Fast becoming one of our favourite new rappers here at Crossfire, Phil Adé has dropped a new mixtape.
PhilAdeFriday is a collection of the free tracks he put out every Friday and sees him going on over classic beats by Lords Of The Underground, Ice Cube, Mobb Deep and more, showcasing his lyrical talent and verbal dexterity. It’s free and it’s great, what you waiting for? Click here to grab it.
Need an example of the dopeness? Just check out the video below.
The Forum, London
18.05.11
With the smell of weed grappling nostrils are soon as the doors to the Forum opened, it was clear that Wiz Khalifa isn’t just all mouth about his love of green. The Pittsburgh rapper, who has shot to prominence since Crossfire last saw him live, at Soundset in 2010, has developed a large following thanks in no small part to his break-out hit Black & Yellow, as a very full Forum readied itself for a night to enjoy.
Despite his wiry frame, Wiz fills the stage thanks to his huge grin and boundless energy as he and hype man Chevy Woods took the room by the throat from the very start. Slamming out tracks from his new album Rolling Papers and recent mixtapes Cabin Fever and Kush & Orange Juice, Khalifa interspersed his tracks with shout outs to his weed smokers, something which garnered no end of response from the crowd.
His medley of Kush & OJ tracks were a highlight, with In The Cut, Still Blazin and Waken Baken given the live treatment on a sound system that, for once, made hip hop sounds great at the Forum, a rare occurance indeed. Lex Luger produced bangers got the crowd going with Taylor Gang ramping the noise levels up another notch, the call-and-response reminding everyone why live hip hop is such a joy to be involved with.
Wrapping things up with On My Level, Roll Up and Black & Yellow, Wiz topped off a show that had far exceeded expectations. Even the tracks on the album that are essentially filler sounded great amongst the impressive light show [instructing the crowd to ROLL UP with his own-brand Wizlas] and scratch-happy DJ. I wasn’t smoking last night, but I certainly came out of the venue on a high, unlike the nerd filming half the show on his iPad!
Abjekt.
The world’s best hip hop festival is back once again and the Rhymesayers guys behind the Soundset have dropped a preview video for the event which takes place in Minnesota on May 29th.
Taking in tunes from De La, Atmosphere, Big Boi and more, the visuals by the homey Adam Garcia come to life and make our resident rap fan Abjekt very excited. As per usual, Crossfire will be there to report on what’s going down.
Remind yourselves what went down last year by clicking right here.
Hevy Fest have announced more bands to appear on their line-up for this year’s event.
The Festival, which takes place on August 5th-8th has already announced Four Year Strong, Funeral For A Friend and The Ghost Of A Thousand [their last ever show, sob sob] and these bands will be joined by:
Trash Talk (the band performed their first ever festival appearance at Hevy last year)
OFF! (with Keith Morris from Black Flag)
Title Fight
The Xcerts
While She Sleeps
More Than Life
Me Vs Hero
Arcane Roots
Don’t you dare miss it.
DJ extraordinaire Z-Trip has put together a free 23 minute Beastie Boys mix in preparation for the NYC trio dropping their new album.
Mixing up stuff from the new album and old classics, it’s the perfect way to kick off any day, so head over to Z-Trip’s Bandcamp page and download it!
Plus it gives us another chance to watch the awesome Make Some Noise video!
It seems like Raekwon releases videos every other day, just like his albums, but this is definitely worth a watch.
Harking back to the days when Wu Tang first burst onto the scene, the beat on Butter Knives is killer and The Chef’s vocals are as potent as ever. Kick back and enjoy!
Raekwon – Butter Knives from LRG on Vimeo.
Flavor Flav will not have his name attached for a Fried Chicken restaurant any more.
In a move which will no doubt break hearts of millions around the world, the Public Enemy hype man will now not be lending his name to the Iowan Flav’s Fried Chicken, which opened four months ago. Reports of unpaid staff meant the restaurant was under the microscope from the off, though Nick Cimino, the co-founder, claimed it was due to a “credit card glitch”.
Flav won’t be out of the food game for long though as he plans to open Flavor Flav’s House Of Flavor in Vegas, saying that Cimino wasn’t running the business currently, though Cimino said “I’m just glad I’m free of somebody like Flavor Flav”.
At least Flav won’t have trouble getting to work on time, right?
Is Snoop going to play the Royal Wedding?
Whilst it’s far-fetched, some whisperings are saying the Doggfather might join the London Chamber Orchestra at Friday’s wedding, after his outrageous claim of attendance last year.
The LCO conductor has refused to confirm or deny anything so we’re just going to go ahead and imagine how awesome it would be for Snoop to be up there giving his all in a diamond-encrusted Adidas sweatsuit. Awesome.
Do we care about the Royal Wedding? No. Do we care about it if Snoop is there? Hmmmmm maybe, yeah. Imagine if he dropped this one for Prince Willy…
Noisia make the heaviest beats around, bar none and the Dutch production masters have just dropped a video for their track Shellshock.
Featuring Foreign Beggars on vocals, it shows their crack team of commandos come up against a huge and powerful beast which not even bullets can displace. Or is it something else? You’ll have to watch the video below to find out, but make sure turn the volume right up or else you’re missing out.
As if that wasn’t enough, the Noisia boys are giving away the track as a free download here so you’ve got no excuse not to pick it up.
Damian Marley and Nasty Nas have dropped new visuals from their Distant Relatives album.
Nah Mean sees the duo walking through the streets delivering their verses. Pretty simple really, but the tune’s a biggun. All that’s left is for Nas to buy a belt to save holding his trousers up through the whole thing. Silly Nas.