Tone Tank and Wee-Bey. Explanation forthcoming.

Album is out now. Get it on itunes or at the Stones Throw site.

The photo gets me excited. Tone Tank will be featured on this album (Quakers, produced by Geoff Barrow of Portishead fame), which comes out tomorrow on Stones Throw on vinyl and cd, and digital formats of course. Hopefully by tomorrow the internet will get its act together and allow us to post Tone’s track, “What Chew Want”. Pre-order here.

This is a fun song from Serengeti’s project with Sufjan Stevens & Son Lux. Their new EP is called Beak & Claw, and you can get it on the Anticon bandcamp. The story behind this song is pretty fucking funny too, but we’ll save that for another post.

Tone Tank and Adam Dare get busy with the street art while the rest of us sleep snug in our beds. We call this sort of thing neighborhood beautification.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE EP AND DIGI ART BOOKLET

On Friday, March 11th (JST) of 2011, Japan experienced the impact of a devastating earthquake, one of the largest ever recorded. This era of real-time news and instant civic journalism invited us to watch and respond to tragedy, courage, heartache and hope. Sympathy sprouted from all corners of the globe, mainly through relief efforts, support, and a brewing collective silence. One natural disaster and its eerie familiarity was neither the beginning, nor the end.

The Offering/供え (pronounced sonae) is a “visual soundtrack”; a collaborative art project spearheaded by Hip-Hop recording artist Cavalier and Producer Scott Thorough totaling contributions from 1 Emcee, 1 Poet, 1 Producer and 8 visual artists.

Cavalier recently toured Tokyo and felt personally affected as newly formed friendships and partnerships gave him closer connection to the aftermath “Scott had sent me music shortly after I received some tough correspondence via email from Japan on the state of things. He said he realized “that all the stuff I(he) was sampling or being influenced from was about restoring a sense of faith. So I(he) basically made a G-D beat tape this week.”

“I felt moved to create and to create with others, something that was a sincere gesture to show our brothers and sisters in Japan that they are in our hearts and minds. Sometimes we feel that because we do not have large sums of money that we are not able to make an impact. I have my creative gifts, and I can share that.”

Cavalier issued a call to various artistic communities to imbue this work with several unique voices, until The Offering/供え slowly transformed into a multi-media art project. The intro poem by Aja Monet along with paintings by Nelson Cabán, Geobany “Elbowz” Rodriguez, James Sheilds, Aaron “SpazeCrafte” Lozanski, Jocelyn Goode, Andy “Solo” Estevez, Marthalica and even a painting contributed by its producer Scott, were documented by OrderVision Produxtion’s Alex Seel and Mu Gadu, fused with surreal performance footage of the actual songs; a 12 minute, fine art, musical score.

With its raw “Beat Tape” sound and its daring lyricism, The Offering/供え also nods with Punk sensibilities à la The Ramones with each song spinning around 2 minutes.

Get to know more about Cavalier at his artist page, where you can find links to his facebook, his twitter, and his youtube channel.

This is a song that Kray and J Howells Werthman made a few years ago. It helps me remember how rich I am, which is a nice thing to be reminded from time to time, ESPECIALLY when the pockets are on empty. Happy Birthday to my oldest friend in the universe and one of the best rappers around.

Serengeti teams up with Sufjan Stevens & Son Lux. This is spacy, as you might expect from the lineup. Their collaborative EP drops on March 20th on Anticon, and includes a song with some close personal ties to the Sharks. Not sure how to explain it, I guess I’ll have to post it when the EP drops. For now, enjoy this one.

Making videos in Tokyo is pretty cool. Abbondanza!!