The Music Tank

Once again I’ve decided to put up a Top 10 list of my favorite albums of the past year. Let’s just say that 2009 has been a good year musically. Accompanying each selection is a intricate brief description as well as “Notable” tracks, which are basically my 3 favorite songs off my favorite albums.
10. Kev [...]

It just seems natural that this column get a shot in the arm during the sharing part of the year: the holidays. I’ve had the pleasure to enjoy Kev Brown’s “Random Joints EP” for over a month now (available on iTunes) and it’s the man himself that will grace our ears for a while again.
Metazon [...]

Mixtape king Mick Boogie had the chance to head a remix project for the indie-pop band Peter Bjorn & John. The process gave way to a hord of familiar hip-hop producers and rappers all collaborating on a re-envisioning of PB&J’s Living Thing album. Even though we live in times of genre-blending, I didn’t think of [...]

Well this is simple. Reservoir Dogs is a classic cult movie and the Hall of Justus, affiliated to the Justus League (Little Brother and al.), decided to cook up a mixtape with enough rappers to fill the original cover art.

MCs Jozeemo, Joe Scudda, Chaundon and Rapper Big Pooh all participate to this mixtape of  20-odd [...]

Producers K-Salaam & Beatnick just released a bangin’ online exclusive/all new project featuring your favorite/favorite-to-be emcees. Featured on the Where the Streets Have No Name project is Lil’ Wayne, Bun B, Talib Kweli, Young Buck, U-N-I, K’naan, Buckshot & Colin Munroe. You can stream or download the whole thing by heading here.

As most of you already know, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon features The Roots as the in-house band. This makes every episode worth watching in my opinion. But since it airs, well, late at night, I’ve decided to post a few videos from my favorite segment of the show. This segment is called Slow Jammin’ [...]

I’ve been enjoying the sounds of producer/MC Symbolyc One ever since I discovered his group The Strange Fruit Project a few years back. The smoothed-out grooves and bass heavy beats hooked me right in. It also had the perfect mixture of soul in it. Well S1 has since then produced for the likes of Tanya [...]

So it’s officially my birthday today. Throw a 50 Cent song or something! Which made me realize…why am I giving away free download links? Well, part of it might be because I wear my heart on my sleeves, but then again, it’s just the love of sharing. So share this column with as many peoples [...]

In the early 90’s, the New York sound was taking its time to get developed and redefined by greats like DJ Premier and Pete Rock, amongst others. A void was left from the old school era to the new school of hip-hop where lyricism and hard hitting beats would be predominent. That’s where the Boot [...]

I’ve been slacking off my own column for the past 3 weeks, go figure! I’ll make your wait worth it by giving you one two three free mixtapes today!
First off is Brooklyn MC/Graphic designer Fresh Daily. Tired of all the Auto-Tune utter crap polluting the air waves, Fresh Daily brings it back to clever word [...]

Before I start this post dedicated to Outkast, I will acknowledge that it’s not quite thursday, bare with me!
Most people that I ask whether they like Outkast or not will respond to me on a positive note referring to Speakerboxxx/The Love Below as a great album their shit and Hey Ya! being their favorite song. Not [...]

So it’s a pretty rainy day here in Montreal and this brought me to singing The Roots’ “Lazy Afternoon” and so I felt they were the perfect choice for the launch of my weekly column: Throwback Thursdays. Why throwback? I here reference a time travel into some of the best years/groups/tracks/videos (I don’t want to [...]

The Kid Daytona has been creating quite the buzz in the NY rap scene. Backed by Cipha Sounds, Daytona has put out a nice A Tribe Called Quest-themed mixtape last year that really put him on the map. This time around, he hooks up for Mixtape king Mick Boogie to present us The Daytona 500 [...]

Kheaven Brereton aka k-os is without a question one of the most successful Canadian musical exports when it comes to Hip-Hop. His genre-blending music has the merit to reach a wide audience. With his fourth album YES!, k-os keeps the formula while still visiting his roots. The album’s color of choice is red as Exit [...]

20 years ago, a Long Island-based trio emerged on the musical scene with their debut album 3 Feet High & Rising. This group was De La Soul, comprised of Posdnous aka Plug Won, Trugoy the Dove aka Plug Two and Maseo aka Plug Three. Still in High School at that moment, the group distinguished themselves [...]