Nicki Minaj – Complex

You may know Nicki Minaj as that girl with the curvaceous frame that’s been touring with Lil’ Wayne. Maybe you’ve listened to one of her three mixtapes. If so, you’ve probably got an image of who you think she is: a potty-mouthed MC using sex to sell herself to the masses. Look harder, homie. The 24-year-old Queens, New York native may possess a gorgeous face and a body you could get lost in, but she’s got more up her sleeve than diamond bracelets. With females not even part of the rap conversation these days, she’s trying to make some noise and some loot. And we think she has just the right moneymaker to do it.

Complex: When people think of Nicki Minaj they envision stilettos, bustiers, and maybe a lollipop…

Nicki Minaj: This is the thing: I like being sexy when it’s time to do a show, but to be honest, I hate wearing high heels, and I hate wearing anything tight. People do get taken aback when they see me in person because I’m in the jeans and the little slippers. I think it’s cute when they see me transform, they see me go into my machine and come out as Nicki Minaj.

Complex: How do you transform for that special someone?

Nicki Minaj: Thigh-high boots or some real crazy pumps, some thongs, and curly hair, that’s it. [Laughs.] Nothing else—nothing less, nothing more.

Complex: What is it about curly hair that makes you feel sexy?

Nicki Minaj: I feel like I’m a girl. The curly hair gives the impression that like, “Oh, I’m well-behaved,” but I take the trench coat off and boom! It doesn’t have to be too curly; it just looks like I did my hair.

Complex: So is romancing and seduction part of your repertoire when it comes to the bedroom?

Nicki Minaj: I don’t like romancing and I don’t like seduction. It’s corny to me. I like role-playing, but that’s not one of my characters. [Laughs.]

Complex: With all the touring you’ve been doing, do you have time for a boyfriend?

Nicki Minaj: I have no dating life, I can only hope and wish and imagine and fantasize. They demand too much. In life there’s always going to be one thing that takes precedence, and when you’re as hungry as I am you have tunnel vision. So I can’t really cater to a dude right now—I love them and I think they’re cute, but I can’t do what they want me to do for them right now.

Complex: Sounds like you need a vacation.

Nicki Minaj: I’ve always wanted to go to Hawaii. I really want to go there and just lay on the beach. Then, also, I could have the other rap girls feed me fruit—since they don’t have anything to do right now! [Laughs.] Strawberries, grapes, watermelon, and pineapple. I so know that part is going to make the interview.

Why The Music Industry Isn’t Suing Mashup Star ‘Girl Talk’

A true movie for the digital age with adrenaline-fueled performances by mash-up phenomenon Girl Talk

“… a fun ride, filled with snazzy animations, enthusiastic talking heads and one helluva Girl Talk show” …..IndieWire

“An entertaining, thoughtful, and politically committed articulation of what the filmmaker dubs the “copyLEFT” …..PopMatters

“A knockout.” ….Maclean’s Magazine

“… [a] film that everyone should see” …..Needle Drop Magazine

Immerse yourself in the energetic, innovative and potentially illegal world of mash-up media with RiP: A remix manifesto. Let web activist Brett Gaylor and musician Greg Gillis, better known as Girl Talk, serve as your digital tour guides on a probing investigation into how culture builds upon culture in the information age.

Biomedical engineer turned live-performance sensation Girl Talk, has received immense commercial and critical success for his mind-blowing sample-based music. Utilizing technical expertise and a ferocious creative streak, Girl Talk repositions popular music to create a wild and edgy dialogue between artists from all genres and eras. But are his practices legal? Do his methods of frenetic appropriation embrace collaboration in its purest sense? Or are they infractions of creative integrity and violations of copyright?

You be the judge by watching RiP: A remix manifesto.

DJ Greg Gillis, aka Girl Talk, is arguably the most famous “mash up” musician around, filling up sizable venues with his high-energy live performances. While plenty of musicians sample from other artists, they also pay those artists a license fee—something Gillis doesn’t do. For that reason, the New York Times (NYSE: NYT) has called him a “lawsuit waiting to happen.” Well, today, Gillis came out with his 5th album, “All Day”—available as a “pay-what-you-want” online download—and we’re still waiting for the lawsuit.

The Christian Science Monitor wrote today that Gillis’ new album was “provoking copyright owners for the fifth time.” The fifth time? Shouldn’t the third or fourth provocation have been enough to set off a supposedly litigious industry?

See more of our latest Entertainment coverage.

Gillis has certainly done his best to incite the labels. He has published all of his albums on a record label called “Illegal Art.” He’s spoken out in favor of fair use. He was highlighted in Remix, the last book written by Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig, probably the most famous advocate of copyright reform. And his fans scrupulously detailed all 372 pieces of copyrighted music he used on Wikipedia just hours after he released his album. (Imagine the thousands of dollars a law firm could have billed for doing this research!)

So why hasn’t Gillis been hauled in front of a judge by the music industry? Probably because he’s the most unappealing defendant imaginable. Gillis would be a ready-made hero for copyright reformers; if he were sued, he’d have some of the best copyright lawyers in the country knocking on his door asking to take his case for free.

At the Electronic Frontier Foundation, probably the most well-funded public interest group working in the copyright space, lawyers have made it clear for years that they’re positively eager to litigate a case over music sampling, which they believe is a clear-cut case of fair use.

Then there’s the PR issue. Gillis is a popular artist who was even praised on the floor of Congress by his local representative, Pittsburgh Democrat Mike Doyle, who called Gillis a “local guy done good;” Doyle also suggested that mash-ups might be a “transformative new art that expands the consumers experience.”

At the same time, the record labels have a healthy business going selling music sample licenses, the economics of which aren’t threatened by laptop musicians like Gillis. Established artists aren’t going to follow the lead of an upstart like Gillis—they’ll keep paying for their samples, especially since some have the hope of being on the receiving end of sampling royalties one day. They’re surely watching Gillis’ “provocations” closely, but in this case, artists and labels are smart to let sleeping dogs lie.

All Day is the fifth album by American mash up musician Girl Talk, released by the record label Illegal Art on November 15, 2010 as a free download. The album consists of 372 overlapping samples of other artists’ songs.

All Day was released as one seamless 71-minute MP3 file and as 12 separate tracks. The Illegal Art website stated that the album was “intended to be listened to as a whole,” but was “broken up into individual tracks only for easier navigation.”

Jay-Z – Intro / Run This Town (What Stage – Bonnaroo 2010)

Jay-Z Interview Howard Stern & Warren Buffet

 

Big Sean feat Chiddy Bang

Kanye West‘s G.O.O.D. Music group is going hard as of late. Kanye announced G.O.O.D. Fridays when he’ll drop a new song from soneone in his camp. Now, his artist Big Sean just dropped his highly anticipated mixtape, Finally Famous Vol. 3: BIG with DJ/ producer Don Cannon. You can expect big things from Big Sean, as he collabs with various artists including Drake, Tyga, Bun B, Curren$y, and producers including No I.D., Clinton Sparks and The Olympiks on this mixtape. If you’re a fan of good music—literally—be sure to check out this new mixtape, and be on the lookout for his official album to drop soon!

Download Big Sean’s Finally Famous Vol 3: BIG Mixtape (via DatPiff)

Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy Rollingstone Review

By  Rob Sheffield

2010 11 22

When Kanye West sings about “jerk-offs that’ll never take work off,” you’d best believe he means himself. Being crazy is this guy’s job, and judging from the sound of his music, business is booming. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is his most maniacally inspired music yet, coasting on heroic levels of dementia, pimping on top of Mount Olympus. Yeezy goes for the grandeur of stadium rock, the all-devouring sonics of hip-hop, the erotic gloss of disco, and he goes for all of it, all the time. Nobody halfway sane could have made this album.

Kanye West Gives Surprise Performance on Delta Flight

Last time, Kanye went minimal for the electro melancholia of 808s & Heartbreak. But on Fantasy, he gets ridiculously maximal, blowing past all the rules of hip-hop and pop, even though, for the past half-decade, he’s been the one inventing the rules. There are hip-hop epics, R&B ballads, alien electronics, prog-rock samples, surprise guests from Bon Iver to Fergie to Chris Rock, even a freaking Elton John piano solo. It’s his best album, but it’s more than that — it’s also a rock-star manifesto for a downsizing world. At a time when we all get hectored about lowering our expectations, surrendering our attention spans, settling for less, West wants us to demand more.

Photos: Jay-Z and Eminem’s NYC Blowout With Kanye West, Chris Martin, Drake, and Nicki Minaj

Nobody else is making music this daring and weird, from the spooky space funk of “Gorgeous” to the King Crimson-biting “Power” to the paranoid staccato strings of “Monster.” Nearly six minutes into “Runaway,” long after the song has already sealed itself in your brain, the sound cuts out and you think it’s over. Then there’s a plinking piano, the feedback of an electric guitar plugging in, some “Strawberry Fields”-style cellos and Yeezy himself singing a poignant Robert Fripp-style solo through his vocoder. There’s no way it should work, but it keeps rolling for three more minutes without breaking the spell.

Kanye Says He Understands George Bush’s ‘Disgust’

Coming off a string of much-publicized emotional meltdowns, Yeezy is taking a deeper look inside the dark corners of his twisted psyche. He has sex and romance on his mind, but he comes clean about his male angst like never before. In confessions like “Runaway” and “Blame Game,” he honestly struggles to figure out why he has to be such a douchebag. Yet the songs are also his funniest ever, with Kanye showing off lethal wit on the mic: In “Dark Fantasy,” he rhymes “mercy, mercy me, that Murcielago” with “diablo,” “bravado” and “My chick in that new Phoebe Philo/So much head, I woke up in Sleepy Hollow.”

There’s a famous story about Queen making “Bohemian Rhapsody”: Whenever the band thought the song was finished, Freddie Mercury would say, “I’ve added a few more ‘Galileos’ here, dear.” But nobody can out-Galileo Kanye. With Fantasy, he makes everybody else on the radio sound laughably meek, but he’s also throwing down a challenge to the audience. Kanye West thinks you’re a moron if you settle for artists who don’t push as hard as he does. And that means pretty much everybody.

Mac Miller

The Hip Hop scene in Pittsburgh has gotten a lot of exposure lately. Wiz Khalifa’s “Blacka and Yellow” rhymes have given the city a reason to be proud of its music, and that music scene is ever-expanding. Mac Miller, an 18 year-old, fresh out of high school Steel City emcee is making big waves in Rap with the help of a highly regarded Kids mixtape and a growing list of collaborating supporters. Mac’s laid back style and flow has some clear old school influences, but Miller continuously rhymes about what he knows best: being young and having fun.

Curren$y & Wiz Khalifa

What do you get when you mix two young up and coming musicians together on one mixtape…? The answer lies within the most recent released mixtape entitled, How Fly. The Wiz Khalifa and Curren$y matchup is something that is fresh and truly “dope” as some would say! The mixtape really is something that is enjoyable to listen to, unlike other tapes out there, where there are just a small handful of solid tracks. I have had a hard time putting down this tape, and I have been following its progression since hearing about it a while ago! I was never a huge Wiz Khalifa fan, but when I recently stumbled upon his most recent release of Flight School, I decided that I should give this guy a second chance. Curren$y on the other hand, I have known about for a bit longer. Dude put out a mad tape back in ’08 entitled, Independence Day and ever since then, I have been following him since!

So some of you might be wondering, “where the heck is this review going?” At this point, I am going to go in-depth as to why I love this mixtape so much, and why I think you all need to go out and cop this thing and support these two up and coming artists! First off, the production work done on this album is just insane, and something that is never done on mixtapes. I take that back actually, mixtapes by musicians who care about their fans and putting good music end up having an amazing production team on their tapes. Anyway, other than the producing aspect of the mixtape, the flow and lyrical style in which Wiz and Curren$y put together is really something just pleasurable to listen to. It is not everyday that you find two musicians out there who know how to throw it down together on almost every single track! Guys like Chip Tha Ripper + KiD CuDi, Mike Posner + The Brain Trust, and Wiz Khalifa + Curren$y are the reason why Hip-Hop is not dead, and that we will be listening to good music for a long time!

How Fly Track Listing:
1. Car Service
2. All Over
3. The Check Point
4. The Planes
5. Fly N*ggas Do Fly Things
6. S.D.L.
7. In The Middle
8. Layover
9. Drunk Dialing
10. How Fly
11. Friendly
12. The Life
13. Surface To Air
14. Over The Building
15. Rollin’ Up

Download How Fly Here

Curren$y + Wiz Khalifa Promo Ad For How Fly:

SPEAKER TV PRESENTS: ROCCO’S 40TH BIRTHDAY SHOE PARTY

Speaker TV gang returns to Revolver once again – this time to celebrate four decades of Rocco’s Shoemaker to the stars.

Italian shoemaker Rocco Bufalo is a Legend among the celebrities who frequent his East Malvern Shop. Rocco’s has run out of their Malvern store for forty years and has provided comfort and style to many artists –Jet, The Strokes, Dandy Warhols, The Horrors and The Rolling Stones to name a few. “You just own a pair, or get a pair made” Dallas Crane. 75 year Rocco is still in the design room as his Son Jonny takeover the family business, assisting the next generation of rock-stars. No one make shoes like Rocco’s, each pairs takes 10 days using Italian leather on 100-year-old shoe presses, heelers and trimmers.

Rocco has teamed up with designer Ivan Gomez to Design a limited edition shoe for his new label Moonwalker due out April 2011.

On Saturday 18th December 2010, to celebrate forty years of rock & fashion, Rocco’s has decided to throw a party for its long time friends and new recruits. Rock and roll institution Revolver Upstairs will provide the venue for the party to end all parties.

Kicking the night off is an exclusive industry and friends only sale in the back room from 5pm to 8pm. A selection of sizes and styles from the past forty years will be on sale for 50% off (max. two pairs per punter) and then will be followed by some of Melbourne’s coolest bands to keep the night running till dawn.

The delightfully breezy pop of THE OCEAN PARTY will open proceedings in the front room from 8pm. They take influence from predecessors such as The Triffids, The Go-Betweens and The Shins amongst others.

Following on from Ocean Party is NEW BIRDS an infectious three-piece outfit brimming with confidence and sixties rock spirit. With a gift for melody and a talent for quirky song writing, Newbirds have captured the attitude of their influences with their take-no-prisoners live show.

DANCING HEALS are five Melbournians who have just returned from the bright lights of LA to rock the stages of their hometown once again. Combining youthful passion, soaring synths and crystal acoustics layered with the subtlety of red wine inebriation; the music lies somewhere between the thump of Arcade Fire, the jangly guitars of Teenage Fanclub…

Headlining the night is the incomparable sounds of THE HELLO MORNING, a band that always manages to defy expectations. “People are always afraid to pin their sound to one thing,” says front man Steve Clifford, “but sometimes I wish we could.”

Resident Revolver DJ DECAMERON will be spinning records from the last forty years. Straight from the mean streets of Richmond, DJ Decameron is an all-singing, all-dancing musical extraordinaire.

The Speaker TV & Rocco’s showcase will run from 8pm in the band room at Revolver Upstairs on December 2010.

$12 pre- sale through moshtix or $15 on the door. – www.moshtix.com.au

www.speakertv.com.au

Undercolours, I, a Man & Pack Bears at The Grace Darling

 

This Thursday December 2nd promises to be an exciting show with three of Melbourne’s finest up and coming bands at The Grace Darling. Undercolours the band that the industry buzzing will be showing you why, along with south-siders I, a Man with their textural finely crafted pop songs which focus on sonic experimentation. Opening the night will be Pack Bears aka Luke Shields of Hold/Hold fame. This is definitely the kind of line up will leave you wide-eyed with arms uncrossed in the middle of the room, wondering what the hell just happened.

The Grace Darling

114 Smith Street Collingwood

Doors 9pm.

$7 on the door.

www.myspace.com/undercolours

www.myspace.com/iamanmusic