Blog - The Movement Fam, Independent Hip Hop Record Label - Toronto + Montréal
Great job guys. For years everything was going great and people were making lots money, but no one ever thought about what would happen if things went west. Now everything has come to light and the entire world is suffering. But despite all the madness executives of these large companies still pull millions in bonuses. Hopefully, our world leaders can get everything in order...hopefully. I apologize again for the lack of posts I have been on boycott against these sorry companies.
New mixtape from Von Pea from A Tribe Called Tanya...watch for Brooklynati coming soon.
Download link:
The Further Adventures of Von Pea
Yes indeed, the second installment of The Movement Fam blog 'Movin' Up From Down Under' is now online at Loud.com!
It looks like we now have a permanent URL so save it in your bookmarks as this will be updated regularly!
http://blogs.loud.com/news/tag/movement-fam/
Hit us with some comments!
Yup. It sure as hell ain't.
The Kanye West Glow in the Dark Tour (which shouldn't really have been billed as such; that's what it was called last year and this was a totally different show) most definitely brought it back, or at least Nas did. We got there a bit late and missed openers Kid Cudi and Consequence, which I was pretty disappointed about. Scribe did his thing; he was never much of a performer but he has some anthems that always go down well, plus he held it down in what could be his first arena show.
Nas is probably the last of my Hip Hop idols that I have yet to see live; until last night that is. And dude didn't disappoint. 'Illmatic' is my fave album of all time, and he did a medley of 'New York State of Mind', 'It Ain't Hard To Tell', 'Represent', 'One Love' and 'Life's A Bitch' before getting into standout tracks from damn near all of his back catalogue.
Nas also isn't renowned as a quality live performer but just his presence was enough; the band was dope and it seemed like there was a lot of happy Hip Hop heads in the mostly white, suburban, teenage girl, pop-friendly crowd.
So, to 'Yeezy. This is the fourth time I've seen dude live, and every time, if nothing else, it's entertaining as hell. The production value was at a similar level to his set at Good Vibrations earlier in the year, with a massive lit up backdrop and stage pulsating with the music.
Contrary to popular belief, and Kanye's recent interview with extraHit mag, dude actually rocked half the '808s & Heartbreak' album, opening with 'Paranoid', and throwing in 'Welcome To Heartbreak', 'Amazing', 'Love Lockdown' and 'Heartless', all of which went down incredibly well, even with the autotuned mic.
The obligatory slew of hits was performed, as is necessary with a radio-friendly crowd, most of whom probably didn't own any of his albums (or at least not 'College Dropout'). The old Kanye blended well with the new Kanye, as he often utilised the autotune when performing his back catalogue of hits; most of the time, it worked well.
Some dick in the crowd threw a glow stick at 'Ye at one point, and he went off at them, in rhyme, using the autotune. 'What if it hit me in my pretty ass face?' he screamed, half serious. 'Do you wanna fuck this up for everyone? Make yourself known, come up here and I'll smack you in your fuckin' face'. Gold.
The only criticism would be his lengthy interludes at the end of tracks, where he improvised and just kept on singing. If I was sitting down and didn't have sweaty tools pushing me, it'd be aight, but since we'd been standing for a hot minute, it got a bit frustrating.
All up, an amazing show from both Nas and 'Ye. Worth every cent of the $140. Click on the images to check out Nas' MySpace and Kanye's blog.
Yes sir! Tonight, finally, 'Ye's 'Glow In The Dark' tour is coming to Melbourne city! The whole Movement Fam will be in attendance. And not only is Kanye doing his thing, his cousin Tony Williams will be singing backup (more on Tony later), PLUS Nas is opening! Goddamn, about time he came Down Under. Also, Scribe, Kid Cudi and Consequence are rockin' lil sets.
Should be an amazing night; we got gold floor tickets right up the front so hopefully we'll have some dope flicks. There'll no doubt be a report online tomorrow.
Oh and in the mean time, click the image to read the review of the European leg of the tour on my man Kev's blog.
Aight man, holla then...
Once again, shouts to the homie DJ Hyphen for this one. He's hooked up the whole Fam with pieces on his blog (interestingly, the title is a play on a book by Barack Obama called 'The Audacity of Hope'), and the kid Notion got his lil feature on right here.
Check out World Domi-NoTiOn on The Audacity of Dope (download that bitch!); and while you're at it, check out the rest of the blog. It's a heater.
Ah shit. BIG UPS to my man Kevin 'The Man' Nottingham for taking out the Music Lover Blog of the Year Award on SOHH's Online Hip Hop Awards! Kev's site went up against the big guns such as 2dopeboyz, MusicOnPlay, KeepItTrill, and NahRight - and won!
Seriously, this is a brilliant thing as Kev finally has some industry recognition that should direct more traffic his way - and rightly so.
Dude should have won more awards but yo, this is a great start.
Much love to Kev and all the contributors (especially the homie Deez), keep doing your thang, heads is recognising. Click on a banner to check out the video announcing the winners on Kev's site.
So, y'all may or may not have noticed a lack of posts this week. My bad. I have become a statistic of the so-called 'Global Financial Crisis'. I was retrenched from my position as Content Editor of a major bank on Monday, after working there for 4 years. But yo, I ain't even mad. They were pretty good about it, they hit me with a decent payout (ching!) which will now open up a few doors which I thought may have been closed in the short term. Plus, since returning from the US/Canada trip, every day working there has been harder as I became more disenfranchised with the 9-5 grind.
Anyway, it seems that many corporations are buying into this 'recession'. Fuck it. It's only in your mind. Which is why I linked the image to David Icke.com. For those who aren't familiar with David's work, check out his website, he's amazing. AND he'll be in Melbourne on Saturday April 11th next year to give one of his 7 hour lectures. Boom.
Also, go check out the online movies 'Zeitgeist' and 'Zeigeist: Addendum' (the sequel) for a serious eye-opener. I already knew most of this information but it made me disgusted to even work for a bank. Get educated, folks.
Shouts to the homie DJ Hyphen for this one. Not only did he generously have us on his popular show, Sunday Night Sound Sessions, in Seattle when The Fam was in town, but Hyph done went and posted our mixtapes for DL to show some more love. Respect.
Check out The Soul Movement Volume 2 on The Audacity of Dope; and while you're at it, check out the rest of the blog. It's a heater.
Autotune Old 80's Technology That Has Resurfaced!!!!!
This Autotune madness is being used by every one and their daddy. Don't get me wrong for certain songs and artists it works but for others......naaaaah it does not do it. Check out this mixtape by Roger Riley and Teddy Troutman that take autotune to a new level.
Downolad link:
Roger Riley/Teddy Troutman - The Death Of Autotune
For those of you that don't know, Tanya Morgan is a rap group, and recently they won a MySpace contest that highlighted new artists. Make sure you pick up their entire music collection (Moonlighting, The Bridge and dropping early next year Brooklynati). Make sure you download this classic. Shouts to Jermiside who has the verse of the year on the track "Easy". I have a treat for all the fans that think hip hop is dead.
Download link:
Il Wil/Tanya Morgan Presents - Beat Thieves Vol 2
This one's for all our brethren north of the Equator, in the USA and Canada.
As of October, we now have both 'The Soul Movement Volume 2' and 'World Domi-NoTiOn' mixtapes available in selected cities in both Canada and the USA! The prices range from something like $5 to $10, depending on the store, but check the list below for your nearest spot:
ATLANTA
Soul of Sisa - 504 Flat Shoals Ave SE, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
BERKELEY
B-Side Records - 2128 Dwight Way, Berkeley, California, USA
TORONTO
Da Corner - 256A Queen St W, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (in the Black Market complex)
So if you're in any of these cities and wanna get your hands on a rare hard copy of the new projects (we only pressed a small amount for the international trip), roll through and cop 'em now!
For the folks Down Under (and everywhere else), we'll be pressing up a gang of copies of both mixtapes asap (plus a launch show), so we'll keep y'all posted.
If y'all haven't peeped it already, check out the Notion interview on the WYDU blog.
There's a link to download World Domi-NoTiOn mixtape as well.
Much love to the homie Trav for lookin' out for The Fam, once again. Make sure y'all check out the WYDU blog, definitely one of the tightest blogs on the web, straight up.
Today was Black Friday in the US. Black Friday occurs the day after Thanksgiving, when folks are trying to get a jump on Christmas shopping. This year I decided to hit the stores early. I came home empty handed.....never again will I wake up to join the crazies.
I dare say a fair few of y'all would have seen this already, seeing as it has damn near 20 million views.
Shouts to the homies Craig and Scott in Toronto for putting us onto this. Cracked me the hell up when I first saw it. Heads in Melbourne will definitely relate lol. If you're bored, check the 'Related Videos' part on the YouTube page coz there's like seriously at least 20 other spin offs of this one. Funniest ones are the biker one (TURKEY BOMBS!) and the Asian one (SAKE BOMBS!). Gold.
The Movement Fam done moved up in the world. Thanks to the homie J. Master in NYC, we now have an official regular blog on www.Loud.com. That's right, folks.
'Movin' Up From Down Under' (Week #1) details the struggles, successes, trials, tribulations, thoughts, learnings, ponderings and blatant self-promotion of a bunch of Australian Soul/Hip Hop artists trying to crack North America.
This first post actually went up in early November but I only found out today! There's a couple more already written in the vaults so they shouldn't be too far behind.
Great MC That Died Way Before His Time 
For those folks that do not know Big L, he was a rap legend whose life ended due to senseless violence. He had many memorable tracks with the likes of Jay-Z, Tupac, Biggie, Kool G Rap, and many other legends in the rap game. Many people may or may not know that before his untimely death he was set to sign with Roc-A-Fella Records, but he died the week before he was to sign. It is said that if his career would not have been cut so short he would have easily rivaled Jay-Z. His features with the Children of the Corn (Cam'ron, Mase, McGruff, Big L, and Bloodshed) and the DITC clique (O.C., Lord Finesse, Diamond D, Showbiz, A.G., Fat Joe, and Buckwild) are all classics. Big L is missed but his music and spirit lives on through all the music he left behind. R.I.P Big L (Lamont Coleman)
Big L and Jay-Z Freestyle
Massive shouts to my man Kev. Dude has supported The Fam from the day he heard about us through the homie Sean Deez, and we can't thank him enough for everything.
Have a read of The Movement Fam article from Kev's site back in September, just before we left for the US/Canada/NZ trip.
Also, this week happens to be Kanye West week over at www.kevinnottingham.com, in celebration of the release of '808s & Heartbreak', which I happened to cop today. Like I said the other day, this album is incredible. I love it so much. Except 'Ye went and changed 'Welcome To Heartbreak' to a more minimal sound with strings on the retail album as opposed to the doper, more synthy leaked version. That alone caused me not to delete the leaked version from the iPod.
Kanye's 'Glow In The Dark' hits Melbourne in 2 weeks. Very excited over here.
George Bush at the G20 Summit getting no love from other world leaders. This is terrible. No one will shake his hand due to the past eight years in the US....you be the judge on that.
This is a short video of my cousin BT (rapper, game announcer, sports show host, and student). BT is holding it down for Prep Extra, a weekly show that airs every Friday night on the local Knoxville news to highlight the high school football and basketball teams in Knoxville and the surrounding areas.
You also can catch him hosting the dopest college radio show in all the land The Edutainment Hip Hop Show every Saturday night from 9p.m. to 12a.m.EST (http://www.wutkradio.com). Also stay tuned for the weekly download for my news segment that I deliver every Saturday on the show.
This guy can be credited with helping me keep the faith in hip hop and keeping the grind going on this music ish.
