Mikey: Dope PBS documentary on the history of copyright laws in the music industry and how they’ve affected rap music over the years. Props to YN for the rip.

More clips after the jump…

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Rihanna “Redemption Song” (For Haiti Relief)

Mikey: Rihanna channels the late Bob Marley and shows her support to Haiti. She’ll be performing this song on Oprah’s live special which airs this afternoon titled,  Just Back from Haiti—Wyclef Jean’s Devastating Eyewitness Account. Remember you can still donate by simply texting “yele” to “501 501″.

(props to Mr.X )

MissInfo: the homie Legend/OnSmash/AllThingsRock is back at it with our weekly walk down mixtape memory lane…this time with Ron G’s classic….

Download: Ron G – Dead Presidents [1996] (Mixtape)

full tracklisting after the jump…

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(artwork by my friend Denis of the mighty MightyHealthy streetwear brand : )

So much good, free music today! First we had Diplo’s Free Gucci Mane remix mixtape…and now DJ Soul and RR blended 70 minutes of hip hop’s biggest samples for a listen and learning experience, lol. And I also like this Adrian Champion mashup mixtape of White Stripes songs with Nas, Biggie, Hov, Outkast and more. Enjoy!

New Mixtape: DJ Soul x RapRadar presents No Idea’s Original (Mixtape Download)

New Mixtape: Adrian Champion presents Stars and Stripes: The White Stripes Reimagined (Mixtape Download) (Instrumentals Download)

Adrian Champion Presents: Stars & Stripes – The White Stripes Reimagined from Adrian Champion on Vimeo.

Legend: We kind of fell off with these throughout the course of last year, but it’s a new year and we’re still listening to the classics. Kid Capri Old School Pt. 3 is a blast from the past featuring all the pioneers who paved way for this hip-hop ish. Kool Moe Dee, Whodini, Run DMC, World Famous Supreme Team, Fearless Four, T La Rock, Cold Crush and more. Enjoy!

Missinfo: we did fall off, didn’t we? Lol…but that was the first Legend x Info collabo : ) too bad, I was totally coasting off your hard work. smh. But I’m glad to be able to coast on your shoulders again, and this mixtape is classic! Thanks, homes.

Tracklist and download link after the jump.

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Yesterday, Andrew from FakeShoreDrive brought up and sent over this gem from the past. And it was always such a favorite of mine (along with the entire Big Mike classic first album on Rap-a-lot…incredible) that I thought, why not post? Also, while I’m up, why not recap my day….its totally self-indulgent, but don’t do it often, so just scroll down to avoid.

Well, today I forced myself to socialize not once but thrice! First, I went to go see Avatar…in IMAX….in 3D IMAX. And it was awesome. I never watched the most recent Terminator movie so I didnt know Sam Worthington was the lead in that film as well, but he was good (read: hunky). More importantly though, the movie was total sci-fi fantasy escapism. Which is exactly what I needed. It’s been such a long time since a movie has been ambitious enough to create a whole nother universe for us to take a 3 hour immersion trip into. I guess the Lord of the Rings Trilogy was the last time? Because those Star Wars prequels were horrendous. And in Avatar…the “industrial lights and magic” doesn’t dehumanize or flatten the movie, like it did in those prequels (which if I didnt mention already, were horrendous and I hated). I think even if I didnt see it in 3D Imax, I’d still enjoy Avatar because the storyline had depth (a lil’ political and even environmental undertones) and the characters (Zoe Saldana was not annoying at all) and obviously the visuals did too.

Anyways, then I saw some of my favorite people at our annual holiday potluck (thanks Chairman Mao and Andrea Duncan-Mao). And had some very interesting conversation about how the sound quality of music has changed. (When’s the last time you listened to music on a stereo?)

And finally, it was off to the LTD Magazine and Fool’s Gold Records party to see DJ Max Glazer, DJ Atrak and Just Blaze spin in consecutive sets in a small sweaty basement of an office in Soho. Angela Yee and me got our fist pump on, The Situation-style….and even though, I had to fight the urge to stay home in the snow and be grumpy and homely…I’m glad I didn’t, and thankful to the friends who made me feel welcome.

(I know this is Infamous artwork, not from its followup album Hell On Earth, but it’s just such a cool image from that era…both Twins represented. The new Tims. The oversaturated Chi Modu photography with the blur in the foreground. Classically flawed)

With all the new music and the hyperspeed pace that we consume said music, I love seeing folks like Robbie Ettelson from the Unkut blog documenting and pulling the layers back on old music too. He got his hands on a previously unreleased Mobb Deep song from their Hell On Earth sessions and shared…

Unreleased Music: Mobb Deep featuring Rapper Noyd and Twin, etc* “Tha World” (usershare link)

(thanks to Robbie/Unkut for their exclusive)

(*sounds like it was produced by Havoc, no? I’m not sure who else is on this song but I hear Twin on there…and possibly Noyd?)

(ps: The Infamous….one of my favorite albums of all time. pure genius. it feels like its being written out of the history blogs…I blame the lack of marketing savvy and maybe the surplus of prison rants…but that’s fine. we know the deal.)

Snowman Talk from Gasface on Vimeo.

I just love the work that my boys from Media Gasface are doing. The team from Lyons, France, caught up with one of the original members of Mobstyle, Azie Faison, about the days of Harlem’s legendary 80’s crack hustlers and his feelings about the biopic that he gave Dame Dash the permission to make…

Gasface says:
“In the 80’s, kids already wanted to be like Mike.
But some of them also looked up to AZ, Alpo or Rich…
Guess what ? Most of them became rappers.

Azie and his partners lived the fast life in the 80’s,
Jay-Z and Dame Dash made a movie about it in 2002.

Now 46, Azie sits in his X6 and reflects on his past in the game,
why he never really liked crack, his sister’s boyfriend, nor the outcome of his Roc-A-Fella biopic, ‘Paid in Full.’”

Previously:

Gasface  x Thirstin Howl III

Gasface x Miss Info

Fabolous’ “Pechangas” echos Mobstyle’s “What’s goin on”

Back when I went to Chicago to hear R.Kelly’s Untitled album with others, Kels spoke briefly on Trey Songz’s diss record. Here he reiterates the same thoughts with DJ Skee…

“If you’re gonna step out on that limb, which is very thin, you should make a personal call if this is a personal feeling….now if you’re trying to sell an album, and start a beef then you make it public…but you have to be very careful with that. Because why would I tell Stevie Wonder, even though he doesnt have an album, you need to do this and that….or talk about Stevie Wonder. I would not do that. Because Stevie Wonder has fans too….just as Stevie Wonder and Charlie Wilson and Donny Hathaway and Sam Cooke paved the way for the Rkellys and Aaron Halls and the Dreams, and everybody else. As we come up, we’re paving the way for the next person….but you cannot talk about someone who has done what they’ve done in this industry, which has changed the industry…and still doing it. You’re trying to throw a rock on the top of the Sears Tower...”

After the jump….R.Kelly talks to MTV about his Michael Jackson tribute song…and to Skee about working with Dr. Dre on Detox.

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Gucci Mane Talks Working With Usher For The 3rd Time from LowKey on Vimeo.

Lowkey posted this latest clip from that my sit-down with Gucci Mane, over at his BET Soundoff blog. In it, Gucci reveals that “Spotlight” is in fact, not his first collabo with Usher, it’s his third. He was the original rapper on “Love in the Club.”
(so what was the 2nd?)

By the way, thank you to a lot of youse.

Previously: Gucci Mane x Miss Info Pt 1 “My Own Worst Enemy”