you've likely never heard because you been sleeping too long. stanby and tuned.

Photobucket

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Straight no chaser: Numark comes with heat.

This is nothing but a treat from one of the greatest droppin' nothing but the heat. this was a set performed in the heart of the beatjunkie click somewhere in LA a couple of months ago. Dj Numark of Jurrasic 5 kills it with 45's i would sell a family member for. Big ups to the funky president for this amazing treat. could hear it all day....VA! ...and don't ask me about what some of the cuts are because I don't even know ;). Enjoy. That is all.



recognition goes out to ill-literate and Dan Tres Omi...my other ears.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

underestimation of hiphop in a game of scrabble

You know how your brain gets all soupy after a night of drinking? You leave the pub superfaded telling your homey (or sometimes yourself), " i need food, man!", as you get behind the wheel of an automobile ( hopefully yours), making your way to the nearest TacoBell...flickering the advance button on your CD player like a retard in charge of a lightswitch and trying to find that ONE track you think is gonna be the sober justice you're in need of for the ride to the casa?
...and what happens?
if your anything like me, you're ususally found passed out with soft tacos spread about the coffee table.A Dr. Pepper glazes a nice water ring from condensation on your nice coffee table in the near distance. A dvd of nightrider season 1 (tv) AND tribe's low end theory(stereo full blast) plays at the same time, as you have given a modest attempt at removing your clothing without unbuttoning anything...dreaming of the good life....ahhhhhh.

Well...my dream patterns took a turn off of the normal path of naked women giving me new dj gear for free when I made the mistake of passing out to Kevin Fitzgerald's FREESTYLE: the art of rhyming, the most popular documentary on emceeing to date.
I pondered a situation of certain peril. Me...and 3 legendary emcees at table preparing to enjoy a game of scrabble?
Yeah, its defintitely not a good dream...

Photobucket

Supernatural, Rakim, Kris Parker( better known as KRS-ONE) and me. Now, while its important to state the obvious ( I suck at scrabble and would lose to just about anybody), I would like to explain to those of you who are not in the know of these great men and their work...that to see these men playing a game of scrabble would bring men bred from the finest ivy league academia furnished with an exceptional grammactical and linguistic knowledge, to their soft skinned knees.(urban myth leaning toward fact: the 3 aforementioned emitted enough power from their intellect to juice the city of Las Vegas while the Hoover Dam was undergoing maintances for a couple of hours....swear, it was like 89'.) Their vocabulary, lyrics and poetry are both memorizing and ridiculously powerful(hiroshima powerful.)



Why? Because these three are damn near royal examples of what Hiphop provides to an individual and his/her community. One of the many lessons of HipHop ( if not the most important) is self teaching. All of the elements of HipHop(breakin'/emceeing/graffiti/turtablism) are a product of self teaching...and many young men and women over the last 25-30 years have devoted themselves to an education necessary to the survival of themselves as well as the culture of HipHop. Reading a dictionary is something I' m sure we have all fathomed in amazement, but you imagine reading consistently for years? The emcees aforementioned are endowed in reading the Mirriam Webster's dictionary in conjunction with rhyme dictionaries and thesauruses. News or current affairs are also mainstays of ammunition for the classic emcee. These men are partially responsible for the elevation of eloquence in lyrcism. I also must note that these emcees stand amidst a gob of their HipHop peers who also deserve praise for their enlightenment and contribution to HipHop on the count of teachings of the self driven.

Photobucket

Making HipHop music in the early days was/is a batlle just as Jazz, America's first artform was.
Musicians in New York, would stroll up to Minton's, a popular harlem nightclub in the 30's-40's, to test their skills against the likes of a Dizzy Gillespie or Fats Waller. Many amatuers would leave with instruction to work at their skills by fellow musicians, while a few dozen would often stay jam on into the wee hours of the night. The hereditary strain in both artforms, is that preparation is necessary for evolution...in plain view of many adversities and obstacles set forth to inhibit or undermine the efforts of impoverished young men and women of assorted minorities in pursuit of a modest success within their community by a contrasting middle to upper class demographic who sorely misunderstood what was happening and consquently ended up mocking. My point? Simply put... things aint just what they used to be...but they really should be?







The art and eloquence of emceeing is not dead, though it is rarely tapped as I'm sure you will hear if you listen to the radio these days (which I don't). The commercialization of HipHop has taken a turn for the worst in certain respects, i.e. the decomposition of originality, innovation and quality of the emcee being one of them. One solution possibly, is a reflection into the origins of the rap game and its pioneering. The assessment and transparent recollection in the elements of success that furthered us on down the HipHop timeline to make clueless, uppity record executives embrace what was once consistently mocked, is necessary.

The quality of HipHop music, epicentered at emcees making a run in the HipHopolis of today, in comparison to HipHop that men of the Cold Crush/Fantastic Crews, Supernatural, Rakim and KRS help to create, is in the words of my man, Jon Bibbs, " is like comparing chalk to cheese."
Historically speaking, one would obviously need to say rightfully so to such a contrast. Example? How many people do you know when asked of the greatest basketball player ever grace a court say something other than Micheal Jordan? ( sidenote: ...and if they did say something oter than that, they likely stared at the sun too long as a child.)

They'll never be another Supa'nat... nor a KRS... nor a Rakim. They will always be legends in the eyes of many and to question otherwise would be about as obsurd as punching a baby with a meatcleaver. If we follow the history of HipHop, we know that it ends where it starts...and i pray for the emcees of today to display an intregity, individuality and devotion to the movement that opened the possiblities for them in the first place.
I'm not saying you gotta' be a freestyle dj. I' m not saying you have to be EXACTLY like these guys... I'm not even saying that these guys are the greatest examples. Many emcees could be named but frankly, I don't have that kind of time and neither do you.
I AM saying that i want something new to hold on to but the thought of aquiring something so attainable is disheartening. Im saying that i want new wax to stack next to my other timeless masterpieces of HipHop. I want a low end theory for 2009, a criminal minded...a 36 chambers....a grandmaster flash's- the message or even a paid in full by eric b. & rakim. Some new ish...for the masses...all of em'. don't let it always be about the benjamins...its ok if you want put some heart into it.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Pete Rock aka the CHOCOLATE BOY WONDER is what you've been sleepin' on.

I'm positive that there are some of you that probably think Kanye West is something of a HipHop demi-god...and then there those that share my enthusiasm for plainly shitting on him at every physical opportunity given because of the sheer HipHop "murder" he's gotten away with. Now for those of you who view Kanye as a "well...he's not THAAT BAD" situation, listen up....i got news for ya'. Allow me to first preface by stating that I am not a hater, more specifically, I am not jealous in any way shape or form of Kanye's "blessings" or skills. In many ways I do not deem Kanye's accomplishments within the realm of HipHop entirely, nor do I hail complete loathe for the man because of his arrogance, ego maniacal attitude and embarrassing "i found the ball first" episodes will eventually be the end of him...but in the words of the late Richard Pryor, [you] "be happy for any brotha doin' any fuckin' thing because we need all we can get."
All that changed for me when I read an anonymous moreover, accurate article about Mr. West in which he referred to himself as the "new Pete Rock of HipHop". Yeah...I said it. Actually he said it.
Now, because anyone who knows me, knows that I struggle as man and as DJ to find positives about Kanye when he would be stupid enough to go "full retard" like that. I was so infuriated that I called my mom to discuss what I was buggin' about to which she replied, "well son, you have to have somebody to pray for."
Which brings me to the now... Rather than pray, i chose to remind myself ( not that I needed to) just exactly how far from the truth Kanye's severely impaired, bold ass statement was. How could he compare with the reputation and quality of PR's body of work? Nevermind that he (West) got busted lifting drum samples from Pete's instrumentals...Nevermind that his work doesn't compare to the contribution that Pete has made to hiphop over the last 20 years...So I walked into the lab pulled every pete Rock record I had off the shelves and began to reminisce about why the chocolate boy wonder could never be touched.This podcast is in complete dedication to the chocolate boy wonder and his contribution to HipHop, and hopefully at the conclusion you'll understand why it comes as complete bewilderment to me, for Kanye to put his balls in his mouth like that.
Photobucket
Some would argue that Dilla is and could mentioned in the same sentence with regards to hiphop production when it comes to the reputation of Pete Rock. Several of the comparisons stem from the fact that Dilla created the bulk of his productions out of samples, as well as the warm, mellow, and exuberant undertones apparent in their work. Pete Rock himself has added validation to the comparisons with J Dilla by stating "he's the only producer in this game that was just as serious [as me]."
the Tie-In: J Dilla's posthumous album $tay Paid was released on Nature Sounds label (owned by Pete Rock) and mixed and produced by Pete Rock. (released June 2nd) Great minds think alike.
There is still after all that has been said possible for some to not understand what the Cornbread is saying. It is remotely possible that some could be a victim generational slight. Some who claim the aficionado stamp of HipHop who may not know of the dopeness Pete Rock changed the game with. There some that view Kanye as the pillar of production because thats all they know. Kanye is after all, in the spotlight at least once a month. Well then I leave those unfortunate souls inevitably denied because of the fact that they were like 4 when Mecca and the Soul Brother came out, this 68 minute archive of dopeness by Dj Cornbread is nothing but a very small pinhole view of his work.Enjoy.