Fader

MTV decided to take their cameras backstage at the photo shoot for The Carter III recently, and who do they bump into but frequent FADER contributing photographer Jonathan Mannion. It's actually a pretty interesting interview as Mannion talks about the concepts behind some of his most famous photos, Sway continues to insist on saying "Little Wayne", and Wayne makes a pretty bad joke. Our only question is, how did Mannion get Wayne to look like a little baby on the cover? This dude is a photographic GENIUS.

Yesterday the Pussycat Dolls were in front of our LA offices with their asses hanging out, shooting the new video for "When I Grow Up." They were making use of the ample scaffolding that has overrun Hollywood & Vine and they'd occasionally shut down traffic to shoot, which would cause a lot of honking. People, we're trying to work here! But maybe more of note is how big a production the whole thing was. Interscope still has money for this, but doesn't have room in their budget for The Fixxers' album? Sheesh. more...

After listening to The Carter III a few dozen times since it leaked, and not really wanting to grade it per se, or join in the debate on whether Jay "Renegaded" Wayne on "Mr Carter" (for real dudes? GO OUTSIDE), we decided to advance the discussion to a point in the near future. With Kanye promising to only get further out into space on Good Ass Job and Weezy potentially sipping himself into another dimension, we would like to propose to both parties and whoever makes it possible for them to release albums that they join forces to create an interstellar epic, a cosmicopera, something animated maybe. Who cares how they do it? Here's the basic plot: Kanye bounces from Planet Boobs or wherever he is now to some new planet, crashes after a space dogfight with an alien spacecraft and is at first confronted, then befriended by the enemy pilot who speaks in an indecipherable language. The two bicker but learn to become friends, Kanye grows a sick beard and Wayne has a baby that looks just like him only smaller (or maybe it looks like Baby or Robin Thicke WHATEVER). Put it on Broadway—save that institution—and send us a royalty check. To be honest, this is little more than an excuse to photoshop Kanye and Wayne into an Enemy Mine still, but still, this shit has legs. Do it!

As you may have heard, Bo Diddley passed away today. Ben Ratliff does a very astute job of defining his career and import, so please check that out. We just wanted to share this video from our secretly favorite Bo Diddley period: gaudy '70s soul influence. Check out the puffy sleeves. Ride in style in heaven, BD!

Summer Jam has built its entire rep on ridiculous moments, i.e. G-Unit starting a riot with chair-throwing in a downpour and Mobb Deep and Jay-Z getting into beef zone when Jay projected a flick of Prodigy extra dick-riding Michael Jackson's outfit, glove and all. But the Summer Jam stage has never seen anything as subversive, uncomfortable and totally bizarre as Lil Wayne's 20 minute set, apparently blasted on his own summer Js and a total amazing/scary rock star set, as in "DEAR GIANTS STADIUM, FOLLOW ME INTO MY K-HOLE, XOXO WEEZY." more...

With yesterday's debut of Sigur Ros' Ryan McGinley-assisted video for "Gobbledigook," we were compelled to search our magazine archives for the July 2002 issue of Dazed & Confused where ex-Vicer, current-Street Carnager Gavin Mcinnes wrote about spending twenty-four hours with McGinley. Here is a selection from the article's opening:

"Yo that dude is fucking hot!" says Ryan pointing to the cock-eyed lead singer of Sigur Ros. We were looking at a magazine on the plane and we were on our way to Midnight Sun in Iceland; a pretentious fashion show with tons of free booze and great parties. After a ten-day work bender of sitting in front of computers and slaving in the darkroom, we were ready for a ten-day booze bender of cum, coke and fist-fights. Ryan was looking smug and I could tell he had convinced himself he was going to find that dude, photograph him and do lots of stuff that I don't like to think about...

Soon after arriving in Reykjavik, I noticed Ryan taking the Sigur Ros guy's picture. The rest of the night involved following the unimpressed singer from bar to bar until the two of them were necking like Puerto Rican teenagers playing hooky.

And now, six years later, the two are making videos together of naked wood shenanigans. Who says romance is dead?

It took us a minute to get this thing off the Tivo (buried under episodes of The Paper), but we finally lifted the brief segment from BET's 106 & Park when they talked about our Aaliyah issue. Call us pitiful nerds, but we were geeked to be mentioned anywhere on the TV, though the older staffers were curious as to who these kids standing in for Free and AJ were. Oh Well. Thanks guys!

On May 19th, Domino released a 3xLP anthology of seminal downtown NYC band Liquid Liquid, and to celebrate and commemorate the occasion, seminal California clothing label Stussy joined up with Liquid Liquid bassist and artist Richard McGuire to reproduce a few of the band's EP covers and show flyers on t-shirts. The tees will be available this Saturday at Stussy Shops, and unless you are a total jerk you will line up now to get one. For extra pleasure:

Here's dipsetmuthafucka dancing to "Optimo".
And here's a live version of "Bellhead" just cuz:

In our current issue, we ran a profile of Antigua-born, NYC-residing Skerrit Bwoy, a dancer/DJ/party-starting madman whose Domestic Violence style (funnier than it sounds) of whine acrobatics was probably the best thing we'd ever seen on YouTube when we first laid eyes on it. Skerrit invited The FADER's John Francis Peters to come with him to the Ebony Lounge in the Bronx, his hometurf, to photograph a regular night in Skerrit's world. Check after the jump for the slideshow. more...

A couple months ago we introduced the world to F2, our new quarterly online-only publication powered by Timberland, with Issue #1 focusing on the New Disco. And since each edition of F2 takes on a different classic genre being reexamined and reinterpreted by new artists, we are moving on next to Rock. Issue 2 includes completely new and completely exclusive profiles on Jay Reatard, The Death Set, White Denim, Russian Circles, Port O'Brien and an extended piece where we go on the road with the gnarly dudes of Monotonix.

Get it now on on iTunes
Subscribe via your favorite RSS reader here
Or download the individual F2 full-issue PDF here

The frenzy over Suge Knight's Debo moment on TMZ somehow managed to get us on a home listening Cali kick. Starting with Death Row perennials, moving on to soundtracks for gangsta flicks we shouldn't have been watching were too young to appreciate at the time...but when it was time to dig into deep cuts and slept-on jams, the task proved easier said than done. For such a fertile period in music, there's nowhere near the amount of DJ tributes or blog-strospectives you see all the time for comparatively obscure Bay Area 12" records or NYC cassette mixes. We want our secret history of g-funk, dammit, and we're not about to start buying yellowed copies of Rap Pages on eBay! PHUKK! Fortunately, Dubcnn came through with the final half of their two part interview with Kokane, sideman on Westside rap records for almost three decades (not to mention his own psych-y releases on Ruthless). The Q&A is packed with anecdotes about everything from the real roots of the Dre vs Eazy feud, how Outkast and the Dungeon Family were huge Above The Law fans, and even a cameo from Lil Half Dead (who also pops up in F26!). Suffice it to say, it's a perfect Friday afternoon geek-out, even if you weren't looking at NWA YouTubes all week.

It's going to take us long time and many foot massages to forgive Kanye for making us wait nearly three hours last night for his performance at G-Shock's 25th anniversary party. By the time he'd parked the helicopter (for real), taken his seat in the pod-chair and surrounded himself with a troop of bare-chested fembots, the whole thing had drifted into one long and extremely weird Dionysian hallucination. Between the boobs, the lazer show and the armchair raps it's even difficult to tell whether the man on stage was actually Kanye West and not some weird anti-ye hologram or maybe a mis-programmed android here to destroy the planet. Thankfully by the second verse of "Flashing Lights" all was forgiven, the universe was saved, we were on planet Kanye drinking kryptonite cocktails and everything was going to be OK. more...

FADER 54 is an Aaliyahxtravaganza, as the world's beloved Baby Girl graced the cover of our fourth annual ICON issue. We made this issue with as much care and tenderness as we ever have and, accordingly, soon we will post an exclusive mix by DJ Caps to celebrate the very special Ms. Haughton. But! As ever, we also delved into the sparkling waters of newness: we explored Britain's burgeoning bassline scene, trampled Swedish snowcaps with soon-to-be-superstar Lykke Li, and linked up with woozy Tropicalian El Guincho on Barcelona time. We also went deep with dervishy princess Sahra Motalebi, clowned everyone with Chip tha Ripper, ate crepes with Jeremy Jay, and lost our minds just the way we like to with The War on Drugs. Get the essence of all these folks—and approximately 42,000 other heater-makers--on our Issue 54 download, which is totally totally freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee (that was a symbol of how free: totally free).

Get Issue 54 now on iTunes,
subscribe via your favorite RSS reader here,
or download the individual F54 full-issue PDF here.

It was hailing in Olympia when we rang Jeremy Jay at K Records, where he is mixing his new album, a fitting atmosphere for his moody French new wave songs about Chinese dragons and dreaming. An avid Francoise Hardy fan, we chatted with Jeremy about his personal style, dancing and his amazing mirror/prism belt in Texas. Read the interview after the jump. more...

We don't often make overtures like this, but we have been on Lacoste creative director Christophe Lemaire's website for the last three hours obsessing over his new S/S 2008 collection, reading his bio, Google image searching, pasting ourselves into photos of him, wishing we could live on a website, thinking about him a lot, and we want to put it out there that we are fortunately in search of a new friend. Lemaire, hit us up. And don't worry dudes, if anyone comes up behind you and wonders why you've been looking at a French fashion site half the day, just tell them that you are listening to Lemaire's flawless audio player which includes wisely chosen jams from Ariel Pink, Arthur Russell, Bo Diddley, J Dilla, The Flamingos and more.

The Pharcyde’s debut Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde is a classic album, arguably one of the best to ever come out of hip-hop. But a whole gang of problems prevented the group from achieving legendary status. After their follow-up Labcabincalifornia, the group splintered. Drug problems, creative differences and emotional disconnects have been a constant theme for the four members of the group. Recent years have seen Imani and Bootie Brown continuing to perform under the Pharcyde name as a duo, while Slimkid3 and Fatlip have had solo releases and done shows together. Now more than ten years after the original nucleus split, the Pharcyde are finally set to perform together on this summer’s Rock the Bells tour. We caught up with all four founding members just a couple hours after their reunion announcement for their first extended group interview in over a decade. Read it after the jump. more...

THAT'S RIGHT!!! JUNE 1ST!! SUMMER JAM!!! NEW YORK CITY!!! Sorry, that's how they announced it on the radio just now. We are going to be at this in our ding slings NO DOUBT. Here it is:

T-Pain (plus special guests), Ray-J & Yung Berg (holler Shep), Rihanna, D-Block (holler Nick), Public Enemy, Lil Wayne (holler Gym Class Heroes), Kanye.

Get everything else you need right here.

Guerilla Union’s Rock the Bells festival is something of a live wire. After nearly starting a riot with the Wu-Tang Clan’s final united performance before ODB's death in 2004 (as you should see for yourself in the excellent Rock the Bells documentary), and then nearly burning down the Inland Empire in 2007 with a reunited Rage Against the Machine, the show has quickly become the most storied hip-hop festival in the world. As one Fader editor said of last year’s LA-area show, “It was the first time I’ve actually felt the effects of tear gas for myself.”

And so it was with such memories in mind that we got in our car and fought some tear-inducing traffic to get out to Claremont, CA for a press conference at Guerilla Union HQ to announce Rock the Bells’ 2008 squadron, as the formerly one day festival becomes a touring revue for the second year. Perhaps most notably, this year will feature the first performance by all four members of The Pharcyde since 1997 (yes, it has been that long), and appearances by A Tribe Called Quest, Nas, Ghostface and Raekwon (as Cuban Linx), Rakim, Mos Def, De La Soul, Method Man and Redman, Immortal Technique, Dead Prez, Murs, Kidz In The Hall, Spank Rock, Santogold, Kid Sister, The Cool Kids, Jay Electronica, B.O.B., Amanda Blank, Flosstradamus and Wale.

To celebrate the announcement, GU threw a secret show at a little spot called Hip Kitty—normally known for its live jazz and creamy fondue. Wale was first to grab the mic, followed by performances by Jay Electronica, Murs, Raekwon, Supernatural, and De La—who were joined by Tribe at the very end of the night. Raekwon’s customary existential ponderings (“I been to like seventy countries y’all! I been to Ireland, and y’all can’t fuck with that, y’all can’t fight an island!”) were followed by the promise of the Cuban Linx sequel with Ghostface this year (which sounds similar to something we heard in 2004), and Supernatural freestyled about somebody’s Blackberry. But the night’s best moment came when Murs introduced The Pharcyde onstage together for the first time in over ten years. They didn’t perform, but there were big smiles and thug hugs all around. A real golden hip-hop moment. more...

Have you ever been in the shower and had the soap you’re using make this weird gelatinous sheet between your arm and the side of your torso? It never lasts for more than three seconds, but for a minute you kind of feel like you have webbed arms. Never happened to you? Well, It’s a good analogy for the Death Set’s sound—a bizarre, colorful, and exhilarating thing that’s over before you have time to marvel. The Baltimore-via-Austrailia dudes released their first proper full-length, Worldwide, this week through Counter/Ninja Tune, so we called up singer/guitarist Johnny Siera to talk about things like moving from an Australian surf town to an East Coast metropolis and writing songs to make the kids go crazy. more...