Recently in CMJ Category

Our encounter with Das Racist was one of the more noteworthy experiences of CMJ '09, so I thought I'd reach out to Victor Vazquez and Himanshu Suri* and try to get behind the wall of booty bass and Taco Bell that obscures two of the hardest working minds on hip-hop's fringes.

In cross-country Gmail and Gchat correspondence spanning a little over a week, we covered all the bases and then some. The product is an inquisition about the utility of writing in Gmail, whether or not music fans have developed a taste for fancy degrees, Amherst's fakest music scene and, obviously, health care. They were alternately earnest and cynical, terse and expansive, but never censored. I played the probing music journalist. They were Das Racist.

All photos by Evan Daniels for A Thousand Grams.

As the week wore on, we started to get our proverbial groove back. We had the daily routine down (shower, show schedules and RSVPs, NYU panels, food, show 1, show 2, show 3...) and could get anywhere in the city with relative ease. Hip-hop was beginning to make more of a showing as well, with showcases from Nah-Right/On-Smash, Fools Gold, Plug Research and more. Outside the Nah Right show was a madhouse, with an inteminable line and several marquis names being rejected from the door. After chatting up Plain Pat and Maestro out front for a bit, we decided to chuck the deuces and leave the show to every other hip-hop blog you read. This was a good move, because we ended up meeting up with Exile across town.

 

To complement our earlier breakdown of hip-hop's latest dynamic duo, here's some decent video (and poor audio) of their performance from CMJ. More exclusive coverage coming soon.

What would C.L. Smooth have done without Pete Rock? Common without No I.D.? Hip-hop started with the break beats and since the very beginning, the man on the 1s and 2s has had the power to make or break whatever the emcee is doing on the mic. In 2009, if there's any producer who looks to respect and uphold that fundamental symbiosis above all else, it's a guy called Exile. And if we were to make a list of the freshest, most vital beatsmiths working today, without a doubt he'd be near the top of the pile.

All photos by Evan Daniels for A Thousand Grams

We're no strangers to New York. Although ATG has roots in Texas, Evan and I first met in The City That Never Sleeps as bright-eyed young interns for CBS and Time Inc. all of one year ago. Since then, we've stayed in an empire state of mind, and CMJ was the perfect opportunity to swoop back in, take the city by storm and hold it down for hip-hop like we love to do.