Last week the hip-hop world celebrated the life of Jay Dee aka J-Dilla. Both his birthday and date of death fell in the same week. I first heard his music in 1996 when he began working with A Tribe Called Quest on their fourth album Beats, Rhymes and Life. He had already been working with his group Slum Village in his hometown of Detroit, and apparently stepped to Q-Tip with a tape while Tribe was in town with Lollapalooza. From that point on, Jay Dee became the “producers producer”. Highly acclaimed he worked with the likes of Pharcyde, Busta Rhymes, De La Soul and later in life with Madlib, Common Sense, Erykah Badu just to name a few. He also had a solid solo career, his first single F-ck Tha Police dropped in 2001, and it was followed up by my personal favorite Welcome To Detroit. His influence in music will always be heard, and he is missed. I’ve compiled a few videos from Youtube, the first being a new Stussy produced documentary, followed by some tracks.

Sampled is a new series of posts I’ll be doing that takes my favorite hip-hop songs and compares them to the original song they sampled. Growing up listening to rap I was curious about where producers got their records and what genres they’d dig through to make their tracks. This opened up a door for me to a whole bunch of other forms of music, soul, rock, jazz, even obscure international stuff. For this first edition, I picked Gang Starr’s Just To Get A Rep. Who else could I have started with besides DJ Premier? In 1991 Primo somehow got his hands on a record by Jean-Jacques Perrey, who was a pioneer in the electronic music world. The record was from 1970 and it was called E.V.A… Here are videos to both of ‘em.

Wu Tang Saga is a new feature length documentary directed by Jeremy Mack. It is claiming to be the ultimate doc, that spans over the last two years the Wu worked collectively as a crew.  Besides live concert footage, it will include tour bus debauchery, exclusive freestyles, photoshoots and even a tour of Statin Island. The entire movie is narrated by members of the group, so we don’t have to listen to somebody we don’t care about. The film is over two hours long and the DVD includes music videos, extended interviews and much more. Goes on sale February 25th, so get your pre-orders in.

Preeeetty stoked on this one. Yep. Off the off the upcoming album Rise Up dropping April 16th. Directed by Matt Alonzo.

Here’s the video for It Ain’t Nothin’. New Cypress Hill!

Today Lil Wayne starts his 12 month prison stint after pleading guilty to second degree felony of criminal weapons possession and criminal possession of a loaded weapon, following his 2007 arrest in New York after police confiscated a firearm on his tour bus. According to NYPD detective, Wayne will be separated from the general population to keep him from harm.

Wayne is also due to stand trial in March for drug possession charges following an unrelated arrest in Yuma, Arizona in January 2008.

Photo credit: Eddie Morales/Fame Pictures

Here’s today leak: Kanye has a new blog in the works. This should good cause the original blog is already pretty solid.

The official quote: “I’ve been working really hard on this new blog and I’m really excited about it. It should be up this week!”

image: kayneuniversecity.com/blog

Got a new video here from Brooklyn’s battle MC OG, Poison Pen. The Money Shot is Pen’s 2009 release featuring the guest stylings of Immortal Technique, M.O.P., Silkk Da Shocker and others. Check out the album artwork below.

Image: Amazon.com

Brand spanking new, here’s the video for My Dude, check it out.

Fat Joe is about to drop his 10th album… 10th!!! Can you believe it? Feels like only yesterday I heard him lay his first verse on Showbiz & AG’s classic Represent in 1992. Fat Joe has gone through a lot of phases, he always keeps up with the latest trends so it didn’t surprise me that Jeezy was on his new single Slow Down. Also to make sure the beat was as bangin’ as possible, he got Scoop De Ville to lace him with something fierce. Scoop if you didn’t know, was the man who produced Snoop Dogg’s I Wanna Rock. Anyway, Fat Joe’s new album is titled The Darkness, here is a Youtube link to the song, I’ll let you know as soon as the video drops.

The title got you, didn’t it? So, you’ve probably caught wind of the current criticism circled around Jay-Z and camp by now. Headlines are calling Beyonce, Rihanna and Jay-Z everything from Freemason/ Illuminati to Devil Worshipping demons. I’ve watched a handful of youtube flicks upwards of 45 minutes long dissecting music videos for satanic imagery and Freemason symbols. Some even go as far as playing records backwards to hear evil word repetition in the beats. I’ve got a little conspiracy theory of my own and it has nothing to do with the devil and everything to do with free publicity. You’ve heard the expression,”there is no such thing as bad press”? Despite all the current rumors and fanaticism surrounding the Jay-Z Devil Worshipping claims he recently launches this video:

A dark, Marilyn Mansonesque flick, full of evil clowns, goat-headed figure, fire, skulls and the list goes on. Now pick up any current fashion magazine in existence and flip through it. You’ll notice the same imagery, leather, studs, black lipstick, tattoo inspired design, that’s fashion. Jay-Z creating a steezy, style savvy video full of dark imagery at the height of media buzz, that’s good marketing. If money is the root of all evil then call Jay-Z the devil, he’s laughing all the way to the bank.