Monday, September 10, 2007

Bye Ciks, Radio & Records

Some sensations are best left unlearned, but you know the feeling. The one where the day starts off drab enough but as it wears on you quietly feel this looming dread, like something's off with the world. Without any explanation, you feel as if your emotions should be different from what they currently are. But it's impossible to put a finger on why. But you can't really dwell on the unknown so you try to play things cool and try to get your mind on another track...

The 27th of August was like that for me. My daily compadres could even sniff it off me or it was painted in my posture. I knew the feeling...something wild was up. Eventually early in September I got word that another magnificent person had dipped out of this existence.

Ciks, warm, loving, adventuresome, face like cool water in a Sahara noon. Wish I could've known you better. To Sweet and Crew, my sincere sympathies. We shall look out for The Gift.



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It's been kitambos since I dipped through. Don't kill me I've started writing this particular entry so many times in the past few weeks, but keep getting pulled away. It's still hot outside. The grind continues. There's been some bossy things going on. We put together a brand for our region to make it distinct from anything else in the world. CTGC is the name of the movement at the forefront of a new eastern assault. It's basically a way to bring all the top talent out here to the masses. Initial buzz has been good, radio has embraced us and a small tour is in the works.

Speaking of radio, Friday Sept 14th at 10:41 pm things finally came full circle. For the first time ever I heard a song that I produced, recorded and mixed get spun on radio. It's a little reggae thing we did late in the summer. Special shout out to DJ Wrexx and DJ Phenom. Y'all go in!

While everyone has been excited about the return of the Greatest Waste of Sunday ever created, sorry, I mean the NFL, I've been more keen on the Rugby World Cup. Although I've only really watched a handful of games, it's a needed restoration of my sanity.

Caught 50 Cent at an impromptu performance the day before his album dropped. Onstage he's tight and very polished. Although the venue wasn't packed to the rafters, the crowd was jumping for the duration of the 90 minute set. A lot of people are making a fuss about the first week album sales but the more telling statistic: the second week numbers that fell by at least 75% for both Kanye and Fif. Who knew Talib Kweli (68k) would debut on top of Swizz Beatz, (28k) who seemed to have all the major media outlets on smash. The biggest loser though must be T.I. who has to deal with seeing former long time collaborator DJ Toomp throw his synth game with beautiful effect all over Kanye's album.

In the meantime you can all lament the burial of music videos as a mainstream tv format in the US. Viacom's BET, the last network standing as far as playing videos instead of alternative non music related programming, has ditched all pretentions of playing videos even for 3 hours a day. The once hallowed Rap City is now a late night afterthought.

Pray for the babies, and Free Jena 6!

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