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UNEXPECTED. Here's Izza Kizza working with some dude named Fitz the Art Teacher (who is apparently working on Detox, among other things) on "Georgie Porgie," which sounds like ATLiens era Outkast. Not that Timbaland is the wrong choice for Kizza, but if working with other guys yields more songs like this, then he should probably keep moving in this direction. Can anything that reminds us of vintage Outkast be bad? Is that situation possible at all? We'll leave that one open. This is from Kizza's upcoming Nick Catchdubs mixed mixtape Kizzaland, out July 29th.


Download: Izza Kizza, "Georgie Porgie"

Santogold's video for "Creator" isn't as high concept and awesome as "L.E.S. Artistes" but we're not necessarily mad at a video set in an auto shop (we know it's an auto shop because there are lots of tires everywhere) either. And here's a bonus: keep watching the video, and after seeing a commercial you'll get 9.2 million Santogold promo spots. If you've always wanted to see Santi in a bumpercar now is your chance. But seriously, we have to give MTV some credit for filming all of these, it's basically different iterations of Santogold for every occasion, all available in a row.

Whoaaa we've been in Strokesville for like a week now. We saw Albert Hammond Jr. at the Mercury Lounge last week and have also been listening to his forthcoming album, ¿Cómo Te Llama? available for streaming straight from his MySpace to our ears. FREE MUSIC! If you missed the show or miss The Strokes or don’t even really know what we’re talking about, check it out while it floats through the internet ether and then pick up a real copy when the album drops tomorrow, July 8th.

Stream Albert Hammond Jr.'s Entire Album

At this point it's almost a bonus that Killer Mike even writes lyrics or thinks about song construction. We could listen to dude talking/ranting/yelling at us about almost anything and it wouldn't even really have to rhyme. Here's the first video from Killer Mike and featuring Ice Cube aka the inspirational uncle from family movies DIRECTED BY FRED DURST. Which—if you forget about that for a minute—makes sense (the Ice Cube part, not the Durst part), considering Killer Mike has more than a few similarities to old Ice Cube. But that's kinda obvious, let's just be glad he sounds fired up for a minute again.

Resembling a very Blonde On Blonde era Bob Dylan, Albert Hammond Jr. and his equally fro'd out bandmates kicked off the month of July with an exclusive show at Mercury Lounge, presented by Black Seal/RCA Records. He played some old stuff, some new stuff, and some acoustic classic rock throwbacks in the dressing room—all the while wearing a sweet leather jacket. Undaunted by the summer heat, he wore the jacket for the entire set and even wiped his sweaty brow with the sleeve. If that’s not totally rockstar, we don’t know what is. Like a hometown hero done good, he was cheered on by a million of his closest friends and family members and we caught the whole thing on camera, and are bringing some of it to you almost live and direct on FADER TV. more...

We were actually getting a little worried that we weren't going to fulfill our character from the Wire appearing in a rap video quota this week—but then this Trae two video epic came out, and there's Slim Charles in the second half sitting on the steps! That was close. We're not sure what the thinking is in releasing this directly on the heels of the Trae as a biker video, but we're also not going to question it too much because any new Trae is welcome, especially when it contains a song-stealing verse from Jayton and the return of Slim Thug, who's Already Platinum is still in rotation.

When we walked into Stuyvesant Town to see a free High Places show we felt like we had entered some sort of hidden family nature utopia. The scene was like the ideal summer afternoon you only get in the city maybe once or twice a year when the weather is beautiful and no one is pissing each other off because you’re all in a park and there are trees and a big fountain. Also, nothing can suck when the sun is shining and you’re listening to John Lennon and Paul Simon disco remixes. Pocketknife, who spun before High Places, had dads running up to him asking about his Iron and Wine remix before running back to their family picnics.

When High Places came on a whole bunch of little kids ran up to the stage with balloons, organizing themselves in perfect straight lines and then looping around in circles and running away. We lazed around in the grass and relaxed, thinking the whole time about how cool it would have been if they played in our neighborhood when we were five. more...

Wouldn't you love to hear any one of NYC's big dogs on this beat? Imagine if it was the Lox's triumphant comeback single? The Rae and Ghost collab to end all Rae and Ghost collabs? The song everyone in their heart of hearts really wants to leak off that Nas LP? Faces would melt! Radios would explode! The internet would eat itself! But daydreams are for suckers—and Massachusetts MC Reks doesn't sound half bad on this. Still, it seems like every new Premier track we've come accross over the past year has been attached to an underground rapper with about as much starpower as we have. Is it too much to ask for, like, Fabolous? Think about the children!

It seems like a million months ago that we were seeing BLK JKS on like every corner of every city in the United States, but really it was just a couple and it felt like a lot more time because we got so used to seeing them perform everywhere we turned. Since we still break out their 10" on the regular, we were amped to see that they had a new EP for download, and even more amped to stream "Summertime," and then download this Carlos Ramos remix, which reduces the song to a single rubbery stand up bass line and minimal drum tick. We talk a lot about how New York summers on this site, but this song is the essence of them—the good and the impossibly humid bad—captured in about four minutes. Also, check out a live rendition of "Summertime" from one of BLK JKS' last US shows at Harriet's Alter Ego up above.


Download: BLK JKS, "Summertime" (Carlos Ramos Remix) (via RCRD LBL)

Download: BLK JKS Carlos Ramos Megamix

Oh hey look it's a song featuring all former and current FADER artists. We're not going to say this is the best video ever because it's really, really not, but that's not stopping us saying something! It has Estelle and it has Daytona and it has Capone and a somehow even bulkier NORE trading verses in a stairwell. Why don't people trade verses more these days? Did the entire rap industry forget how awesome it sounds?

There's already been way too much virtual ink spilled over the never-ending metastasis of The World's Greatest Song About Nothing, so we'll keep it short and sweet in regards to this appropriately random official video that was literally filmed on the way to the filming of another music video that has Wayne finally—because we've been wondering—proving to us that he can write raps while in the bathroom. Also, it's almost impossible to watch this clip and not imagine it backwards. The Pharcyde guys were probably wearing Fresh Jive back then, too.

Hold tight Pharrell! Hold tight Chad! Um...safe! That's about as much UK slang as we can muster as a lead-in to this Roll Deep remix of the Star Trak snorter, spotted over at DJ Semtex's blog. We don't harbor any naive hope for future rap/grime collabs that this remix might lead to (peep the back issues if naive hope is what you're after!) but come on guys, this is a co-branding no-brainer! Your shit isn't called BBC for nothing! Alert the blog...


Download:NERD, "Everyone Nose (Roll Deep Remix)"

Every week resident FADER selector Eddie STATS runs through dancehall riddims and other artifacts from the ghetto archipelago.

Having just gotten back from Kingston, I can tell yah firsthand that dancehall is not what it used to be, even what it used to be three years ago. People still go out at 1:30 or 2am but the days of dances that run through to the next morning are mostly gone, replaced by mainland style venues shut down at 2. Monday is no longer the night to go out, and although mid-week street dances like Weddy Weddy Wednesdays still run but they’re just not the same and even the immortal Passa Passa is in a place of on-again-off-again hotness. Likewise dancehall fashion is not as competitive or creative, and for first time I can remember since I started following Jamaican music there’s no riddim that is THE sound of the moment. But as with one drop explosion of ca. 2005 the dance craze of the last few years that saw choreographers and selectors becoming rock stars in their own right hasn’t disappeared, it is just maintaining at a simmer-down level til people are ready for the next wave. So basically instead of 20 dances dominating the scene there are only two at any given moment. At this given moment those two are the Sweep and the Daggerin. More on daggering later but for today check out the Self-Defence riddim (from Skatta, the genius behind the Coolie Dance among many other hot riddims), which spawned the Ele single “Sweep” as well as vocal trio Voicemail’s version on the phenomenon over an exclusive Daseca beat. Voicemail also seems to be owning reggae video outlets right now with the Jay Will produced medley “Get the Money/Gangalee” which combine a 90s throwback tune and their answer to Fire Links’ Drumlane riddim in one clip.

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These have been streaming on here for awhile now, and some days we found ourselves making multiple pilgrimages to their page to listen to off the wall live renditions of "Tomahawk," and shake our heads and wonder why we can't download them already. It turns out that the answer to that question was that they kind of wanted to put them on a CD and sell them. That's not happening now, so we downloaded those songs for our personal use with the quickness, but maybe they will sell them later and if they do then we will be there to purchase them.

Download: Wild Yaks Live Songs

Is it possible for Cam to come back? We're not expecting him to once again reach Purple Haze levels of smile-inducing twisty word awesomeness, but hearing him for like a minute and a half has us wondering, maybe the future of Cam'ron is in short freestyles over other people's beats where he always calls himself a phenomenal phenomenon because it sounds good.


Download: Cam'ron, "Let the Beat Build"(via Nah Right)

Mobolaji Dawodu wears transition lenses and Walmart jeans and is still the coolest person we know. We could be on a big boat with James Dean and Jackie-O while sipping negronis and wearing white linen in the late day and we would still be herbs next to him. Personal style is a conundrum. To unpuzzle that puzzle, we'll be sending Mobolaji out into the world untethered by anything but his own sense of sartorial equilibrium. For the first episode of On The Street With Mobolaji he talks to a skinny, booted gentleman about his breezy cool in the summer sun.

There is nothing we love more than raging to Justice until all hours of the morning, but sometimes we want something with a little more swing—like maybe some disco, but then that gets repetitive for awhile so we go home and put on some minimal techno and whisperdance (we just made that up) around our rooms until the sun comes up. Also, we sometimes just like to bang on a wooden block with a stick because it sounds good. We didn't think we'd be able to find anyone who made music that put all these things into one huge mix, but then we found Dmitry Fyodorov, who make graceful music that tells you it is graceful by punching you in the eyes. Yeah, we don't know how that works either, but just go with it. There's a bunch of new music to listen to from them on their MySpace, but if you want something you can listen to right now on your iTunes or on a CD or whatever you can download this oldish mix of mostly their own remixes from No Love Lost Records. Sidenote: In our quest to find out if these guys were actually two guys or actually even Russian we discovered a lot of Youtube videos like the one above that look like a bunch of Europeans snuck into our basement and had a party without inviting us.

Download: Dmitry Fyordorov NLLR Mix

We walk around doing a lot of air guitaring, but sometimes it gets a little embarrassing because there is no music to do it to. But you know what? Last summer we saw TK Webb next to the Gowanus Canal which apparently has STDs in it (gross) and almost air guitared ourselves right into the water. "Teen is Still Shaking" is the first single from Webb's new album, this time shared with a full band made up with members of Love As Laughter, The Comas and Blood on the Wall. In addition to this song being bro-down central, the last 30 seconds sound like something off of Siamese Dream, which is a cultural touchstone if there ever was one. You can catch TK Webb & The Visions this Saturday, July 5th at Glasslands, and there's not a lot you can do to better spend your time.


Download: TK Webb & The Visions, "Teen Is Still Shaking"

Every once in awhile we fantasize about being rock stars. We dream of crawling across the floor in tight white jumpsuits, warehouses filled with KISS-concert-at-Giants-Stadium lights and extreme close-ups of us swinging our hair around. The closest we actually get to this is sliding around our living room in our socks. In their new video, CSS live the dream—white jumpsuit (silver studded and fur-collared, no less!) and all, and are proving they’ve moved far away from making endearing songs that are basically quick bursts of repetitive energy.