This past month I had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing painter Robert Wilson at his studio on Bedford Street in Stamford, CT. I just happened to stumble upon the studio on my way to the local library. The artwork caught my eye from outside the window and so I stopped in to check it out. I had never seen such interesting original contemporary art in the area. We had a good conversation about his work and the arts in general in the area. I told him about my interest in interviewing artists along with my video production company after seeing a few studio interviews with painter Jean Michel Basquiat in the 80′s. So we planned to do an interview about his work in his studio and the following is what came to be. You’ll see Robert talk about his work, his influences and actually start working on a new painting. Later he told me he titled the painting inspired by a conversation I had with him.
Whether you call him a contemporary artist, an abstract expressionist or simply a painter (he is also a sculptor), his work garners an emotional reaction. He is also one of the most prolific painters I have ever seen. Robert’s work is represented by Fernando Luis Alvarez Gallery. Music used in the interview is Angel Eyes and Oriental Folk Song by Brandee Younger.
Shopping for music at one of the best music stores in the country, Amoeba Music, Questlove of The Roots shares some of his purchases. After seeing the video of an orchestra paying tribute to the Kanye West song All of The Lights, it’s great to see a full orchestra pay tribute to one of the best producers to ever do it, Dilla. A clip of the orchestra playing Dilla is also below.
A clip from the dvd orchestra tribute to Dilla called Timeless – Suite For Ma Dukes
Just on the heels of iTunes releasing several songs albums by The Beatles available for download, Rolling Stone releases a historic interview with John Lennon. The interview took place in December of 1970 after the break up of The Beatles and the start of the Plastic Ono Band. In the interview he speaks very candidly about the songs and the differences between his earlier writings. Yoko Ono sits in with Lennon during the interview.
Celebrity biographer Kitty Kelley explains in an interview how she came to write the biography on Oprah Winfrey. Based on the content of the book many are calling it gossip and Oprah herself calls it a “so-called biography”. Here she explains what took her over 8 years to write.
The following is an interview I did with Hip-Hop artist C-Rayz Walz back in 2005. The interview was supposed to be published an a magazine that shall remain nameless, but never was for unknown reasons. He had just released his 2nd album, Year of The Beast on Def Jux(most recently gone on “hiatus”) and was on tour with J-Live and Vast Aire.
Definitely an in depth interview where he talks about everything from, the art of freestyling, his appearance on MTV, Wu-Tang, Immortal Technique’s explosion and why he thought his “Rock” effort would be better than Mos Def’s. Enjoy!!!
I want to ask you about some of the concepts behind the songs on the album.
The album is strictly basic boom-bap hip-hop, the way it was meant to be as far as the way it was put together with my own original style with the futuristic technology added with it. It’s a straight up hip-hop album, so you’re supposed to have a song like “Knowledge” on there. It’s spiritual. I titled every song for it to have spiritual value so you can get it. So a song like Knowledge is straight up that, Knowledge. What can happen to you if you don’t use your third eye and your mind. If you go through this situation, this is what happens. Now you know.
The title of the album is “The Year of the Beast”, does it have any relation to the Chinese calendar?
It just goes to show you that different cultures have different views but similar meanings. See I’m in The Year of the Rappin’, but that ain’t enough to describe me. Like the Dragon is one aspect and the Tiger is one just one aspect of it. So it’s the whole Chinese calendar, I’m The Year of the Beast, I’m all of them shits.
On this tour you’ve done some tour dates with the Gza and for the last album you did a tour with Raekwon. What was that like and what’s your relationship with them?
Oh that’s family. Raekwon is my family, Ghost is my family, Cappadon is my family. So being around them is just being around fam. There’s always people trying to box me into one style, but that’s just one aspect of it, like the Chinese calendar. I always get compared to ODB’s style, but that’s just one aspect. You can go online and do a search and find out that I’m the only solo artist that has been compared to all Wu-tang members. So you can never hold me down to one style, I will come with different styles on every album.
Were you saddened to hear of ODB’s passing?
Hell yeah. That’s family, that’s my brother. We were about to shock the world with the song we were supposed to do. But things didn’t pan out.
You’re featured on Immortal Technique’s Revolutionary Vol. 2, can you talk about your relation with Immortal Technique and your character in “Peruvian Cocaine”?
My character in Peruvian Cocaine is real, except I beat my charges. That was my personality. I used to bash cats in their face. Selling drugs wasn’t really good for me. My father was a kingpin. I had my little run, and it turned out unsuccessful. As far as Immortal Technique, he’s my brother. We been down for 9 years. He’s an extended family member of my crew Stronghold. We’ve done songs together, like “Keepin it Raw” with DJ Madsoul.
Snoop shares his secret to getting the best out of the green leaf he loves so dearly. In this video he’s being interviewed by the one and only Nardwuar The Human Serviette in Vancouver Canada.
Snoop also speaks on the trend he set back in the early 90′s of wearing hockey jerseys and his love for spoken word group The Watts Prophets.
This is Snoops 5th interview with Nardwuar over a span of 10 years. Always entertaining to watch the two together.
Also here is the cover of Gin & Juice by The Gourds mentioned in the interview. Pretty hilarious stuff:
Doggystyle, the chronic, dr dre, weed, marijuana, high times, canucks, hockey, new album, malice wonderland, pharrell, neptunes, much music, hip-hop, rap, funny, hilarious, interviews, smokefest, blowfly
If anyone know’s anything about Sade they know that she is a fairly private person outside of music. Over the years since she’s been making music, rarely have there been any sort of in depth interview with the London based singer. In this video is a rare glimpse into the mind of Sade and her band as they work on their new album Soldier of Love. Here they speak on their creative process and Sade explains what influences her to write the memorable songs that we all love from her.
In an interview on BBC Radio with DJ Semtex, Mos Def announced that he will become the 5th member of the famed animated band Gorillaz. Not only will he be featured vocally on the album, but he will actually have a character animated after him.
This wasn’t the case with previous featured artists Del the funky homosapien, De La Soul, Lupe Fiasco, Pharcyde and others. Mos says he hooked up with Gorillaz creator and producer Damon Albarn at Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Music after party. Check out the other parts of the interview, very interesting conversation with Mos Def.
With his recent release of Blueprint 3, Jay-z has set Billboard chart history as his album becomes number 1 for the 11th straight time. This feat surpasses Elvis Presley’s 10 straight number one albums and makes Jay-z the reigning king of longevity as a solo act. However, Mr. Carter has his sights set on the all time record held by The Beatles, which is 19 straight number one albums.
In an an in depth interview in London on BBC with Andrew Marr, Jay-z speaks on what the records mean to him. He also speaks on the harsh realities of growing up as a youngster in Brooklyn, the charisma and qualities he sees in Barack Obama and the archaic thinking of Noel Gallagher of Oasis for his Glastonbury Festival tirade.
google wave, kim kardashian, nike, twitter, facebook, letterman, leno, walmart, starbucks, michael jackson, apple, itunes, sony, barack obama, tickets, concert, roc nation, the view, britney spears, balloon boy, liar, conspiracy, magazine, true blood, hbo, csi, network, eminem, lady gaga, laptop, blackberry, iphone, palm pre, adidas, awards, academy awards, billboard, platinum, sales, soulja boy, john mayer, chelsea lately,
Caleb and Jacob of Kings of Leon are interviewed by one of the most interesting journalist there is – Nardwuar The Human Serviette. This is one of their very early interviews, Jared was only 17 years old at the time.
They talk about everything from their love of Andy Griffith to sleeping in a car when they first started out.
