Hip-hop was center stage at East Rutherford, New Jersey’s Bamboozle festival this year. So much so, that the Genre had it’s own dedicated ‘B-Boy’ tent featuring artists like Drake, Wiz Khalifa, Mike Posner & More. Included in the group was D.C born rapper Wale, or Olubowale Victor Akintimehin as his mother would call him.
Today’s bloggin’ best…
- Middle age indie-dork takeover with Unrest reunion tour. PopMatters
- The Nevermind cover baby now works for Shepard Fairey. Village Voice
- Joaquin Phoenix rapper doc(mock?)umentary is making headway. AV Club
- Chemical Brothers debut new video, “Swoon.” Prefix Mag
- Get your remix on with Pauly D and Baskin Robbins. Examiner
- Janes Addiction debuts with Duff McKagan on bass. LA Weekly
- NIN crowd-sourcing a documentary about the final show. Pitchfork
- Pharrell hung with Obama on Cinco de Mayo. Hypetrak
Today’s bloggin best…
- Ultra rare 1968 Zepplin live recordings surface and they rawk. NME
- Ultra rare Dimebag Darrell track surfaces. Blabbermouth
- Is Comic-Con moving to Los Angeles? LAist
- Blur to release new single on our new favorite holiday, Record Store Day. Stereogum
- Hedi Slimane x Rolls-Royce photography is sexy. Hypebeast
- Beastie Boy Adam Yauch buys rights to Holocaust documentary. Gigwise
- Arcade Fire is collaborating with Spike Jonez. LA Weekly
- Over it!: The Green Hornet might be going 3D. The Playlist
- Black Flag bassist Chuck Dukowski is selling his records. True Slant
- Alex Chilton might have been saved but didn’t have health insurance. Village Voice
- Pharrell’s Porshe Spyder by KAWS is super amazing. BBC
Today’s bloggin best…
- TRON trailers get remixed. Boing Boing
- Police could arrest Erykah Badu for nude video shoot. That certainly doesn’t prove a point. Hip Hop Wired
- Biggie Smalls times The xx equals The Notorious xx. Prefix
- Some people may have heard new Burial music late one night, maybe. LA Times
- LCD Soundsystem album gets a name and a face. Consequence of Sound
- Did Flat Eric just eat LSD with Pharrell? Asian Man Dan
- Crystal Castles release a 90-second song for Record Store Day. Pitchfork
Today’s bloggin best…
- Pharrell Williams is good for your skin. Hypebeast
- Ringtones are good for your skin. Times Online
- Björk and Michel Gondry are working on IMAX 3D project. The Playlist
- Kool Keith is obviously a fan of Always Sunny In Philadelphia. The Daily Swarm
- Group fails to collect enough signatures for California marijuana ballot initiative (insert stoners joke here). LAist
- Eddie Grant is claiming Gorillaz ripped him off. NME
At a time when the collapse of the music business has become a cliche and the major labels objects of derision, Chester French, a duo of Harvard grads whose names are neither Chester nor French, may well be the exception that proves the rule.
The two guys, Max and D.A., are one of those six-years-in-the-making overnight successes who turned their dorm-room obsession with mixtapes and pop music into a career the old-fashioned way: one fan at a time. In true Cinderella fashion, a few of those fans were famous, as in Kanye West, Jimmy Iovine and Pharrell, whose label, Star Trak, released their first album, Love the Future, on April 21.