In my efforts to bring you everything dope that is relative to Brooklyn & Hip Hop, here is the trailer for the upcoming documentary, A Walk Through Fort Green which chronicles the 1980’s diaspora that turned the tree lined brownstone section of BK into a small modern day Renaissance Harlem via a melting pot of Black avant-garde artists. Directed by Diane Paragas & journalist/filmmaker Nelson George who also narrates the project, the documentary features Fort Greene residents both past and present such as Chris Rock, Spike Lee, actress Rosie Perez, Hip Hop journalist & tv personalty Toure, Hip Hop journalist/writer & Real World alum Kevin Powell, poet & actor Saul Williams of Slam fame, musician Vernon Reid of Living Colour, award winning poet & playwright Carl Hancock Rux, photographer Lorna Simpson, playwright & actress Alva Rogers, and producer Bill Stephany of PE’s Bomb Squad amongst others. Though not by their art, many of the lesser known faces seen in the trailer are familiar to me as locals of Brooklyn’s eclectic capital from both my younger days of runnin through “The Fort” be it while shopping at Fulton Street Mall (still do), beefin with Deceps at Brooklyn Tech, playin in bball tournies in Fort Greene Park, going to free concerts in Fort Greene Park, seein BIG & Chico posted up e-day on the neighboring corner of Fulton & St. James before the fame, buying Malcolm X hats & Black College hoodies (remember those?) at Spike Lee’s now defunct Spike’s Joint, breezin through Spike’s annual block party to present day dining at Night Of The Cookers and Habana Outpost or just checkin out the always poppin scene and cesspool of the most beautiful women Brooklyn has to offer on any given Friday & Saturday night on Fulton & South Portland. Anyway lookin forward to this, as you should. One. – ICE

I love this rap shit so effin much. Hard to when there’s no gems being  dropped, but when them gems do drop…PRICELESS.

I know how ya’ll shit on me when I endorsed Gucci Mane, got my most comments from that one, but I gotta stay honest in what I feel, and when Gucci started heating up, dude was far different from everyhing else I was hearing.

But fuck that. After seeing dude perform last year at that CMJ Duck Down Showcase, copping the above pictured Kimbo Price album (I actually dropped ten bucks on that) and his performance at the Higline Ballroom earlier this week, I’m putting ALL my money on Sean Price as one of the best out, right about now. It helps that dude reps my borough of BK, all day. It ain’t ever fair how partial I stay to Brooklyn. Like I told ya’ll earlier this week, I pity the rapper that has to take the stage after dude murks it.

Between Jay Electronica (my fingers stay crossed at how I’m hoping that album is consistent fires) and Kimbo Price, Twenny Ten is looking to be one of the best for Hip Hop in a while.

Even though I’m jealous that P. dropped Nah Right’s name in this Figure Four piece, I real giddy at how we brought New York back!

*waiting for the haters and naysayers to attack*

Last year me and Peter Rosenberg, dj and radio personality for the morning show of legendary New York Hip Hop radio station Hot 97 got into a lil beef. Twitter was used as a sharp sword, and we gave the Internets a show. After the smoke cleared I still threw shots his way, every now and then, just to let him know.

Things died down, we started a new year, a new decade. We kept it moving. A couple of weeks ago, I got a direct message from Peter himself, basically inquiring as to when were we going to sit down and break bread. Surprised by his gesture, him putting himself out there like that, I responded in like manner. Since I never actually met dude, I never had anything personally against him, so I figured us having diplomatic dialogue was the natural way to go. This past Wednesday we did meet, at the Hot 97 station, and he recorded our convo for podcast purposes. Me and my friends over at iHipHop videotaped it. Shit was cool, we cleared the air, agreed on a lotta shit, disagreed on some as well. In the end everything was cool.

Not saying we’re the best of friends, but I gotta say I respect dude for reaching out. He didn’t have to. We even laughed at how I might come after him again, if I had to. But all of that is for a different day.

Peep Peter’s podcast in it’s entirety here. And there’s video of our encounter here.

And as was expected, not everyone is thrilled with this move.

It’s only February people, 2010 is going to be real interesting!

If there’s one thing that perturbs the fukk outta me, it’s when certain White folk pull the “you people are so sensitive” card out. It could be the most latent racist shit in the world, and you’ll still get at least one paleskin breakin’ that line out like it’s no big deal. Truth be told, they’ve gotten just as touchy about “reverse racism” in recent years, so it’s especially irritating when the “sensitive” card comes out.

But as a Black man, I gotta say… niggas are gettin’ wild soft over this NBC Black History Month menu shit.

Continue reading Come And Get Yo’ Soul Food, Well Well…

After joining Daily Mathematics just a little over a month ago and with only two post entries under my belt (“Nasty Electronics” & “A Tribute To Uncle Ralph McDaniels & Video Music Box”), the good folk over at Russel Simmons’ Global Grind have asked me to join their staff and hold down their new “Real Hip Hop” column. The reason for me posting this is not to brag or boast at all (since overall it’s not that big of a deal), but rather show the magnitude of being part of Combat Jack’s battalion since the reason for my new opportunity at GG came solely off my work here. See I’ve had my ICEDOTCOM site for two years or so now and though I mainly aggregate with a bit of humor and rarely go in with my thoughts, I never got approached by any internets to come fuck with em (miss me with the “pause”, “no homo” & [ll] caca, real men need not remind you who they are) until CJ hollered and personally recruited me to be part of his new infantry. And what happens on my 33rd day of battle at Daily Math? Uncle Rush’s unit t asks me to join their brigade. So to Reggie Osse aka Combat Jack aka OG, I wanna say thank you. Team DM we up. One. – ICE

(l to r: Combat Jack…Dre, Eskay, Young!, Info, Meka. Photo by Mikey)

Via Miss Info:

Mikey: Last night at the Highline Ballroom, OnSMASH hosted DJ Green Lantern & Styles P’s album release party for their Green Ghost Project (buy it here). The homie Dallas Penn hosted the event with Stalley, Skyzoo, and Sean Price opening the show. Then Styles P. made his way to the stage with drink in hand and was definitely feelin’ nice (understatement), lol. With DJ Green Lantern and his crew behind him, Styles ran through a few mixtape favorites, and of course his Lox brethren came through to perform “We Gon Make It”, “N*ggas Done Started Something”, and more. Consequence and Pharoahe Monch also made cameos. All in all, a good night and dope show… shouts to everyone we ran into Meka, Eskay, Dre, Combat Jack, Dallas, Sowmya, Franz…

Miss Info: It was the center of the real rap universe. And many people was pissy drunk (you know who you are). But it was a good time, with good peoples. At one point, Eskay/Nahright, Meka/2dopeboyz, Dre/Nahright,  Young!/Onsmash, and me were all standing by the bar…NMC braintrust ; )”

For real though, Sean Price is THAT dude. Word of advice to all of my favorite rappers, don’t ever go on stage after dude rips it. It won’t be a good look!

Really the question is have you? I know it was a hard pill to swallow for HipHop’s most “elitist” purists. How the hell did this lil’ raspy voice gremlin kid do it?……. well what’s a goon to a goblin?,lolz I’ll admit that I always thought Wayne was garbage, maybe even the worst in Cash Money at 1 time. Continue reading When did you stop hating on Weezy?

Children are often asked some complex questions.

As a youth, I tended to do my share of average dumb junk:  kick down doors, knock down fences, botch petty theft from churches, beat on the racist neighbors, and a bunch of other junk that sounds harder when written than it really was.  After I got caught after each situation (smooth I was not) and right before getting justifiably beat, my mom dukes would always find out who did the dumb-dumb with me, and then ask me the following question: “If such-n-such jumped off a bridge, would you? “.  Off top, I was somewhat glad she asked this since I was usually the leader in most of these affairs, thus a better question woulda been  ”When you jump off the bridge, should they?”, but that’s neither/nor.  The real issue was the grip of gray area in this question that she always thought should yield the answer “no”.  But to me, to answer that question properly, first we gotta talk about who’s jumping off the bridge and what’s to gain from it when I dive in after that fool.  I mean is it 2-tooth cracked out Suzy down the street from grandma OR is it Donald Trump’s son with a reward in tow?  OR was it gonna be my IT girl form back in the day, Rachel from Caribbean Rhythms?  Is she wearing one of them bikinis that she never actually got in the water with?  Can she even really swim?  If not, I’m putting money on my mean doggy paddle to come through to save her just to hear her cough out some thank with her Cleo suspect accent followed by me telling her my repayment plan. Continue reading The Bridge Dilemna: Jay-Z, The Devil, & Mom’s Disapointment

Over there.

Entertainers going to jail is nothing new. We’ve all come to accept that although music, specifically rap, is indeed an art form, there’s always the slight chance that such art is imitated by life. Thus, dudes get caught up acting out what they hear about, or even more pathetic, what they themselves claim to do on record. In most cases, it’s another horrible episode of “When Keepin’ It Real Goes Wrong,” like the first time you see a bad broad without her butt pads, water bra and club wig, but we continue to watch. When they go to jail for real shit, that makes all the difference in a career. Sometimes, it even destroys said career, and the artist’s life in the process. Continue reading Never Judge A Book By It’s Cover