Medium

Rhymesayers stays ill with their packaging design. From Atmosphere’s “When Life Gives You Lemons You Paint That Shit Gold” children’s book to this, a full wallet fold and cash package for Freeway and Jake One’s latest album. I don’t even pay that much attention to Freeway really…but damn, I might buy this album just for the packaging. The packaging was done designed and directed by Brent Rollins

Go over to the Rhymesayers site to check out some more pictures of the limited edition packaging.

Originally published on February 6th, 2008

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Praia – A Brazilian Deep House Mix

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Originally published on February 6, 2008. I wanted to renew the  download link and add it to the set of Medium podcasts, which can be found on iTunes, or subscribing through our RSS feed.

Dj Sean Haley hails from the birthplace of house music, Chicago, Illinois. Together with a partner from Detroit they have formed the group Windimoto. Check out and support their recently released album entitled “The Travels Of Windimoto” and keep checking back for new mixes from Dj Sean Haley

Links
Dj Sean Haley
Windimoto Music
Windimoto Music on iTunes

Cover design for “Praia” by The Honest Ape for Medium

Yo!!! I know that we try to provide yall with some dope downloads and looking back at the few years I’ve been running the site, I figured it would be cool to have a page where you can look through all the downloads and quickly preview and/or download something. For those projects that were hosted on Bandcamp, it was simple to post up a streaming link, which is one of the many reasons I’ve been recommending the site to anyone sending music out to blogs. I’m still working on a convenient way to display stream links for the other projects.

I decided I was going to use excerpts to serve as the content so I used Excerpt Editor to be able to quickly chop up the entries. I created a page template that would query only the excerpts of the “Downloads” Category, then used CSS to display them. Props to this post on Perishable Press, which has some good information on how to do a simple display of posts in columns.

Alright yall, I’ll be updating some of the dead/old links as I can, again, if you’re an artist that sends your music to blogs, providing a permanent, streamable link can only help you out. Peace

I recently wrapped up the some artwork for The League of Extraordinary Gz “Concealed Weapons.” I will have more in depth design talk about the artwork later on The Honest Ape, but for now just want to show everyone and give people a preview of what they should expect from this release.

The project is a collection of some tracks from each individual group that comprises The League of Extraordinary Gz: Southbound, Da C.O.D., and Dred Skott. Da C.O.D.’s Ova Da Stove Vol. 3 is  available at The Screw Shop and Southbound’s Season’s Change is available on iTunes and other digital retailers. I don’t know what the drop date of “Concealed Weapons” will be, but below you can preview some of the tracks from past releases, along with the tracklisting.

Tracklisting

2. Da C.O.D.- Raw (Billie Jean Mix)
3. Mr. Greezo & Tuk-Da-Gat (Dynamic Duo Mix)
4. Da C.O.D.- Let’s Go
5. Dred Skott- Take Your Clothes Off
6. Sandman (Dynamic Duo Mix)
7. Mr. Greezo, Gerald G, Sandman, Staci Russell- Ready or Not
8. Lil’ J- Herachi & Sachi
9. Dred Skott- You Can’t Bury Me
10. SouthBound ft. Bavu Blakes & Rochelle Terrell- Keep Movin’ (Remix)
11. Da C.O.D.- Shawty Roll Up
12. SouthBound- Classic

14. Lowkey- Channel Surfin’
15. Dred Skott- Lies

17. Da C.O.D.- Fly Away
18. Esbe Da 6th St. Bully- Follow My Lead
19. EXCLUSIVE PREMIERE* The League Of Extraordinary G’z- Alright

Like so many other people around the world, I grew up listening to Michael Jackson’s music. Despite the controversy that surrounded his life and his death, I will continue to be a fan of Michael Jackson and the music he left behind. I will never forget Michael Jackson, he’s an entertainer that comes around only once in a lifetime, if not many lifetimes. Now that he’s gone, maybe he will once again get the respect that he always deserved.

A stencil based on this poster is available online, download it here. Also, a 1600×1200 desktop wallpaper is available for download here. If someone wants Hi-resolution of the poster above, sized at 11×17 to print easily, leave me some comments and I’ll see what’s up.

New track/remix from 20/20 and Poise’s produced by BRMG’s Dj Protege.You can stream/download the full track, instrumental, acapella and/or the Bullets version. 

The full Bullets mixtape is also up as a free download on 20/20 and Poise’s Bandcamp site. 

Artwork by The Honest Ape

Great music and great design go together so freakin’ well! The design on most of the work Exponential Record’s puts out is almost half the reason I keep checking out for new things from them and the soundscapes are superb. This is an excellent promo piece for the A.M. Architect’s The Road to the Sun, which is now available on iTunes and you can also stream the full album and buy it on Bandcamp. Check out A.M. Architect on the Exponential Records site. 

Tracklist
01. Unspoken
02. Please Help Me
03. Albatross
04. The Bull Of Heaven
05. Road to the Sun I
06. Road to the Sun II
07. What If
08. Upon
09. Next Of Kin
10. Sleepless Nights
11. Gave Me Love
12. February

Links
AM Architect on MySpace 
Buy on iTunes
Buy on Bandcamp
Road to the Sun on Exponential Records

This is a really cool project by Logan Walters mashing up artwork from Wu Tang and the classic artwork of Blue Note Records. 

From Logan Walter’s Site:
A little while ago I put a bunch of Wu-Tang (both group and solo) albums on my computer. 21 of them, in fact. I inherited some mild OCD from my mom, and as anyone who has seen my iTunes can attest to, it manifests itself in weird ways. I need to have decent-quality album art for every album on my computer, which currently equals over 90 gigs. The problem was that almost all of the Wu-Tang album art was horrible (ODB’s two albums being the only real exceptions) — no offense to the original designers, but as iconic as they might be they’re looking pretty dated these days. So, armed with inspiration from what Olly Moss and others are doing (as written about by me here, and later by Kottke here) and a book of Blue Note Records covers, I set out to remake all 21.

Click Here To Download Global & 20/20 – Burn Slow (Produced by 20/20)

Austin based artist Global is re-issuing his 2006 album Scientific Nigerian to promote the release of his new album, The New Eugenix, which features contributions from Dj Diamond Tip, 20/20, Chopsteak, Dj Panda, Crew54, Poise, DOS, Mirage and Brokebread. A sampler featuring tracks from Scientific Nigerian, Hip Hop-Socer-&-Comix and New Eugenix is also out for free download, download it now.

Only dropped within the 512, “Burn Slow” is  one of the tracks that I still go back and have to listen to every once in a while and after I hear it, I have to listen to the whole album. I had an unfinished poster concept in my head for the song, so I went ahead and finished it up today and connected with Global to put the song up for download for a limited time. Check it out, download the song and holler at Global about the new album and download the sampler.

Links
Global on MySpace

Originally Published on May 30, 2008, Re-published on April 14, 2009

Hero & Rad ft. Mike & Ike – Smoothness, Coolness

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Smoothness, Coolness.mp3

Southwest Houston’s Hero and Rad released their debut album “Resilience” on March 6 locally and it’s steadily growing a buzz from Houston’s underground. Featured on FWMJ’s Rappers I Know SXSW Showcase in Austin a few weeks back, appearances from The Legendary KO (K-Otix), Mic Skills and Digi M’s unique production is going to make Hero and Rad something you’re going to be hearing more of very soon, trust me.

Check out this interview with Rad from FWMJ’s Rappers I Know a few weeks back.

Smoothness, Coolness is the first singe off the album before they launch it nationally, with a video featuring Austin in the works. Download it now, don’t say I never did anything for you.

Links
Mike & Ike on MySpace
Hero on MySpace
Rad on MySpace

Original Post:
Nice smoothed out track for your weekend. Originally posted on the HoustonHipHop.com forums, had a slow day today so decided to make a little something for this track. Mike tells me that Hero & Rad have a coming out soon, maybe they have a bit more information for us, either way the track is good. I don’t have much more information on these Hero and Rad guys, outside of the fact that they’ve recorded some songs with Mike and Ike and that they’re from Houston. Either way, good to see Houston and Austin artist working on something new, going to have to wait to see what else comes of these collaborations.