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The mix I put together a few months back is now up on Designers.mx. Check it out and check out the rest of the mixes on there, some really dope stuff.

Yo we at it again!! It’s your favorite lazy blogger, The Honest Ape aka El Ron Hubbard. It may seem that Medium died, but we’re still here mofos! The site is about to undergo a full revamp in the next few months, and will be a launching point for a slew of new projects. I got busy with graduate school, and it’s been amazing, but now with some extra time on my hands this summer, I’m going to make Medium what I dreamed it should be when I first started it in 2008. The first step will be to actually blog, which I’ve began to do with a few postings. The next Medium project I have in the works will be the second Energy Crisis mix from Conspicuous Consumption and Dj Diamond Tip. Be on the look out, words.

Dj Diamond Tip – Energy Crisis!

Medium and Conspicuous Consumption are proud to bring you a new mix from Dj Diamond Tip, “Energy Crisis!“. This past February, I sent Tip a few tracks I was listening to–it just so happened that he was listening to a lot of similar stuff. We emailed some ideas and songs back and forth, and a few days later Tip put together this mix. It’s a nice mixture of newer tracks and remixes with some classics thrown in for good measure. Check out the tracklisting after the jump.

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Medium and Chopsteak 2010 Christmas Mix (Long MP3 File)
Medium and Chopsteak 2010 Christmas Mix (Separate Tracks)

Medium and Chopsteak continue our little holiday tradition and bring you the Chopsteak Christmas mix. These are some tracks from the year that the homie Chopsteak put together for y’all to enjoy during the whisky-induced-chillin’ this holiday season. Enjoy!

Track Listing

1. Andre3000: I Do
2. H.I.S.D.: Lando
3. Exile: Your Summer Song f. J. Mitchell
4. Big Boi: Shutterbugg f. Cutty
5. Willie The Kid: Bath Water Running
6. Aloe Blacc: I Need A Dollar
7. Kanye West: Monster f. Jay-Z & Nicki Minaj
8. Black Milk: Oh Girl
9. Leela James: So Cold
10. Little Brother: Tigallo For Dolo
11. Guilty Simpson: Hood Sentence
12. Rick Ross: Free Mason f. Jay-Z & John Legend
13. Foreign Exchange: Maybe She’ll Dream Of Me
14. Chopperlude
15. Jabee: Imagination f. Carlitta Durand
16. Wiz Khalifa: Black & Yellow
17. Janelle Monae: Tightrope f. Big Boi
18. YahZarah: Why Don’tcha Call Me No More
19. Dred Skott: Home f. Tuk Da Gat (Produced by Chop Steak)
20. Freddie Gibbs: Best Friend
21. Erykah Badu: Window Seat
22. Jay Electronica: Exhibit C
23. Nottz: I Still Love You f. Mayer Hawthorne
24. Big K.R.I.T.: Children Of The World
25. Cee-Lo: Bodies
26. Ron Isley: Close To You f. Lauryn Hill

So, it appears that you don’t need tons o’ booty on southern mixtape covers to be recognized! (or maybe you do?) Recently the mixtape cover I designed for The League of Extraordinary Gz debut was nominated for a Southern Entertainment Award. Looking at the competition, I’m not sure how to feel, but I gotta say that the design for Concealed Weapons stands out and as the sole Texas based competitor in the category I’m pretty sure we can get the whole state behind us and win the award. What yall think?

Follow the Southern Entertainment Award Voting link and scroll down to “BEST ART/GRAPHICS ON A MIXTAPE” and vote for league of extraordinary gz – concealed weapons.

Truthfully, looking at some of the other nominees I can pretty much point out each and every thing I find wrong with design in hip hop music right now. (I would post pictures, but most are NSFW) No offense to other artists or designers, but I’m personally tired of the pen & pixel derived design for rap music. I understand influence and current trends, but when everything starts looking the same I personally think it’s time to switch it up a bit. Anyone agree with me?…maybe I’m the only one. I’ve worked with a few independent artists in hip hop in the past and anyone I work with in the future will have to agree with me. (That is unless you have a huge budget and want to give me a lot of $$$$$$)

Either way, I’m happy to be nominated because my competition consists of Usher, Trey Songz, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj and others so if I lose maybe I can have a dance off with Usher, challenge Ricky Rosé to a hot dog eating contest and take Nicki Minaj out for ice cream or something. Now that’s BAWSE!

Central Texas’s Crew54 just dropped their latest EP, “The 54 Reality Show Tape” this past Friday in Austin. The project is available for download through the Crew54 Bandcamp page, go check it out and support! I had a lot of fun previewing and contributing to the project through the sleeve design. Photographs of Crew54 by Alejandro Crisologo.

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Soft Serve – A Summer Mix

The homie Chop Steak drops another mix just in time for the first weekend of summer! A smoothed out mix with the feeling of a cold creamsicle on a hot summer day. Oh yea!

Tracklisting

1. Goapele – Different f. Mos Def
2. Petey Pablo – He Spoke To Me
3. Beatnuts – Get Funky
4. Bishop Lamont – Right
5. Dilated Peoples – Worst Comes To Worst
6. Q-Tip – You
7. Zion I – Boom Bip
8. Freddie Gibbs – Ghetto
9. Redman – Tonight’s Da Night
10. Foreign Exchange – Raw Life f. Joe Scudda
11. Pete Rock – Queen f. AG
12. Common – Real Nigga Quotes
13. Johnson & Jonson – Told Me
14. People Under The Stairs – Days Like These
15. Cam’ron – Like Shiiit
16. Pharcyde – She Said (Jay Dee Remix)
17. Ludacris – Good Relationships f. Snoop Dogg & Nate Dog
18. The Game – Old English
19. Lil’ Wayne – Mo’ Fire
20. Three 6 Mafia – Da Summa

Artwork by The Honest Ape

Yo!!!! I will be participating in a live design pong contest tonight, June 18 at a warehouse in Adams Morgan, DC as part of Digital Capital Week. Overall it’s going to be overstimulation of art, music and design! Come party with The Ape! Check out the event on Eventbrite, and buy tickets ahead of time, because they are so much cheaper!

So sorry everyone, not much time to post recently. Too much going on! Anyway, today I couldn’t stop listening to this new song from The Gorillaz, so I created the image that popped into my head after listening to the song for a while.  I focused on these verses:

And if the whole world is crashing down
Fall through space out of mind again
Where the emptiness we leave behind on warm air rising
Lose all the shadows far away

and where Yukimi Nagano of Little Dragon comes in:

Little memories, marching on
Your little feet, working the machine
Will it spin, will it sore
My little dream, working the machine

This is basically what I do with most music based projects, focus on several words, instruments, noises or verses and put down what I see in my Ape head. Anyway, enjoy the song and check out the full album, it’s dope! You should expect more SXSW posts in the coming days. 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