"Mastering others is strength. Mastering others is true power." - Lao Tzu

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Big Boi's solo album is coming!!! Word up, this is going to be wonderful for hip hop:

VIBE’s Atlanta correspondent, Joseph Young, catches up with Outkast's other half.
Last week, Big Boi was honored at Prriya and Chintans Couture, a swanky boutique in Atlanta. But instead of being presented an award for his multi-platinum, revolutionary work with OutKast, Big Boi was presented a $50,000 Nike So Cal 1 sneaker dripping in chocolate champagne diamonds from India. Proceeds from the night went to Big Boi's Big Kidz Foundation, a non-profit organization geared towards the intellectual development of kids.

VIBE was onhand to chat with rap's busiest emcee about new projects and a potential Outkast reunion.

Speakerboxx was my first solo album, so just imagine what this is going to sound like.


VIBE: What's the status of the Big Boi solo album, Sir Luscious Left Foot?

BIG BOI: It's coming along great, man. I'm going to put 12 songs on there, I'm finished with like nine right now. Production is by Organized Noize. Speakerboxx was my first solo album, so just imagine what this is going to sound like. I'm very excited about it, and we just putting it together right now. I plan on releasing a single on December 31 at midnight going into the New Year, cause I want all the stuff to be '08, everything to be brand new. It's going to be a lot of surprises. We just really trying to bring that [good] music back.

Will you and Andre 3000 package your solo albums together this time?

No, not this time. This time we're going to go for what we know. We're going to give it to [fans] separate. I'm going to do mine, Dre's going to do his, then we're going to put the Outkast record out after that.

Are you working on any more films?

Yeah, matter of fact Who's Your Caddy? just came out on DVD. It's doing real real good for us. I got a couple of other movies in the works right now, but you know with the writer's strike out there in L.A., things are kind of on hold right now, so we just doing the music right now… shaping up for 2008.

http://www.vibe.com/news/interviews/2007/12/bigboi_fiveminutes/

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HOW TO MAKE A BEAT, by DJ Mark the 45 King:

Bronx native the 45 King has enjoyed a career as a hip-hop DJ and producer that spans over two decades. With classic contributions like Eminem's "Stan" and Jay-Z's "Hard Knock Life" under his belt the 45 King shared some simple guidelines for fans interested in making their own beats.

1. Go Digging

Visit Record Stores, the Salvation Army, record conventions, that's how I used to look but now I have a lot of records so I don't need to look anymore. More than likely I didn't listen right when I got home, or maybe I did, I don't remember. Either way, once you find something you like you make it up for now or you make it up for later. I found "Hard Knock Life" (from the Broadway Musical Annie) in the Salvation Army. I made the drums, I put the bassline over it, I sampled the record.

2. Less is More

With [Queen Latifah's] "Ladies First" there was a King Errisson sample in it. King Errisson drums and somebody played the bassline for me and from the bassline I came up with the hook and Latifah did the rhyming. And some horns. That was about it. If anything I underproduce, I don't overproduce.

3. Sometimes It's Just Luck

When I made "Stan," I was watching television, doing bills and the song ("Thank You" by Dido) was on the coming attraction of a movie - it's in the end of a movie I believe and they were advertising. It was in a loop, so the ad kept coming on because it was the cable directory guide and that's how I heard the song and I taped it the third time around. That's how I found the sample, I looped it off the VHS and made the record. Actually, I didn't know who it was until we sold the record.

4. Do What You Know

"This Cuts Got Flavor" - Latee

The sample on that is [The] Fatback Band and I just used a guitar riff. I added a bassline and had a good rapper and drums, "You Better Think" by Lynn Collins drums. Nothing really made me use those drums, they were just the drums I decided to use. I got both samples from records I had in my collection.

5. There Are No Rules

With "The 900 Number," [also used by DJ Kool for the classic party record "Let Me Clear My Throat"] Aaron Fuchs gave me a handful of records and one of those records was Marva Whitney's record "Unwind Yourself." I took the tenor sax riff from the beginning of Marva Whitney's record. I said let me put a drum under the sax and slow it down. That was about it. There isn't a right or wrong way to make a beat. I just do what I like. I'm so blessed people like the same things I like because that's what I basically try to do.

The Come Up

I started deejaying... in, I would say the 9th grade. First I was deejaying as DJ Mark, by the time I started making music it was DJ Mark the 45 King, then DJ Red Alert said why don't you make it the 45 King?

My name came...from me deejaying with the 45 rpm records. I wasn't scared to use them and they were easier to get. They were cheaper. It wasn't easier but I had no problems using those records. A lot of other DJ's would rather have albums.

What helped launch my career was ... I made a record called "Just Beats," it was a breakbeat album and I had a lot of breaks, a lot of different beats on there and Red Alert started playing it a lot in his shows. Red Alert put me on, he played more stuff and more stuff and people just assumed 'hey make a record with Mark, Red will play it."

The 45 King's Play-o-graphy

Selected Discography

Eminem - Stan 2000

Common - Car 1999

Jay-Z - Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem) 1998

Queen Latifah - Name Callin' 1996

C&C Music Factory - Do You Wanna Get Funky? (Remix) 1994

PMD - Thought I Lost My Spot 1993

Diamond D - Best Kept Secret (Remix), Check 1, 2 1992

Apache - Do Fa' Self 1992

MC Lyte - Big Bad Sister, Kamikaze, Like a Virgin, Absolutely

Madonna - Keep it Together -(Remix) - Sire, 1990

Eric B. & Rakim - Let The Rhythm Hit 'Em (Remix) 1990

Digital Underground - Packet Man (Remix) - 1990

X-Clan - Heed The Word Of The Brother 1989

Eric B. & Rakim - Microphone Fiend (Remix) 1989

Salt-N-Pepa - My Mic Sounds Nice (Remix) 1989

King Sun - Fat Tape, It's A Heat Up 1989

Chill Rob G - Ride the Rhythm (album) 1989

Queen Latifah - All Hail the Queen (album) 1989

Lakim Shabazz - Pure Righteousness (album) 1988

GangStarr - Movin' On, Bust a Move, To Be A Champion1987

Latee - This Cut's Got Flavor, Puttin' On the Hits 1987

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These rappers are garbage. How low can hip hop go? This low:



~~~ (I ain't mad at sex though, just disrespect)

I gotta make headlines like this someday soon:

Jay-Z and a group of partners recently finalized a $66 million deal for a piece of prime property in New York’s trendy Chelsea neighborhood. According to the New York Post, Jay teamed up with J Hotels to purchase the property which stretches is located at 510 W. 22nd Street and stretches to 512 W. 21st Street. His partners include real estate developers Abraham Shnay and his son Scott, and Charles Blaichman, all of whom have previously been involved with high profile development projects in the city. “It’s a great piece of property adjacent to the High Line in a great neighborhood,” Scott Shnay told the Post. The group is currently trying to figure out what to build on the property. Options currently being considered include an art gallery or possibly a high end hotel.

In related news, Jigga and his business partner Juan Perez will host a grand opening party on December 30 to celebrate the launch of their third 40/40 franchise in Las Vegas. The 24,000 square foot high end sports bar will be located in the brand new Palazzo, a 53-story extension of the Venetian and Sands complex that is scheduled to open the same night. “We represent what the entertainment capital of the world is all about, it’s only natural we open here,” Jay said in a statement. The $20 million club will feature 85 plasma TV’s, 5 exclusive VIP rooms, 24-karat gold and platinum floors and five 40 foot bi-level bars.

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Better Late Than Never (Made Up):

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Sentencing Commission voted unanimously yesterday to let 19,500 federal inmates, most of them black, seek reductions in crack cocaine sentences.

The commission, which sets guidelines for federal prison sentences, decided to make retroactive its recent easing of recommended sentences for crack offenses.

About 3,800 inmates could be eligible for release within a year of the March 3 effective date of yesterday’s decision. Federal judges will have the final say whether to reduce sentences. The commissioners said the delay would give judges and prison officials time to deal with public safety and other issues.

Critics say heavier sentences for crack cocaine unfairly impacted mainly inner-city blacks, while powder-cocaine offenders - often suburban whites - received lighter sentences.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey opposed the move, saying the convicted crack offenders were sentenced under an existing standard and to change that standard retroactively dismisses any other factors judges considered at sentencing. He added releasing inmates could cause problems for communities whose probation systems are not ready to receive them.

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Jay-Z speaks intelligently to www.stopsmiling.com

ON RACISM IN GANGSTER MOVIES

SS: Black people love Italian gangster movies, but many of these films are blatant in their racism. One of the very first words Jack Nicholson says in Martin Scorsese’s The Departed is ‘niggers.’ Why are people willing to overlook this?

JZ: There are certain things the audience hooks on to. Yes, the character might be racist, but he’s still against the odds as he struggles against the world. However brief his rein might be, he’s living the good life and that’s what Black kids hone in on. They don’t pay attention to the racism, because racism is everywhere. We’ve learned to look past that.

SS: What about the word using the word ‘nigger’ in rhymes?

JZ: For me, it’s all about the intention. I could call you an ‘apple tree,’ but if I say it with venom and hate, that is what it’s about. It’s not the word that has the power, it’s the person. All of this came about because the Imus discussion turned into a hip-hop discussion.

Imus couldn’t name three rappers; well, maybe he could, but he couldn’t name their songs. Imus doesn’t listen to rap, so he’s not influenced by it. He didn’t get that from us. I missed the point the discussion stopped being about Imus.


ON VIOLENCE IN FILMS

SS: Do you think violent films or songs have an affect on teens?

JZ: The world wants to think that that people are drawn to violence, but when you live in the ghetto you see violence all the time, so that’s not the real excitement. If they want to see violence, all they have to do is go home. A lot of kids have never been out of their own neighborhoods, so they go to see movies where guys have big houses and is traveling around the world.

ON THE DECLINE OF NYC HIP-HOP

SS: Listening to the American Gangster, I kept thinking that this is also a great New York City album. Do you think the city has fallen off in terms of rap music?

JZ: Of course, but it was bound to happen, because we were spoiled. Not only did we own rap music since its inception, we also invented it. But, like anything else if you take it for granted, it will leave you. It will absolutely go to where the freshness is. New York started making robotic records. Down south, rap music is a celebration. They put their heart and soul into it.

ON FRANK LUCAS

SS: Why do you think people romanticize guys like Frank Lucas?

JZ: You know, there’s this hope that we can make it out of bad situations and become important, maybe live like rock stars. For many of us, society is oppressive—our schools are the worse, our roads are the worse. So, when somebody goes against that oppression, it’s impressive.

ON DEALING DRUGS

SS: It’s common knowledge that you dealt drugs when you were younger.

JZ: I’m not condoning it, but everyone chooses their path. I make no apologies for the path that I chose. People think that kids who become drug dealers are monsters. They’re not monsters, they’re just regular kids who are pushed up against the odds; and the odds keep putting the lights out on their hopes.

Look at the staggering number of Black and Latino youth who go to prison. That alone has to do something to your self-esteem, and that affects the entire community. Kids understand the dangers of dealing drugs or being a gangster, but often it’s better than what they already have in their lives. In their minds, even danger is better than that.

It’s very sad, and what’s sadder is there are some people in the hood who are very intelligent, but they have no outlets. It kind of makes you think that keeping poor people down was done by design; these areas haven’t gotten so out of hand by mistake.

SS: How were you able to choose a different path?

JZ: I guess because I was able to look towards the future. Most people wake-up and just deal with today. I realized that I couldn’t keep doing the same things and not have something bad happen to me. I knew I was going to go to jail or I was going to die. If you keep rolling the dice for ten years, it’s bound to catch-up to you.

I also realized that I had a remarkable talent and I was letting it go to waste. I didn’t have one foot in rap and the other in the drug game, I literally changed my life. You just can’t hold on to the branches like Donkey Kong.

ON RAP CENSORSHIP

SS: It doesn’t seem fair that Martin Scorsese or Denzel Washington are considered true artists when they portray gangsters, but if you or one of your contemporaries talks about street life then you’re dealing with Bill O’Reilly, Oparh Winfrey, Stanly Crouch and congressional hearings?

JZ: Of course, there is an imbalance, but I understand where it comes from. In hip-hop, the whole ‘keep it real’ has become more than a phrase. Scorsese and Denzel are not tied to the films they make, so people see the separation between art and life. Unfortunately, they don’t see that separation between Shawn Carter and Jay-Z. As far as they’re concerned, everything I talk about is happening for real. To them, at no point is it entertainment.

Rappers in general THEY ARE the guys telling their story. To me, real is just the basis for a great fantasy. Not everything I say in a song is true. I’ll take a small thing from life and build upon it, and usually it becomes a fantastic story.

SS: The song ‘Ignorant Shit’ touches on this subject. There are more curses and crime in a Tarantino movie, but nobody is dragging him off to a congressional hearing.

JZ: If rappers stop cursing tomorrow, is that going to fix the ghetto or the fact that our schools are fucked-up and the living-conditions are terrible. You can’t tell me not to say nigger or shit, that’s ridiculous to me. Is that really the problem? Are you serious?

Some people don’t understand the things people who live in these urban areas see in one day; and, that’s every single day.

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Everything is speeding up. NO SHIT, SHERLOCK! Have you seen the world today? I can barely keep up with everything and everyone:

Dec. 11, 2007 -- Science fiction writers have suggested a future Earth populated by a blend of all races into a common human form. In real life, the reverse seems to be happening. People are evolving more rapidly than in the distant past, with residents of various continents becoming increasingly different from one another, researchers say.

"I was raised with the belief that modern humans showed up 40,000 to 50,000 years ago and haven't changed," explained Henry C. Harpending, an anthropologist at the University of Utah. "The opposite seems to be true."

"Our species is not static," Harpending added in a telephone interview.

That doesn't mean we should expect major changes in a few generations, though, evolution occurs over thousands of years.

Harpending and colleagues looked at the DNA of humans and that of chimpanzees, our closest relatives, they report in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

If evolution had been proceeding steadily at the current rate since humans and chimps separated 6 million years ago there should be 160 times more differences than the researchers found.

That indicates that human evolution had been slower in the distant past, Harpending explained.

"Rapid population growth has been coupled with vast changes in cultures and ecology, creating new opportunities for adaptation," the study says. "The past 10,000 years have seen rapid skeletal and dental evolution in human populations, as well as the appearance of many new genetic responses to diet and disease."

And they found that different changes are occurring in Africans, Asians and Europeans.

Most anthropologists agree that humans first evolved in Africa and then spread to other areas, and the lighter skin color of Europeans and Asians is generally attributed to selection to allow more absorption of vitamin D in colder climate where there is less sun.

The increase in human population from millions to billions in the last 10,000 years accelerated the rate of evolution because "we were in new environments to which we needed to adapt," Harpending adds. "And with a larger population, more mutations occurred."

In another example, the researchers noted that in China and most of Africa, few people can digest fresh milk into adulthood. Yet in Sweden and Denmark, the gene that makes the milk-digesting enzyme lactase remains active, so almost everyone can drink fresh milk, explaining why dairy farming is more common in Europe than in the Mediterranean and Africa, Harpending says.

The researchers studied 3.9 million gene snippets from 270 people in four populations: Han Chinese, Japanese, Africa's Yoruba tribe and Utah Mormons who traced their ancestry to northern Europe.

Richard Potts, director of the human origins program at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, said he thinks the researchers reasoning regarding rapid adaptive change is plausible.

The study mainly points to an overall expansion in the human population over the past 40,000 years to explain the genetic data.

"Yet the archaeological record also shows that humans increasingly divided themselves into distinct cultures and migrating groups -- factors that seem to play only a small role in their analysis. Dividing the human population into finer units and their movement into new regions -- the Arctic, Oceania, tropical forests, just to name some -- may have also forced quicker adaptive evolution in our species," Potts said.

Potts, who was not part of the research team, added that he liked the report "because it points to how genetic data can be used to test a variety of ideas about recent human adaptation."

Two years ago Harpending and colleague Gregory M. Cochran published a study arguing that above-average intelligence in Ashkenazi Jews -- those of northern European heritage -- resulted from natural selection in medieval Europe, where they were pressured into jobs as financiers, traders, managers and tax collectors.

Those who were smarter succeeded, grew wealthy and had bigger families to pass on their genes, they suggested. That evolution also is linked to genetic diseases such as Tay-Sachs and Gaucher in Jews.

The new study was funded by the Department of Energy, the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute of Aging, the Unz Foundation, the University of Utah and the University of Wisconsin.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/12/11/human-evolution-02.html

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Must create. Promote. Build. NOW.
Love, Adhimusic Mindbender