Back in September we posted the audio to a new Dice Raw song, "Life Fame Death." Now today we have the video. Dice explains the meaning behind the song. "Basically I wanted to describe the pressure that artists can often feel, privately and publicly, and pay respect to those artists who, for whatever reason, ended up taking their own lives due to those pressures. Artists of all degrees of success feel pressure and insecurities when it comes to how they are perceived and treated in the public arena." The song is produced by Khari Mateen and the video directed by our boy Domini Quinn SupaStar.
Our man Dice Raw just shot us over this new track called "Life Fame Death" he made with producer Khari Ferrari. Dice says he just shot a video for the song and to expect it soon. He did not indicate whether it was part of any project.
It's a bit of a slow Friday today. You might not even be able to imagine how much isht we are just sitting on over here that never saw the light of day or simply was never finished. Here is a montage of some clips shot in the Boom Room in Philadelphia (The Roots' recording space) circa early 2004. Shot by SupaStar for Dreality.tv (where there's more). It features (in this order): F. Knuckles, Killer Kas, Mack Dubb, Dice Raw, Truck North, and Black Thought. Alternate version after the jump.
Dice Raw (aka D.R.) has been down with The Roots camp since 1994's Do You Want More?!!!??! Not only has he been a guest (better described as satellite member) on each album since, but what you may not realize is the degree to which D.R.'s creative contributions have helped shape The Roots albums of this decade (most notably Rising Down and Game Theory). All the while, the A&R / Rapper has never stopped making his own music during his daily sessions at Larry Gold's and The Boom Room. I count 75 unreleased joints in my personal iTunes alone. This is not to mention all the songs he wrote or co-wrote with his group Nouveau Riche. Here is one of his recent solo joints called "Been Down" produced by Jontae.
D.R. (aka Dice Raw) "Been Down"
Your feedback is greatly appreciated. We hope to one day soon launch a channel for Black Ink / Raw Life.
Here are the final two sets of photos from VillageSlum and Okayplayer's Mel D. Cole. The first gallery consists of performance photos of The Roots only while the second stars Gnarls Barkley, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, Deerhoof, The Cool Kids, and J*Davey. Once again, stay tuned for what will be an amazing gallery of portraits shot by Trevor Paulhus as well as video from okayplayerTV.
Back In December we posted the "The Antidote," a free mixtape presented by Dice Raw and The Money Making Jam Boys comprised of beats all made from classic 80's samples with tracks featuring Peedi Crakk, Freeway, Black Thought, EST, Porn, Nikki Jean, and more. Being the internet nerd I am, I know I at least got a little chuckle from Dice's reference of notorious blogger Byron Crawford on the track sampling Pat Benatar's "Love Is A Battlefield" (zhare) featuring Truck North and Nikki-Jean.
Ni@@as wanna play till I show 'em who the boss is. Send a couple thugs down to Byron Crawford's residence. Leave no evidence, criminal intelligence. Life loss without no relevance. Raw Life, Black Ink, pure excellence, ni@@a!
First thought I had was... "Byron got a shout out in a song, that must be a first!" I pretty much took it as a jab at internet hater's in general. Okayplayer and The Roots have been up on Byron (and fans of his writing) far before his days at double extra large. We've even told him so. That's how Dice is even aware of dude. Who knew the bol would take it so serious! ;)
