Mar28

Lil Wayne: Industrial Psychology

Presiding over Cash Money Records should've tipped us off, but why does it hurt our feelings that Lil' Wayne, URB's rapper of the year, is only in it for the scrilla? 

By Brandon Perkins

The snarl was familiar before I ever put my head on the platinum-buttoned ocelot fur couch. “Get money. Fuck bitches.” Eyes closed, I know that my diamond-grilled therapist isn’t taking notes and I wonder how much he’s even listening, while he hypnotically repeats the mantra—Get money. Fuck bitches. Get money. Fuck bitches—each syllable gurgling like a telltale heart gone hood. I don’t remember if I asked him about the major general of the Queen’s Navy chasing me up the mountain or when I diffused a bomb while slathered in white paint or why, in my waking hours, I would actually break up with perfectly scrumptious, wifey-material because she once wore a silly hat. I really don’t think it’d matter. Dr. Weezy F. Baby (please say the motherfuckin’. . .Ph.D) has one lesson: Get money. Fuck bitches. And that’s …

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Mar28

Immortal Technique: Choose Your Battles

A political prisoner in a world that needs a few new wardens, Immortal Technique is preparing to break out (by Tom Breihan) 

“If you talk about the hood, rhyme about what’s going on in the hood instead of just rhyming about how you a gang member on record all the time, that shit will get you murdered in real life,” says the Peruvian-born, Harlem-based rapper Immortal Technique, sitting a little straighter in the booth of a Latino diner on 126th and Broadway in Harlem, stabbing the air with his fork.

Tech knows what he’s talking about. As a politically motivated left-wing rapper, he’s faced his share of conflict. There was the time that someone hung a dead animal near his office, presumably as a morbid message for the controversial MC. And death threats? “We got threatening phone calls saying, ‘I’m going to kill you niggers and spics, you fuckin’ communists.’”

It’s not hard to see how conservatives might have a few problems with Immortal …

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Mar28

Gnarls Barkley: Total Recall

They changed the way a song becomes a hit. They wore joking costumes while singing about sex with dead people. And they joined Jethro Tull in the canon of famous bands named after imaginary people. But who is Gnarls Barkley, really? (by Andrew Parks) 

Something seems a little out of place. We really shouldn’t be here. I know it. Danger Mouse knows it. And a pajama-clad Cee-Lo knows it. Just ask the cocktail waitress who’s silently judging Cee-Lo’s manager, curtly asking for a hotel room key before allowing us one step further onto a penthouse patio full of suits and ultra-smooth $15 martinis. Of course, as soon as we show proof of residence, she’s quick to fill our drink order. Just some tap water, thanks. Oh, and a Diet Coke for Danger Mouse. Hiding underneath simple shades and an oversized sweatshirt, he’s still recovering from the night before, an afterparty attended by-as Cee-Lo states proudly-actor Efren Ramirez who played Pedro in Napoleon Dynamite.

“That was a highlight of this tour, for sure,” the gregarious singer smiles, struggling  to speak through strained, scratchy vocal chords. “My …

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Mar28

Cut Copy: Fabricated

The DJ mix is alive and well and living in Australia (by Richard Thomas) 

Sexy, synthetic and raw,  Cut Copy’s installment in the Fabric Live series illuminates a wealth of kitsch-free, post-disco material from artists like The Presets, New Young Pony Club, Midnight Juggernauts and In Flagranti. Frontman Dan Whitford took a few moments to give URB a track-by-track deconstruction of his immaculate mix.

Joakim “I Wish You Were Gone” > This guy is one of my favorite remixers-artists. This track seems so out there when you listen to it at home, but it still manages to shake the dance floor.

Cut Copy “Future Unlimited” > Because of problems with licensing, I was left with a few spots in the mix that had tracks taken out. On the day it was due, literally, I busted out my synths and sampler and wrote this track using parts of our original recording of “Future” to fill the gap.

Munk …

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Mar28

The Horrors: Frights of Fancy

UK goth guys are worried you might think them a bunch of Victorian dandies...they aren't 

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By Si Hawkins

Really, you’ve never seen a mosh pit like it. Wave upon wave of frenzied shorties cascading toward the stage, minds super-stimulated by the raucous rhythmic din and inhibitions long-since abandoned as they shriek themselves hoarse; not that they had many inhibitions to begin with.

Dotted perilously along the imaginary line that once separated this manic throng from its target are a couple of hapless security guys, struggling manfully but hopelessly to keep some kind of order. The look in their eyes is pure, unprecedented panic. They’re slowly being submerged under a sea of kids.

We’re at something called the Underage Club, a popular all-ages bash run by the 15-year-old son of an eminent experimental musician, held in a converted Victorian cinema in South London, and headlined this afternoon by the country’s oddest new must-see band, The Horrors, who are causing …

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