Category: Music News

Brooklyn has had its fair share of successful musicians throughout the years. If you looked through the decades from before Lou Reed became an icon to the incredible amount of Hip Hop that was born there with The Beastie Boys to Jay Z, this popular area of New York has always told a story that the world has listened to and enjoyed.

Billy McCarthy and Eric Sanderson who are Augustines are about to share their incredible story in 2011 and on first listen they could well be joining that infamous list of successful artists that use Brooklyn as a base to launch their careers worldwide. Why? Because they have a tale to tell and a superb sound to match that not only has soul, it is also played from the heart.

Their debut album Rise Ye Sunken Ships was produced by Dave Newfeld (Los Campesinos!, Broken Social Scene) and will be out sometime next year, but for now enjoy this video EPK to get the full picture and visit augustinesmusic.com to pick up a free download of the track Book of James. If your ears are in tune with bands such as the Gaslight Anthem, Arcade Fire and The National then you should not be disappointed.

Wiz Khalifa has been arrested for possession of marijuana.

The Philly rapper, who is going to be doing massive things in 2011, was arrested after a show in North Carolina when his tour bus was raided. Considering 99% of his material is about smoking weed, it must have been a tough case for the cops to crack. Ho hum!

Grime’s hottest property, South London’s P-Money has a new video online.

Slang Like This is produced by Sukh Knight and features the rapper, producer and other faces from the scene dotted about the city dropping the slang of the title. Get it on, crank the volume and brockout. This one’s a banger!

Fresh outta Fresno, rapper Fashawn has put a new video online.

The track, Bart Simpson, shows the MC skating about and enjoying some of Mother Nature’s finest herb on a track taken from his latest mixtape Grizzly City 3 which you can grab here. His album Boys Meets World was baller, so make sure you keep an eye out on this chap.

Here’s some news to fire up your cold winter morning. Hip hop legend whose idiosyncrasies have influenced countless imitators, Busta Rhymes has announced that he will be playing one show at The Coronet in London on December 7th.

He will be joined by Jehst, Shortee Blitz and more TBA. Click on the flyer below for tickets and be sure to head down as this show is guaranteed to be filled with rhymes galore, rhymes galore, RHYMES GALORE.

One of the finest, most eclectic and musically pure indie rock groups to emerge from Wales in recent years, WE//ARE//ANIMAL have just released their debut album ‘Idolise‘ today.

If you’re going to introduce yourselves to at least one new band this year, make it WE//ARE/ANIMAL. Their album is available now from Rough Trade and most good record stores.Keep your eyes open for an Introducing interview with the band dropping later this week.

The highly influential Sheffield brit poppers Pulp will be reuniting for a one-off festival appearance in 2011.

All of the band’s original members will be involved as the band are set to play Wireless Festival in Hyde Park on July 3rd. The announcement was made at just the right time as tickets for the festival go on sale this Friday (November 12th).

For more information on Pulp’s reformation head here.

And in case you weren’t aware, Pulp were responsible for making one of the greatest skateboard parts of all time even greater. Click here to watch PJ Ladd’s part in PJ Ladd’s Wonderful Horrible Life and listen to Like A Friend below.

The constantly genre-hopping producer extraordinaire Diplo has compiled a definitively vast collection of dubstep that is set to be released in the UK on November 29th through Mad Decent/Co-op. It will be the first volume in the labels new ‘Blow Your Head‘ series of compilations.

The hand-picked compilation purposefully refuses to answer the frequently asked question ‘just what is dubstep?’ The variety in Diplo’s favourites looks set to dispell any genre stereotypes and open up many to a world of music that has bubbled, wobbled, scuttled, bounced, bleeped and buzzed throughout London and the world during the last decade.

The album linear notes sees Diplo fondly describe dubstep as “a sort of great nephew to Reggae”, the bastard child of Dub that took influence from Jungle and Dancehall and then “ran away to do drugs in London and start a band with no money, just a laptop with a few cracked programs it found on torrent sites.”

The tracklisting (previously unreleased tracks are marked *) is as follows:

01. Joker & Ginz: Re-Up
02. Major Lazer feat. Mr Lexx & Santigold: Hold The Line (Skream Remix)*
03. DZ: Down
04. Diplo feat. Lil Jon: U Don’t Like Me (Datsik Remix)*
05. Zomby: Strange Fruit
06. Brackles: Glazed
07. Jessica Mauboy: Burn (Stenchman Remix)*
08. Doctor P: Sweet Shop
09. Rusko: Cockney Thug (Caspa Remix)
10. Untold: Stop What You’re Doing (James Blake Remix)
11. Borgore feat. Diplo: Sunset
12. James Blake: Sparing The Horse
13. Benga: 26 Basslines
14. Little Jinder: Youth Blood (12th Planet & Flinch Remix)
15. Rudi Zygadlo: Resealable Friendship (Starkey Remix)
16. Rusko feat. Amber Coffman: Hold On (Subfocus Remix)

Lil Wayne has been released from jail today, after spending eight months in New York’s Riker’s Island prison,.

Weezy was charged for the attempted possession of a weapon. He was released today after some confusion over his release date. The acclaimed rapper will not be faced with any subsequent probation or parole from the weapon charge but (as MTV reports) he will face three years of unsupervised probation after pleading guilty to a drug charge in Arizona.

Whilst in the slammer, the Young Money CEO released the #1 album I Am Not A Human Being in which it seems the rapper’s penchant for pussy has only grown stronger.