The Daily Hook

My friend asked me the other day what kind of style of music the Fergie track “Fergilicous” was. I didn’t know how to respond exactly, but I came across an old school J.J. Fad video that has a very similar style. Check them out side by side:

The Apple iPhone, phone dem hoes.

There is a great article in the New York Times about copy protection with its regard to digital music and the iPod/iPhone and copy protected portable music players in general. The author writes,

As consumers become more aware of how copy protection limits perfectly lawful behavior, they should throw their support behind the music labels that offer digital music for sale in plain-vanilla MP3 format, without copy protection.

I totally agree.

Read the full article here.

This is a Daily Hook EXCLUSIVE! Almost. First of all, this is no bullshit.

News is coming across the wire that Timbaland stole the sample for Nelly Furtado’s “Do It.” According to a poster who goes by the tag Okkie on the Something Awful forum Timbaland stole the complete musical line from a Finnish demoscener named Janne Suni, who goes by the tag Tempest. For those of you that are not familiar with the demoscene, its basically an underground group of artists who produce video and music to be placed along with cracktros before pirated and shareware software. According to Okkie,

…in 2000 at Assembly, one of the biggest demoparties in Finland, Tempest competed in the so-called ‘Oldskool Music Compo’, a competition meant for music on old platforms like Amiga, c64, ZX-Spectrum and the likes. His entry ‘Acid Jazzed Evening’, a 4 channel Amiga .MOD won the competition.

Okkie continues,

A c64 musician called grg remade the song on the c64 (using the infamous SID soundchip) which is what Timbaland used for Furtado’s song.

Okkie claims that Suni has no intention on suing Timbaland or Geffen records, but I have a feeling that something might come into fruition in the near future. Okkie has uploaded sample clips of original Tempest track of ‘Acid Jazzed Evening’, the grg remake, and a clip of the Timbaland produced Nelly Furtado track ‘Do It’.

Finally here is a torrent download of a demonstration showing the production process.

This could turn out to be major. Timbaland is a hell of a producer and has major skill, but it is unfortunate if this turns out to be true.

Edit: Several people posted comments regarding my somewhat vague definition of the demo scene. I did not mean to suggest that the demo scene and piracy/cracking go hand in hand. They do not. The demo scene does have roots in cracking, but now a days there is a huge demo scene that no longer has any association to piracy. I also have no problem saying that I USE TO be an active scener (and not the demo scene) so trust me in that it was just bad journalism. Please refer to the comments for further clarification.

Recent reports indicate that the owner of Jay-Z’s apartment has elected to sell the property that the Brooklyn-born rapper currently occupies for a reported $27 million, nearly twice as much as the 1994 purchase price of $14.7 million. Jay-Z has been living in the building since 2005 and has been paying $40,000 a month in rent. He is reportedly moving to his newly renovated $6.85 million TriBeca penthouse. Doesn’t sound like that bad of a move to me!

Source: EURWeb

DJ Superstar Jay is on a mission, a mission that is well worth fighting. Screw Iraq, screw the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we got real wars to fight. DJ Superstar Jay is on a mission to return the mixtape crown to NYC. Superstar Jay was recently named 2006 Justo Mixtape Awards “Rookie of the Year” as well as MTV Mixtape Monday’s “2006 Breakthrough DJ of the Year.”

DJ Superstar Jay says,

“I personally, don’t respect DJ’s that can’t really deejay. I mean every dude who has internet service and can download music is not a DJ!” says Jay, “I’m about to get back to some of the basics, like more blends, R&B mixes, Best of’ mixtapes…I’m trying to broaden my horizons.” He continues, “Cats should be on the lookout for Superstar Jay in 2007, I don’t want to sound cocky, but I’m on the verge of making some major moves… I feel like more DJ’s should support New York artists. There are too many hot artists in NYC not to be! NYC is on a steady come up and I’m going to do my best to bring it back.”

Source: NewsWire Today

Rhymefest is a rapper from Chicago who co-wrote the Kanye West hit single “Jesus Walks” and recently released a solo album called Blue Collar. Rhymefest is also the man who SBKevin followed up at hip-hop karaoke before he miserably bombed in front of 500 people, forever tarnishing his career as the Carroll Gardens/Red Hook karaoke legend! This story is discussed in our debut podcast which can be downloaded here.

Rhymefest also recently did an interview with The Guardian Unlimited newspaper which makes me respect him and his music more than I use to. Read it here, and find out why!

Here is a little snippet from a recent Village Voice interview with Method Man, who is droppin’ a new album soon.

I saw you do a show a couple of months ago, the Bamboozle Festival in New Jersey with all the rock bands. You were the only rapper on the bill.

I know, and I had to go out there and earn it. Those are some of the hardest crowds, especially when it’s just rock and roll. But those were the hair bands. These new hair bands. You see these fucking fags? Man, these dudes walking around with the eyeliner, the blush, the gloss, the hair. Anyway. What was you going to say?

We aren’t the only ones who have noticed the change in Indie music, paved by hipsters!