Feb 12, 2012
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Interviews

Prelude to Excellence: Eric Roberson Gets Nice

by Mel Blunt on December 22, 2011   INTERVIEWS 0 Comment(s)

VIP passes, the black carpet, flashing lights, slick fashion; sounds like the beginning of a beautiful night. Why all the glitz and glamour? Well, one Eric Roberson is on the verge of releasing his new CD Mr. Nice Guy. The theme; Black Hollywood, the man; Eric Roberson, the moment; Howard [University] Homecoming 2011.  As Hov would say “Black excellence, opulence, decadence!” OKP’s Mel Blunt was able to catch up with Erro At Bobby Vans and at Park nightclub to get the facts on the artist and his latest an arguably greatest release.

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Revivalist Exclusive: Robert Glasper Breaks Down Black Radio Track-by-Track

by Eddie "STATS" on December 20, 2011   NEWS 2 Comments

The jazzcats at Revivalist had the chance recently to sit down at the legendary Electric Ladyland studios with one of our favorite keyboardists, Mr. Robert Glasper. Long before we knew where he was going with his new LP Black Radio (due out in February, 2012 on Blue Note) we knew it was going to be a beast. But now we can name all the parts of the beast: the sharp teeth, the flashing eyes, the powerful wings, the stellar guest features from Erykah Badu, Lupe Fiasco, Ledisi, Bilal, KING, and Meshell Ndegeocello, among others–because thanks to that exclusive studio session we have Glaspers’s track-by-track comments providing insight and backstory to each piece of music. Read the description of the title track (featuring Yasiin Bey AKA Mos Def) below and get the rest of the track commentary with the full post at Revivalist.

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Roots Up: GrassROOTS Community Foundation Helps Girls Inside and Out

by Candace L. on December 8, 2011   INTERVIEWS 4 Comments

Everybody, it seems, wants to help the youth. 10 middle schools in Greensboro, North Carolina will receive $1,500 each to buy pulse meters and other equipment to boost fitness among their students (North Carolina as a whole has seen its obesity rise 15% since 1995, according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s annual health report). The Philadelphia Inquirer reported 5 pregnant ninth grade girls participating in ELECT—Education Leading to Employment and Career Training–a program that allows pregnant students to remain in school and graduate as they prepare for motherhood. In New York, former first lady Michele Paige Paterson’s ‘Healthy Steps to Albany’ Challenge rewarded middle school children for exercising and eating more produce with a pair of sneakers and a trip to a farm to learn about agriculture. Nationally, first lady Michelle Obama launched the ‘Let’s Move’ initiative in February 2010 with the goal of eliminating childhood obesity, receiving a pledge from 16 of the country’s largest food corporations to cut 1 trillion calories from their products by 2012.

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Fly High: Jamel Shabazz Interview & Photo Portfolio

by Eddie "STATS" on November 23, 2011   INTERVIEWS 3 Comments

Jamel Shabazz is already something of a legendary figure in the following categories: photography, hip-hop culture, education, style, swagger and elegance. The fact that it is his image which adorns the cover of undun, the conceptual novel-in-album form that The Roots are releasing next Tuesday has only refocused the attention of certain people (namely, those of us here in the Okayplayer office) on the power of his work. It seemed like an auspicious time, then, to catch up with Shabazz and get not only the back-story of that particularly impactful image, but also where it fits in his overall body of work–and what to expect from him in the near future.

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OKP Interview: Goran Olsson [Black Power Mixtape]

by Rico a.k.a. Superbizzee on November 23, 2011   INTERVIEWS 1 Comment

Swedish filmmaker Goran Olsson has been a documentary filmmaker since he was fresh-faced 19-year-old. “This is pretty much my life,” he says. His latest undertaking is The Black Power Mixtape – a stunning composite of archival footage and new audio commentary chronicling the turbulent and enigmatic trajectory of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. In a marketplace supersaturated with mediocre-at-best mixtapes from some of the most revered and expendable voices of our time, the mere mention of the word tends to elicit exasperated jeers from the peanut gallery. Yet with vocal drops from the likes of Erykah Badu, Talib Kweli, Maya Angelou, and Harry Belafonte and music production by The Roots’ Questlove and Sa-Ra Creative Partners’ Om’mas Keith, Olsson has cleverly transcended the concept. Pulling from abandoned footage redisvoere din the basement of a Swedish TV station, he’s crafted a brilliant time capsule reflecting the Scandanavian perspective of two of history’s most dynamic–and globally influential–sociopolitical movements.

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American Dream: Exclusive Bad Rabbits Interview

by Fredara Mareva on November 23, 2011   INTERVIEWS 4 Comments


Photos by Scott Stewart

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Spider-H.A.M.: Exclusive Childish Gambino Interview

by Eddie "STATS" on November 22, 2011   INTERVIEWS 5 Comments

There’s been a lot of talk lately about rap’s throne and/or crown–who’s watching it, who’s taking it and who deserves it. While all that talk was going on comedian and actor Donald Glover AKA rapper Childish Gambino seems to have shucked his foolscap and stolen into the throne room when no one was looking–putting out his first album and breaking into the Billboard Top 200 right along with Drake and Wayne and Lady Gaga almost before the rap industry realized that his persona was not just a running joke. In spite of being almost constantly, can’t-help-it funny Childish Gambino has quickly established himself as one of the smartest and most unique voices in rap. Okayplayer caught up with the Childish star backstage at NYC’s terminal 5, not long before his album release to chop it up about black nerds, being angry and funny at the same time and other serious shit.

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Re-Endtroducing: Exclusive DJ Shadow Interview

by April Lanier on November 17, 2011   INTERVIEWS 2 Comments

There are times when you hear an album and it changes your whole perspective on music. Joshua Paul Davis AKA DJ Shadow, has done that with pretty much every album he has put out (four, not counting mixes, soundtracks and collections). If you pride yourself on being up on music, you already know. But readers too young to have been buying CDs at the time of his groundbreaking 1996 debut Endtroducing may need to be um, re-endtroduced. Suffice it to say he is a giant in the worlds of sample-based music and instrumental hip-hop–the rest you can get from the man himself. Read on to find out what he had to say when he connected with Okayplayer’s April Lanier about his new LP The Less You Know the Better, working with Little Dragon and the thrift-store epiphany that is C.E. Rabinowitz:

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The Plot: Exclusive Nelson George Interview

by Eddie "STATS" on November 14, 2011   INTERVIEWS 4 Comments

There seems to be something of an explosion going on in the world of hiphop-related publishing in 2011. But considering how close the art of storytelling is to the heart of rap music, hip-hop literature (not to be confused with either “street lit” or “novels written by rappers”) is still a wide-open field.

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Wallflower: Interview w/ Chaz Bundick of Toro Y Moi

by Rico a.k.a. Superbizzee on October 10, 2011   INTERVIEWS 4 Comments

Chaz Bundick is truly an enigma. There are very few independent alternative artists on the indie scene that can bust awkward wallflower dance moves in their abstract Super 8 music videos, replete with Scooby Doo references, while getting groupie love from the likes of BET sister station Centric. To get an idea of his shapeshifting sound, imagine Shuggie Otis, Todd Rundgren, and David Byrne channeled through the crunchy, lo-fi guitar amps and TR-808 drum machine of a 25-year-old one-man band. Since 2009, Bundick has released an impressively bountiful stream of music under the moniker of Toro Y Moi. Earlier this year, his sophomore album Underneath The Pine was his first to make an impression on the Billboard charts (#186 pop, #50 Rock, #24 Independent, #4 Heatseekers). His latest EP Freaking Out, which features a solo rendition of the 1985 Cherrelle & Alexander O’Neal R&B classic duet “Saturday Love,” upped the ante with a decidedly dance approach, nodding to pioneering 80s electro producer Arthur Baker and French house kings Daft Punk.

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Big Brother: Exclusive 9th Wonder Interview

by Eddie "STATS" on October 4, 2011   INTERVIEWS 1 Comment

One week ago today 9th Wonder dropped his much-anticipated solo LP The Wonder Years and promptly took it to the stage with the L.R.G. tour (<– full disclosure: co-sponsored by Okayplayer). Right in the mix of action, the world-renowned maker of beats and Little Brother alum graciously found time to get with OKP to talk about reuniting with estranged LB running buddy Phonte, the lost generation of hip-hop–and the street value of that crown on his head in the cover illustration. Read on after the jump!

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A Number of Names: Exclusive Interview with Switch (of Major Lazer)

by April Lanier on October 2, 2011   INTERVIEWS 1 Comment

Earlier this year I spent several months trying to get an interview with Dave Taylor, otherwise known as Switch, but time wasn’t on my side. Switch is a busy dude. Not only is he recognized for producing under huge names such as Beyonce, Santigold, MIA, Amanda Blank, as well as being ½ of Major Lazer with partner Wes Pentz, AKA Diplo but at the time, his tour for Major Lazer and for Hard Summer Tour were still in effect. Major Lazer has arguably been responsible for a major shift in electronic music, beginning in 2009 with the release of their first album Guns Don’t Kill People… Lazers Do, a heavily reggae influenced full-length, featuring a handful of vocalists mostly from Jamaica where the album was recorded. To add to the hype, his newest song “I Still Love You,” (just played on the Annie Mac Radio 1 show) has received only positive responses.  But as luck would have it, I did finally get to catch up with Switch—on Route 5. Here is my story:

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