Let’s Take It Back: Slow Love

Bust it.

Man, this takes me back. Not only do these guys have one of the coolest sounding names ever in the game, they arguably have the quintessential “slow jam” hip hop song. This song was really racy for radio play back when it came out. When I was 10 years old and riding around with my parents in the car, I use to turn down the volume when it got to the part where he says “from your breast to your neck” for fear of my parents forbidding me to listen to rap altogether. All of that fear was flushed down the toilet though when they allowed me to listen to Niggaz4life in the car and bought me “Gangsta Bitch” by Apache cassette single. I love my my parents.

I pride myself in being able to rap this whole song in it’s entirety.

Beat Goes On

“Beat Goes On” by Madonna Feat. Pharrell + Kanye West:

Sold Out: Fire Red Trucker Cap(cont.)

Here are the line pictures I was looking for. Another successful release by Dope Distribution. I fully understand that checking out what other dudes wear is gay but whatever. I know for a fact that I’m not the only one. It’s the most common Street Wear Head trait. If anyone on this planet can get me a Dope Trucker Cap, I would totally be their best friend.

-What’s Good? Kuala Lampur Grand Opening

Sold Out: Fire Red Dope Trucker Cap

Surprise, surprise. Fire red Dope Trucker Cap sells out! Wake the kids.

Every Dope Distribution Trucker Cap sells out within minutes(this time in 30), this isn’t news. What I was really hoping to present to you was some pictures of people standing in line for it. That’s what I love most about these kind of releases, normally we get a chance to see what kind of people who would be this geeky and obsessive and hype beastly enough to stand in line for a fucking hat. I mean who would do that? *cough* Me. *cough*

I’m kinda let down that we didn’t get any this time around. I have this weird obsession of pictures of lines for anything street wear related. I should start another blog that is strictly pictures of people lining up for over priced limited edition clothing and/or foot wear. People can submit pictures of the lines and wacky or boring stories that happened while they stood in them. This would be a blog I would be all over.

The line for the last Dope Trucker.

Warp April 2008

Another one of my Kinokuniya pick ups, last months issue of Warp which features Nigo, Pharrell and the Boyz on the cover. Warp seems to be more of a mixture of fashion and music whereas Street Jack is straight fashion. The cover is nice and glossy and I particularly like the layouts and pictures throughout the issue. I really like the black and white two page spread of Nigo and P.

Some other things to note: Hiroshi Fujiwara, Big-O, some new Phenomenon and W-Taps pieces are also featured in the mag.

Click on the pics to enlarge.

Subcrew Spring 08′ Collection

I really, really like Subcrew. It ranks very highly on my list of clothing brands that I dig but have no idea where to obtain online.* So unless I plan on taking a country hopping trip around Asia, I’m out of luck. Alot of stores in Hong Kong, Taiwan and China carry the brand while both Malaysia and Japan have the privilege of having only one store in the entire country to stock the clothing line.

Here’s a few pieces from their Spring 08′ line which includes some cool tees and a pair of jeans that might make me break my “never-under-any-style-circumstance, will-I-roll-up-my-pants” rule. Which of course I wouldn’t have to worry about cause I will never own a pair.

*Black Rainbow online shop to my knowledge, only has ever stocked the trucker cap collab they did with them.

Street Jack April 2008

On my last trip to Japantown, one of my Kinokuniya purchases was the latest issue of Street Jack. It’s pretty much filled up with all kinds of cool shit I can’t even buy here in the states. Oh how I love to torture myself. Enjoy.

Click on pics to enlarge:

Souled Out Sunday: Every Little Step

When I was 8, my older cousin Portia offered to buy me a tape and I remember she gave me a choice of either Stevie B. or Bobby Brown. I pondered over the decision and eventually went with Bobby and it has since been one of my favorite R&B albums of all time. I don’t remember exactly the order in which his many singles from Don’t Be Cruel came out in but I know a big part of it was due to this song. I really liked “My Perogative”, “Don’t Be Cruel” , I absolutely loved “Roni” and “Rock Wit Cha” but it was “Every Little Step” that made me not just want but need this tape in my collection.

A huge thanks to my cousin for being partly responsible in shaping my musical tastes.

Wow, high top fades are hardcore but crooked high top fades with a slope are next level.

Dope Trucker Fire Red

Dope Distribution is releasing the latest colorway(fire red) Dope Trucker Cap and is being released on April 20th at the What’s Good? store in Singapore. I expect by the end of the day to see pics of long lines. Only 100 being made and it’s one per person. Sale of the cap start at 1PM.

Have I ever told you the story of me hesitating to buy an original black one? The original Dope Trucker was made available online to the rest of the world(no other has been made available since) and you could actually buy two if you wanted but that was the limit. I only planned on getting the original black one and I was on the page to order and all I had to do was press “Confirm” and I didn’t. Came back not even a few hours later, sorry…sold out kid. I will always regret that day.

A Glowing Review

Went to the Glow In The Dark concert last night got home about 1am, went to sleep about 2am and now I’m up at 6 writing this before I have be in Vallejo in a few hours. So let’s get started shall we?

Act I: The Big Black Void

First up was Lupe leading off which was really surprising, I thought the order would go something like Rhianna opening with N.E.R.D. to follow then Lupe then Kanye batting clean up. Lu being arguably my favorite emcee I was really disappointed with his set. He had no background set whatsoever, it was literally a big black void. Compared to everyone else who had some sort of background visuals and set props and video for effect, Lupe had a huge black boring curtain.

Lupe had one DJ behind him who seemed to do absolutely nothing but waste money by standing there bobbing his head. Bishop G came out on a few songs which was cool to see. They ran through “Little Weapon” with Nikki Jean who came out but didn’t sing one fucking note. She also came out on “Hip Hop Saved My Life” and when it got to her part it was a fucking pre-recorded track! Get the fuck outta here with that shit. What made Nikki Jean look even worse was that on another song Lu had background singers that actually sang live! Wow, what a concept. Actually singing the song. So I got see some no name background singer sing more than Nikki Jean, awesome. I still really like Nikki jean but I was very disappointed. What makes it even worse is that she’ll be doing this the rest of the tour. Come out for the couple songs she’s on and someone in the back presses a button and she stands there pretending to sing. What the fuck?

Matt Santos came out and did a few songs which was cool, oh he actually sang his parts, so he should get props for that. Lupe’s set from what I read was the typical set list. Nothing out of the ordinary. My highlight was “I Gotcha”. I just can’t help from nodding my head when that came on. I also loved when they performed “Go, Go, Gadget Flow”, the beat got everyone bouncing but the best was when they would stop the track during the chorus while the crowd sang “Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go gadget flow.” Out of the 50 call and responses throughout the show, this was my favorite.

Lu was really good, he’s always into his performance and he talks and handles the crowd very well. He seems really natural up there. My gripes with his set was the plainness of his set design. Nikki Jean doing her best Ashlee Simpson impression. And no performance of “Gold Watch”, “Real” or “Sunshine” all which rank very high on my favorite Lupe song list. Overall this set was okay, overall it ranks 3rd on performances of the night. With the 2nd best performance going to…..

Act II: Nerds Rock Harder Than Geeks

Next up was N.E.R.D. They came out with two drummers, a guitarist and bass player and Chad on the keys with P and Shay on singing duties. I wasn’t expecting this to be anything special but goddamn, this was arguably my favorite set of the night. N.E.R.D. simply destoryed it.

They ran through their set list performing all of their hits which is great for me cause those are the ones I like the most whereas most other artists I tend to like the lesser known songs which don’t usually get played during concerts. The only small gripe I had was they didn’t perform “Maybe” which in my dreams was to be followed immediately by “And He Get’s The Girl…” with Lupe coming out of the back to perform with P yelling “HEEEY YEAAAH!” every so often. “Rock Star” was dope, “Lapdance” was dope, “Everybody Nose” was banging, the new song from “Seeing Sounds” was fresh. “She Likes To Move”, “Brain”, every damn song killed. I was surprised to see a good number of the crowd do call and response with some of their songs. N.E.R.D. was never really mainstream commercial darlings or anything. My only gripe was that N.E.R.D. had a few other people on stage rock with them. People in their posse I guess and I hate that cause it gets to be too many and for people in the back harder to make out who’s who.

At the end of their set, N.E.R.D. threw bagged shirts into the crowd. I was totally envious at those lucky people who got one. They’re probably on eBay right now pushing $200+.

Act III: Zzzzzz…

Next up was Rhianna which I spent quite a bit of the time watching while sitting down and texting my friend who couldn’t make it. We were talking err texting about new shoes coming out and how we should grab something to eat this week. I have no idea why I’m telling you this. Oh yeah that’s right, I’m trying to accentuate how boring Rhianna’s set was to me. She wasn’t on for too long. I should’ve spent that time taking a piss and getting something to eat but I spent $75 on the show so I wanted to see the entire show.

She performed some songs, some fast, some slow. She looked pretty hot so that was good. The crowd seemed to be into her but more people were sitting during her set than anyone else’s. Fortunately for her, she had back up singers and dancers on the stage and some platforms she danced on with lights, some other props were used for some visual stimulation which is more than I can say for Lupe.

Act IV: The Glow

Finally Kanye took the stage after what seemed to be an hour of stage set up. When I finally saw the stage, it was well worth the wait. It was this desert landscape with a moving platform in the middle which could move and also display video on. The entire back of the stage was one long screen for video and or effects. Kanye even had a band but they were stuffed orchestra style at the bottom front of the stage so as to take no limelight away from the man of the night. Even Ye’s DJ A-Trak was crammed down there. The cool thing about Kanye’s performance was that he controlled the whole stage by himself the entire time. No other human being set foot on that stage for the rest of the show. It was all Ye. Which I prefer to seeing one rapper and 30 other guys up on stage dancing around.

This was what the crowd was waiting for and you could tell by the crowds response to every and anything Kanye did. Every little fucking nuance got a response. Kanye could blink his eyes and you could see it on the big screens and the crowd would go ape shit. Got so loud blew my fucking eardrums out. The crowd knew almost every line to every song. It was pretty impressive. Kanye ran through his set with songs you would expect. I didn’t really get into his set until he broke into “Through The Wire”, which was surprisingly my first “Ohhhhh!” part of the night. His set included “All Falls Down”, “Spaceship”, “Flashing Lights”, “Hey Mama”, “Home Again”, “Heard Em Say”. Ye’s set even had a running theme in that he was a space traveler or something and he talks to his computer sidekick “Jane” and they’re trying to get back home. And in between would conversate with Jane and it would somehow tie into the next song. It was clever and really well executed, EXCEPT for this one part where they were about to break into “Gold Digger” and prior to it Kanye talks with Jane and says how he’s been traveling for so long and that he needs some female companionship and then what looked like a shiny plastic life sized mannequin comes down from the ceiling and talks to Kanye for literally 10 seconds and then gets hoisted back up into the rafters. It looked like some hanging pinata and Kanye was suppose to hit it with a fucking stick. That was a point in the show where I looked at everyone around me to see if they were actually seeing what I was seeing. With a puzzled look on my face I thought to myself why isn’t everyone breaking into uproarious laughter at the corniness?! I was dying inside. Too fucking funny.

Anyways, with all that said it was a great show. I mean the bill alone is more than worth the price of admission. Kanye, Lupe, and N.E.R.D. on tour together is something you won’t see again. I’m glad I got to witness it.

Some random observations:

-I was expecting to see more Bape but I’m glad I didn’t. No animal hoodies to be seen. A few crew necks, a few shirts, that’s all. My friend said someone was wearing the Panda hoodie though.
-It was hilarious to see people(myself included) searching for their car after the show.
-All of the Kanye shirts they sold at the show you could buy on his website and after seeing the number of people that bought one, I’m glad I didn’t get one.
-Girls are pretty.
-People actually wearing their Kanye shades was absolute hilarity considering they block 85% of your vision.
-I could’ve sworn Kanye mentioned “Seattle” during our show(which was the first show, Sacramento was the second). Can anyone confirm?
-Surprisingly I know more Rhianna songs than I had previously thought.
-Girls are really pretty.
-Nothing CRS related whatsoever.
-How hard would it have been to have Lu on “Touch The Sky?” Or have Pharrell and Ye do “#1?” or get P to come out during “I Gotcha?” What the fuck?!

Here’s some pictures from my iPhone, they’re not in order. Click on pics to enlarge:

Before everyone showed up. Took about an hour into the show to fill up.

Hey what’s that behind Lu? Oh. It’s a big black curtain…cool.

Lu + Bishop G.

The funniest part of the whole show. Lu and the female alien mannequin in deep conversation.

The second funniest part of the show. After “Hey Mama”, the music for “Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey starts playing while Kanye sits in contemplation over his mother. But while the music played the entire crowd broke into the lyrics! When people started singing “Just a small town girl, living in a lonely world!” I literally died. That shit was too funny. I gained a whole lot of respect for the crowd at that moment. This was my favorite moment of the whole concert.

I couldn’t stop taking pictures of Ye and the alien. I took like five in all.

Crowd filling up.

Nerds.

That’s actually a big “R” in the back, it stands for “Rhianna”. It’s to let people know that Rhianna is on the stage. Pretty clever huh?

Things I bought(actually the book was free):