RIP J Dilla
A personal hero of mine.
Music Archives
February 14, 2007
February 25, 2007
Album Art Slide Show
Just a small sub-set of the music I own.
March 2, 2007
Testing Orb's new MyCast Widget
I just put up Orb's new Web 2.0 media casting widget (check it out on the right sidebar under the "In Rotation" section). It's Free! So far, so good. I'm only streaming audio for now, but it works with video and photos too. The widget is called "MyCast" and you can download here. What it does is stream files from your PC to anywhere you can access the internet. You can have an embedded flash widget like I do on the right, or an email or RSS feed. They are promoting this for MySpace, where it should spread like wildfire. It seems to work nicely here on my humble blog. Is this legal? Probably not. But I'm enjoying it for now.
On a side note - this is a great way for blogs to keep people navigating over. With the popularity of RSS feeds, websites are loosing out on ad revenue because fewer people are visiting. So this is some value added / reward for surfing over that adds stickiness. Great stuff. Even though I don't put ads on my site - but you get the point.
The only downsides I can think of - you have to leave your media storing PC on all the time for this to be effective. Your PC essentially becomes a webserver. That entails having a robust, reliable, broadband connection. Orb says everything is secure, but you might take extra procaution and dedicate a junky PC with no sensitive information to doing this.
March 10, 2007
Calling Kanye West
Sign this guy.
March 15, 2007
Music and You
Scientific evidence that you really can judge a person by the music she listens to. What do my tastes say about me? "In short, people who listen to jazz are smart, liberal, adventurous, and poor; [...] and people who listen to hip hop are extroverted, agreeable, liberal, athletic, and hot"
.
Hat tip Andrew Sullivan.
April 14, 2007
Pete Rock Dropping Science
Pete Rock, one of the best hip-hop producers of all time, gives us a peak into his creative process: drawing from a wide breadth of musical knowledge, chopping up samples, and creating drum lines.
Sample-based hip-hop, the kind that permeated the golden era of hip-hop in the late 80's and early 90's, is unfortunately becoming more rare. And that's why a lot of contemporary hip-hop doesn't sound good to me - the beats and melodies are all synthed (think dirty south and the rise of producer duo The Neptunes). Not that synthed beats are inherently wrong, but it's not the sound that I associate with hip-hop. I need that scratch chorus of a DJ Premier; the snap, crackle, and pop of an old jazz sample.
Why did the industry move toward synthetic beats? In the early days of hip-hop, sampling was done without permission. For the most part, this wasn't an issue until rap music became big. Copyright owners became more interested in collecting royalties. As a result, record labels became weary of the legal effort and costs of clearing samples. Rap albums with original beats became more attractive; they were much cheaper (read: more profitable) to produce because of the low legal overhead.
Thankfully, the art of sample-based hip-hop is not dead. A new generation of producers like 9th Wonder, Kanye West, and Kev Brown are fueling a mini-resurgence. Licenses must still be obtained if the original track of a sample can be recognized. Using single notes (chopping) or altering samples, however, seems to mitigate any copyright infringement and fall under fair use.
April 19, 2007
DJs in Heels
The LA Times features a cover story [behind free subscription wall] on female DJs today. I think my competition got a little harder:
July 26, 2007
New Madlib in India
September 27, 2007
Will.I.Am Drops Solo Album
Will.I.Am, producer and rapper of the Black Eyed Peas, dropped his first solo album on Tuesday. If you're a DJ, you NEED to proceed directly to your nearest record store and pick this up. Now. This is one of the best club albums of the year and almost every song on it is danceable.
November 16, 2007
My DJ Watch
I'm sitting here in awe of my new DJ watch. The Equalizer BPM Watch from TokyoFlash Japan lets you count the tempo of any rhythm you're listening to. It also comes with a high power "torch" light that helps you read record labels in a dark club setting. I love it!
November 20, 2007
Classic Hip-Hop Song of the Week
"I Like It",Grand Puba, 1995 - The only Pu song I liked. Can't miss with diction like this:
I'm energetic, poetic, athletic, with good credit / So just move like I'm Simon and I said it!
November 22, 2007
Rhapsody Playlist - 9th Wonder
Just testing this out - a Rhapsody playlist I made featuring 9th Wonder on production.
December 17, 2007
Classic Hip-Hop Song of the Week
Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth - They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.) 1992.
December 24, 2007
Oscar Peterson RIP
Oscar Peterson: jazz legend and Canadian hero, RIP 1925 - 2007. I've been listening to Oscar since I was born. This is a sad day for Jazz; a sad day for Canada.
From the CBC:
"He broke out of Canada. He's one of the first people. We talk of Céline Dion, and Shania Twain, and Alanis Morissette and Bryan Adams. Oscar Peterson did what they did years ago as a black person. So what he's done is incredible." —Tracy Biddle, daughter of Montreal jazz pillar Charlie Biddle
In concert with Joe Pass below:
December 31, 2007
Hip-Hop Album of the Year, 2007
The best hip-hop album of 2007 is Median's Relief, the debut album by Median. The true gem here isn't just the A-game production by 9th Wonder, Krysis, and Nicolay, but the rap skills of Median, who makes a serious challenge to Phonte as best Justus League Lyricist.
Median can flow like a natural on the mic. His clever diction and introspective lyrics will satisfy any hip-hop head longing for the days of "real" MCs. The underlying mood of the album is a positive one. Light on braggadocio, heavy on metaphors, Median raps to inspire.
I'd be remiss not to mention Kanye West's Graduation album as a close runner up for best of 2007. Graduation is by far Kanye's best to date. He continues to take his sample-based production mainstream, and hip-hop is better for it.
February 1, 2008
Personalized Music Magazines
idiomag, a UK based startup, offers music-centric digital magazines customized to your tastes. Brilliantly executed and easy to use, idiomag is monetized and uses video and music content legally. Partnerships with third-party blogs and industry publications such as Billboard keep the content fresh. Check it.
April 28, 2008
Estelle
I haven't blogged about music in a while, but today as I previewed the new album Shine by UK artist Estelle [available for download April 29th], I was compelled to write this post. Remember Lauryn Hill? Estelle is all that. Highly recommended. 
May 7, 2008
Produce Hip-Hop Music
May 10, 2008
My Favorite Dilla Track
Nag Champa (Afrodisiac for the World) by Common.
June 4, 2008
In Rotation: Adele
June 23, 2008
In Rotation: Casual
Casual, Bay Area rap legend and Heiro crew member. His first album "Fear Itself" [1994, Jive Records] was widely panned by critics at the time. I thought it was good then and it's even better now. Why? Because they don't make hip-hop like this anymore.
June 26, 2008
Can you get minus 5 Mics?
With Shaq's infamous return to the mic this week, some don't remember just how prolific an MC he is:
July 8, 2008
Re-Thinking Musical Instruments
The goal of human-computer interaction is more intuitive experiences. The iPhone's multi-touch interface was definitely a disruptor in this area. The Yamaha Tenori-on, seen below, is even more mind-blowing.
July 11, 2008
Song Recognition
Available on the iPhone. Unfortunately, you'll have to pay for the service eventually. My advice to Apple: buy this ap from Shazzam and make it free. The tie-ins to iTunes and added brand-value/utility are no-brainers.
July 13, 2008
Deconstructing Biggie
July 14, 2008
In Rotation: Strange Fruit Project
July 19, 2008
Dilla & Mos Def Video Mashup
Amazing.
August 15, 2008
In Rotation: Elzhi, The Preface
I'm a HUGE slum village fan. A big part of that was due to a young J Dilla on production.
And that's why I like The Preface, the first solo release by slum v alumnus Elzhi. I feel like it's 2000 all over again. The production, all handled by Black Milk, could easily be mistaken for Dilla himself. And Elzhi holds his own on the mic. Highly recommended.
January 7, 2009
Pete Rock on the MPC
I've posted this video before - a personal hero of mine, Pete Rock. His beginning composition is the illest hip-hop beat ever. Please, Pete, drop it on a single already. It's been 3 years!
January 12, 2009
DJ Earworm: Best of 2008
A brilliant smashup from DJ Earworm in SF, using Billboards top 25 of 2008. Check out his site for many more excellent mashups.
January 28, 2009
Morcheeba Smashup Project
I moved the page here, because the main blog is so slow.
February 17, 2009
Acoustic Mashup
I caught Diana and Christine at Room 5 in Hollywood on a rainy Friday the 13th. This was the first time I saw a live rendition of a mashup, and it turned out great. From DJ Earworm's United States of Pop, 2008.
April 27, 2009
Single Take
Nyle and friends from NYU with a music video done in one take with live recorded music. Great job.
Nyle "Let The Beat Build" from Nyle on Vimeo.
May 4, 2009
Jay Z Vs The Cure
you're So Close to me, get that Dirt Off Your Shoulder 
June 3, 2009
In the News....
Techies by day, DJs by night. Moi, on CIO.com.
June 11, 2009
10 Mins
An excerpt from a set I did in December, put to video. Closer to 11 mins, actually.
June 12, 2009
Mahalo Mahalo
My Jay-Z V Cure mashup makes Mahalo's This Week in YouTube (3:30min in). Cool.
June 25, 2009
RIP
February 3, 2010
Twiistup 007 Mix
I DJ'd twiistup 007 last thursday at the Skirball and here's my live set, all done in Ableton.
No one was responding to hip-hop so I switched to dancey stuff ("play lady gaga!" were my orders). Now, I don't have a ton of dance music so you can hear I was pressing - some disco here, contemporary club bangers there, so, ya, set could have been better. My first time using the APC-40 controller - woot! The event was called "007" and themed as Casino Royale, hence the drops you hear in the mix (thanks to @biskeeee and Nikki for recording those!).
Check us out on Facebook.
April 21, 2010
J Dilla Tribute
From last Sunday's Shangri-LA, my J Dilla tribute set. It's not horrible, but I think I could have done a lot better.
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This page contains an archive of all entries posted to The Smooth DJ in the Music category. They are listed from oldest to newest.
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