“The quick changeover got the rappers confused/Tek back at the board/Kweli is back in the booth/Let’s go”

The first video off Talib Kweli and Hi-Tek’s highly anticipated follow-up to 2000′s Train of Thought. Something about these two just sounds so right.  The new album, Revolutions Per Minute, is scheduled to come out this fall. →

Feiyue + Unholy Matrimony recently collaborated on a wearable, custom shoe design. These light weight, comfortable shoes will be available Spring/Summer 2010.

About:
Unholy Matrimony was conceived in 2002 by artist Brett Westfall and launched in 2003 with the idea of combining conceptual art and fashion design.

The Feiyue sneaker first appeared in the 1920s in  Shanghai. This small shoe has guided the paths of all social classes in China, has crossed continents, arriving in Europe in 2006, where it was picked up by a team of French enthusiasts, fascinated by sneakers and urban culture. →

Photo Credit: Azul 213*

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Ready to go, 25 minute rendition of A Love Supreme.
Los Angeles is bubbling right now, ArtDontSleep, amongst many others, has been championing this blossoming sound for the last 5 years. Giving artists a place to freely create, innovate and build with one another. No distractions, just music. This is the first of many Jam Sessions to come.  ArtDontSleep would like to thank Blu for lending the musicians his studio to do this right. →

By now I hope we’ve all successfully recovered from election withdrawal. For many, election coverage was like a drug, and we obsessively scoured the blogosphere for poll numbers and Palin-esque scandal while simultaneously posting over-exposed election buzz on our Facebook pages (am I alone here?). →

Michael Jackson was and forever will be the King of Pop. He opened up the doors for everyone. I remember once interviewing Mos Def and I asked him about the inception of hip-hop in mass media, how it faced the same challenges as jazz did, in the sense that jazz was at first stigmatized, then later due to persistence hip-hop too as a music genre eventually found its way in affecting the mainstream. Now while Michael certainly was not the vanguard for hip-hop, he did infuse hip-hop elements in his performance as an artist. →

Michael Jackson has passed away. May his heart rest in peace. I grew up listening to Michael Jackson as a child living in Reseda. I remember listening to the BAD album and I was blown away by the raw energy of Michael’s voice. I have much more to say about this but I haven’t had a chance to comprehend all of this. More on this later.

With revolution and discontent stewing in Iran, some may find it difficult to place recent events into the context of Iran’s history. While Iranian expatriate and graphic novelist Marjane Satrapi expressed the events of her childhood so warmly in Persepolis, no other foreign-born writer has committed the events of the 1979 uprising in powerful allegorical terms as Polish writer and journalist Ryszard Kapuściński. From 1964 onward, he traveled the world as foreign correspondent for the Polish Press Agency →

Book nerds and literati rejoice. Seattle’s Bumbershoot Festival announces its lineup for the literary arts program that will take place in conjunction with the festival’s wide-ranging arts events. This year, S.E. Hinton (The Outsiders), McSweeney’s, Christian Lander (Stuff White People Like), Zak Smith (We Did Porn), writers of the T.V. show Lost and comedian David Cross (debuting his first book I Drink for a Reason) will attend festivities during this year’s Labor Day weekend. Alongside events featuring theatre, dance, cinema and music, Bumbershoot will encompass poetry, spoken word, food writing and the indie press, making it a truly comprehensive arts and culture festival. Full lineup after the jump. →

In a collaboration that might sound a tad cliche in fusing Rap with Reggae, the cause to bring awareness to Africa in the music of Nas and Damian Marley might be something to take note.

Last night, the Roots broke even more ground in the late-night talkshow world by debuting the title track from their upcoming album on Jimmy Kimmel Fallon. It’s oh-so-sweet mix of gospel and soul shows that The Roots are changing it up on their upcoming album.  It also proves the age-old adage that afro and bow-tie size are directly proportionate.  The music video drops early next month and the album will follow this October.