Dub dot dash

Hypnotic!
"Hypnotic Brass Ensemble is a eight man brass ensemble from Chicago, of which 7 are the sons of Sun Ra Arkestra trumpeter Kelan Phil Cohran, the 8th member of the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble might not be connected by blood but is definitely part of the family. The creation of Hypnotic in 1999 represented the sons return to their instruments after a time of quitting music in their teenage rebellion years." LINK (also check the MP3s for download, including live with Mos Def at the Apollo).

"... the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble. Check out our previous post on these guys. Their last two 10″ records killed it. They also got a blog that journals their music and travels. I just stopped by today to see what’s new. I came across a cool video of them performing some new material in New York (NYC what is wrong with you? All that great live music, and majority of New Yorkers just completely ignored it. NYC where is your soul? There were some exceptions.) Anyway, check out the video and they also mention a real cool blog called DJouls.com from France, that wrote a good discography on the group." LINK

Check out their tunes over here and here, and on their blog.






Mr Untouchable
"Frank Lucas and Nicky Barnes once ruled the drug trade in Harlem. They came out of retirement to talk business."

"Mark Jacobson moderates a historic (of sorts, I guess) conversation between the real-life Frank Lucas, portrayed by Denzel in the upcoming American Gangster movie, and legendary uptown drug lord-turned-snitch Nicky Barnes (aka Mr. Untouchable: see movie trailer here) for New York magazine. Check it out here." (Hat tip: Different Kitchen)

snip... (via Miss.Info) "Turns out, when [hiphop MC] Cam’ron talked to 60 Minutes about snitching…guess who was watching? Nicky Barnes!!

Nicky says:

“I testified against the guys who were in the Council along with me… Guy Fisher, Frank James, Wally, Coco, Kenny… When I went into the joint, I gave Guy Fisher a woman of mine and told him to look out for her, take care of her. I didn’t expect him to start f*cking her.”

But Nicky then says:

“When I realized they left me on the battlefield to die, I said, “F*ck it!” … I said, “I’ll pull those motherf*ckers in, let them see what it’s like.”… I don’t regret it. I saw this show on CNN, with Anderson Cooper. Cats were talking about “Don’t snitch, no matter what happens.”

Well, I can’t see how a guy can be considered strong if he lets a bunch of assholes walk all over him and he doesn’t respond, just because of some code that a bunch of idiots have cooked up. Anderson Cooper asked this rapper, “Suppose a child was molested and you knew who this molester was. Would you tell the police?” He said, “No.” So that’s what I’m sayin’—the street guidelines are just moron bullsh*t."