Not Drugs – Art, Graffiti, Music and Culture for the Almost Grown-Up

I like giving you free music. I really do. So I’m going to try and do it as often as possible. My hope is for me to give you a playlist, at least once a month, of some tracks I’ve been gettin’ my dig on to. I gave you one last month, and now here’s playlist number two for March.

And since I wanna get you the music without too much of a drag in between now and the free download link, I’m gonna limit myself to the twitter technique and only use, at most, 140 characters about each track. Let’s get to it, The Not Drugs March Madness Mix.

The Bun B-ta

1) Freeway and Jake One ft. Bun B “Sho’ Nuff”

This is Bun B’s third appearance on as many Not Drugs mixes. Jake One’s got some dope drums. Freeway’s got some spit in him.

2) Murs and 9th Wonder ft. Sick Jacken & Uncle Chucc “The Problem Is”

9th Wonder is/will always be a genius. Warner Brothers held down Murs; the frustration shows. This year he blossoms.

3) Punchlyne and 6th Sense “Use Your Head”

I’ve never heard of 6th Sense, but I want to hear more. Love the chorus.

4) Young Chris and J.Cole “Still the Hottest”

Dudes are still young, and they have some fire. They still Roc the house, but maturity will only make them better.

5) Wakey! Wakey! ft. Theo Martin “Twenty Tw0″

Indie Rock meets hip pop. Refreshing? Yes. Catchy as all hell? Most definitely.

6) Kid Cudi “Know Why”

Current king of the genre of music that only he is apart of. Good thing? Bad thing? I’m still intrigued. Keep it comin’, Kid.

He's a rapper? Yup.

7) Grieves “Smile for the Blade”

Some will call this emo hip hop. I’ve liked this dude since his debut album. The beat is solid, the flow is smooth; a break from the hard stuff.

8.) Theophilus London “Humdrum Town”

It’s a nice spring song, for when spring gets here. This song emphasizes where I was going with the playlist: pop without the radio.

9) Kidz in the Hall ft. Just Blaze & Colin Munroe “Take Over the World”

I don’t know why but I love Colin Munroe. Kidz in the Hall should be the template for modern pop music. Yep, I. Love. This. Song.

DD = Fresh.

10) Reflection Eternal “In This World”

Back to the real deal hip hop. Talib and HiTek haven’t left their podium. Revolutions Per Minute will be dope.

11) Diamond District “Who I Be”

Is that an ODB sample? Fantastic. Diamond District always keeps their game to a higher level.

12) Method Man, Ghostface, & Raekwon “Criminlogy 2.5″

It takes the original base from “Criminlogy” off of rae’s OB4CL and spins it on a new axis. Verses are deadly. This album is gonna blow up cities.

So that’s the jist of what you’re about to listen to. It should be in order of how I posted it here, so let me know what you think of these jams. Comment here, email me (Letham@notdrugs.com) or send bird messengers with comments taped to their feet (the only three options I’ll accept). Here’s the link for the Not Drugs March Madness Mix. Enjoy the weekend folks.

Dwb.

Each time a new track from the three Bastard Swordsmen (it’s not their official name but I love it) gets released, my belief that a Heaven exists becomes stronger and stronger. Method Man, Raekwon, and Ghostface and shelling out some of the most ridiculous stuff, it’s hard to believe that an entire album consisting of these three is actually coming out. Now, this following track won’t be on the album (the original “Our Dreams” track will and a music video for it will soon be released), but I’m giving this track it’s own post, because, well, it f’n deserves it. So here’s the Ant Acid Remix (download for free) of the “Our Dreams” track with the Wu-Massacre trio and Alicia Keys.

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Dwb.

Like the grease from the very burger or the potato chip that he was chompin’ and pushin’ back in the day, JA had seeped into and saturated the folds of our delicious brains as this guy before Seinfeld. Not too far of a stretch from the role to come… You can say what you like about the man, but you cannot deny his talent.

Enjoy:

Dear Kid Cudi,

There’s something I gotta get off my chest so I’ma be straight with you; I do NOT like “How To Make It In America”. It has it’s moments and lord knows I want it to be good…but it isn’t. It moves too slow, it tries to hard and I hate all the characters (except for Luis Guzman of course). But I don’t blame you. If I were you and somebody said, “Yo, you wanna come be on the newest, hippest HBO show? We’ll only give you a line or two per ep and you can hook up with a different hot chick each week,” then I’d jump at the opportunity. And I still love your music, especially this jam “Pursuit of Happiness” feat. MGMT and Ratatat:

Thanks for the sick song and even sicker video.

Happy Hump Day.

Much Love,

Portman

Literally just lost my mind.  Legit just lost any sanity I had…and there wasn’t that much to begin with.

I’ve been waiting for the official trailer for years now.  Not a demo.  Not a teaser.  A legit trailer.  Featuring, at least partially the Daft Punk original score.

This past weekend…it finally came.  The trailer for Tron: Legacy.

And just in case you’re not in the know, here’s the trailer to the original Tron from 1982.

Remember when we were all swooning over Lebron James when he was a senior in high school. During the McDonalds Slam Dunk Championship (The High School All-Star weekend attraction) Lebron showed off to the crowd more than any NBA star has in almost 10 years of “Rockin’ the Cradle” or “360 Windmillin”.

Well, I might have someone else to swoon over now. When Lebron was fancying the scouts, he was doing it at 6 feet 8 inches tall. Deuce Bello (a junior at Westchester County in North Carolina) stands only at 6 feet 3 inches, but is a giant in the air.

He’s only a junior, so we’ll have to wait until next year to see what he does. Deuce says he’s considering Kentucky, Clemson, Oklahoma State, Wake Forest and Tennessee for college, but I believe the odds are highly against him stepping foot in any of those arenas.

The NBA awaits.

Dwb.

West Coast rapper Murs, of Living Legends decent, has given himself quite the task for 2010. He had a rough and bitter breakup with the Warner Brothers record label (which lasted all of one album) and believes he has something to prove this year. He’s already put out a couple of tracks, teasing us with this sophomore collab album with 9th Wonder, that’s supposedly coming out sometime this year. Here’s Murs to speak for himself about the year to come.

And here’s one of the tracks that Murs and 9th Wonder leaked called “The Problem Is”.

Ever wonder what would happen if the Statue of Liberty had been issued an eternally replenishing color-altering paint brush? Yea it’s been a while since my last trip too.

But here’s an idea from the globe trottin Mr. Brainwash.

(being released tomorrow at 3pm EST)

In 2001, when J Dilla was venturing away from Detroit Hip Hop trio Slum Village, up and coming spitster eLZhi was gaining some attention from the industry, specifically T3 (one third of Slum Village). He had a couple of tracks floating around with some other artists, but it was eLZhi that got invited to guest star with a couple of verses on some Slum Village hymns. Even though Slum Village never planned on introducing a new member to the group after Dilla left, eLZhi just, kinda, ended up taking the vacant spot, and soared from there.

In 2008, eLZhi came out with his debut album, The Preface, which was produced entirely by another Detroit native, Black Milk. That album, for me at least, easily placed into one of the top spots for album of the year. His wordplay was off the charts, and his pace was in constant attack-mode. Black Milk’s beats only influenced the dopeness of this set of tracks. This following track is off the album and it features another Motor City brethren, Royce Da 5′9″. It’s called “Motown 25″ (and yes, our audio DOES in fact work!).

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Now, I kinda lost track of him for a bit, but at the end of this past year, he dished out this unmixtape called The Leftovers. The same intensity, the same wordplay, and my man-crush developed all over again. If you haven’t caught wind of this dude, here’s The Leftovers UnMixtape, for free to download. Just get it at Elzhi’s website.

And to make the unmixtape that much more enticing, here’s a video from one of the songs called “Deep”. Watch this talent flow like it hasn’t been done before.

Detroit Rap City.

Dwb.

Each year The Roots put a picnic in Philly with a whole bunch of artists. Not Drugs’ loyal/#1 fan TShea went last year and said it was down right bananas. The Roots teamed up with Public Enemy to throw down some down right filthy renditions of tracks off of It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. So here’s ? himself tellin us who’s playin this year, and what bonkers collab The Roots have in the works.