FY Friday: Kanye West – “Champions” (2 Chainz, Big Sean, Quavo, Gucci Mane, Yo Gotti, Travis Scott & Desiigner)

Pray For Me/
I’m about to hit the “Ye” button

Flashback Friday: Wingo – “Bust It Down” (Ft. GUCCI MANE)

Welcome home, Gucci!

Throwback Thursday: Gucci Mane – “Lemonade”

*cracks knuckles*… let’s see what a lil SEO keywording can get us in clicks on the best LEMONADE of the week and of all time!

Before Beyonce got presumptive and ambitious with the drink of the Summer and named her album Lemonade. Before she “allegedly” (this is B.S. btw) pulled all her marriage’s skeletons out the closet as an “apparent” metaphor of Black America as the under appreciated in the U.S.A.’s multi-cultural melting pot marriage. HOLD UP, before all that sweet, and sour cold on a hot day Lemonade – was it Jack White, Kendrick Lamar, James Blake or The Weekend servin up these streets? NO!  Gucci Mane was the mixologist in the FORMATION of the original musical refreshment, Lemonade. Gucci buffered any “apparent diss” Jay Z might face even 6 years later by preemptively surfing the TIDAL wave the “BeyHive” is riding on this week. Sorry BEYloved, Guwop knows the future. #FreeGuwop

Are Head Tattoos What’s In? Like For Real, Breezy?

They say art imitates life.  Let “Take It To The Head” singer – Chris Brown – tell it, life can imitate art too. The hook to that song ends “no excuses, no apologies”, and neither can be present for his latest musing and artful expression. Here’s a video of him with his tattoo artist:

That’s right. He got the goddess of love, desire, and beauty straight to the head – no chaser. *sigh*… Well… that’s it. It’s there, now. So, he joins the ranks of other celebrity notables to canvas de los cabezas (that’s right, some Spanglish in there, for no reason. Word To Trump). Let’s rank our next “best” head tats in the game:

Remember that one time Cash Money Records’ Birdman let his “5 Star Stunna” album title get to his head?

But, of course Big Money Heavyweight Iron Mike was the originator of facial recognition:

Then Grammy and Oscar Winner, Jamie Foxx Felt left out:

But he needed to cool it, like the Trap God, Gucci Mane Le Flare:

This one is just to make you smile after seeing all those horrible life decisions, and killers of all LinkedIn profile pictures:

BURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Monday Mood: Gucci Mane – “El Chapo”

In our efforts to bring you fresh daily musical takes to start and end your EVERY WEEK DAY (hint: Subscribe Now) we avoid repeating starring artists. However when one has as much recorded material as Tupac, Michael Jackson, and the Beatles combined – he’s bound to have touched on just about every relevant subject under the Monday moon. Gucci Mane Le Flare is ironically behind bars currently, but today’s Monday Mood could not be more tailor made for the news that none other than druglord kingpin “El Chapo” Guzman has yet AGAIN escaped from a maximum security prison. More on that tomorrow as the story develops. For now, meditate on this muse.

Open Letter: Dear Bootleggers, MP3 Is Dead. PLEASE BURY IT!

Downloading music was cool – till it was “not so cool” to download music and they arrested people to make examples of them. We started on Napster, when that was a free thing. Then they got busted, and spiderman’s brother – Sean Parker moved along amicably. So did we, to Kazaa (or Bearshare, or whatever P2P sharing system got those viruses on your parents’ computers, but you denied it like the stone-cold vigilante you were).  All along, the bit-rate (basically how good the code makes the music file sound based on how its compressed If I lost ya already, its okay to move along and skip through) was confined to the bit-rate of around 128 kbps governed by the widely accepted “.mp3 standard”.

That was a mistake we made. All of us: the music industry that allowed that to be how music was digitally distributed, the hardware makers of “.mp3 players” (remember those?), and artists for allowing their hours of laborious art-work to go down the digital drain never to be appreciated again. That is bad!

How bad? That is the audio equivalent of watching the 3-D movie Avatar on that black and white T.V. with a big butt that your grandmother refused to let you connect your Nintendo to.  That is like viewing a Picasso painting or Basquiat for you new-age hippies through an Instagram-filtered photo taken from your friend’s iPhone 4 on that Euro-trip they took with their family.
[Sidenote: NOBODY CARES, JANET! YOUR FAMILY MIGHT BE “CULTURED” AND LOADED WITH FREQUENT FLIER MILES, BUT EVER THINK YOU’RE MISSING THE POINT IF YOU’RE INSTATWEETBOOKING EVERY GALLERY AND MONUMENT? IT’S ALMOST 4TH OF JULY, AND YOU’RE NOT HERE! ENJOY BEING “ON FLEEK” IN FOREIGN LANDS AND ABANDONING AMERICA! That’s BASICALLY TREASON. ALSO… get a better camera, OH WAIT YOU CAN’T IT’S AN IPHONE 4, YOUR PARENTS DON’T LOVE YOU, BYE JANET! BURN]
So here we are today. Streaming is the water all levels of listeners and audiophiles sip from.  The convenience of poppin open your Youtube (variable), Spotify (320 kbps), or – as of today – Apple Music app (256kbps) and hearing your jam instantly is unbeatable. That’s fair. However some of us dinosaurs still have the iPod Classic with a click-wheel (its 160 Gigs in the palm of my hand. Stream THAT).  We also load individual files to our iFuns (Pandora, and iTunes haven’t quite kept up with extensive catalogues of Young Thug, and Gucci Mane).  Whether it’s that, or putting together a dj set – the difference is definitely notable when your earphones or speakers puke out an .mp3 version of a mastered instrumentally dynamic album by D’Angelo, Kendrick Lamar, or Muse.  While streaming is still in its infancy (though growing fast), this is one of the main issues it is supposed to fix – raise music appreciation by fixing the audio quality for listeners.  We ALL LOVE the music. Whether we buy, stream, or steal illegally download it, that love remains steadfast. It’s how we treat and value it that is inexcusable today. So bloggers, new musicians, and online bootleggers – STOP POSTING MP3s for download! DEAD THAT.  Unless it’s the aforementioned thugger-thugger leak that will never land on iTunes or be worthy of higher mastering, consider it like the Zune laid to rest in the image above – DEAD.

Yours Musically,

-Audio African

FYFriday: Gucci Mane – “Dead People” (Ft. Raury)

Only Gucci can make carryin around cash loads sound like such an ominous burden.  But, as soon as the beat kicks in, you can’t help but hum along to his money-miseries.  Since it’s payday for many of y’all, we’re sure you can relate to the growing pains of voices in your head – tellin you to get this bread. Atlanta newcomer, Raury echoes the Trap God’s sentiments with a rapid-fire flow at the green-spirits. BURRR!