I still haven’t figured out my ideal series of punctuations for titling these iLL-events…does the one above seem to work?  Let’s hope so.  Anyway, come out on Friday!  The good people of Hyphen Magazine are coming out to NYC for the first time for their album launch!  I’ll be there to see the homies Blue Scholars and Magnetic North & Taiyo.  There goes another confusing punctuation thing.  My unplugging process is turning against me!!

Facebook | Cop Tickets

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Positive thoughts out to Guru‘s family and friends.  Despite the controversy surrounding the months leading up to the passing of Gangstarr’s Guru today, I’d like to take a moment to recognize the man as a staple in our generation’s culture.  Perhaps not the most conspicuous in the hip-hop community, but surely one that demanded undeniable respect.  Rise in peace, Guru.

Guru ft. Herbie Hancock “Timeless”

Guru ft. Blue Scholars & Common Market “The Game Needs Me”

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Not just saying this because they’re the homies, but Blue Scholars hands down made the best hip-hop performance I saw at SXSW this year.  The duo returns with a new montage video of all things future, not-so-subtly inserting themselves in the loop.  Who can blame them though?  The future ain’t what it used to be, but the Scholars keep pushing forward.

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How ironic is it that the homie Bambu is putting out a video for a song called “Slow Down,” after clearly establishing that he can put out shit much faster than I’ve been able to blog them?  Alas, the man is prolific beyond words.  This time your boy Prometheus Brown from Blue Scholars joins him which, all in all, creates a whooooole lot of FUNipino goodness!  Yes. Everything is about race.

Via Phatty

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Not sure if it’s snowing in Seattle right now, but if it looks even remotely close to how it does here in BK, it makes sense why a man as busy as Prometheus Brown would feel so inclined to rummage through Fox News and his old Sade records simultaneously.  Glad he did though, as it results in a new piece of hotness in (dis)honor of our favorite talking head Michelle Malkin.  Oh, those eyes…those eyes.  Hey Michelle, what’s good with an internship???

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Download:

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A live-video-chat jam-session over the internets. Yes, we know. You had this idea yourself. But guess what? You didn’t do it. Dumbfoundead did. He wins, you lose. And by you, I mean me. (Prometheus Brown)

Ditto.

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Whether you call him Geologic or Prometheus Brown (I call him Zoo), one thing we can all agree on is that the vocal (at least onstage) half of Blue Scholars is doooooope!  The man has just unleashed a collection of features and b-sides on his blog.  Free music Friday?  Hellllzzz yeahhhhh.

Hear the tracks at Pro Brown’s Blog

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aweoifjawe;fwlifjo;rjes;ojf;eroigje;orjfaeo;ofijaew;oifj!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We just got invited to be official artists in SXSW, one of the largest music conferences in the country!  Okay, I know hundreds of bands get accepted every year, but being that only a handful of hip-hop acts are accepted, it’s an absolute honor to be among that…I guess going last year under the radar and walking around like a bunch of lost ducklings paid off!

Last year featured a slew of artists across the board, including Janelle Monáe, Kid Cudi, Ebony Bones, Keelay and Zaire, Kanye West, Big Boi, Blue Scholars…hell, even Third Eye Blind!

For a virtually unknown group with no label backing, being invited to SXSW is a big deal.  Thank you to everyone who’s ever come to a show or downloaded a song, every college organizer who’s ever booked us, and all the fam and friends we’ve met throughout the world.  We’re still building from the ground up, and these small victories are definitely appreciated wholeheartedly.

SXSW’s music conference takes place March 17-21, 2010.  SEE YOU IN AUSTIN!!!!!!!!!

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6 days til iB4the1.1!!!!

Yesterday I presented to you the concept of the EPK – a quick video meant to introduce yourself to strangers without having to accept candy and enter their black Oldsmobiles.  Today I’m pleased to introduce our brand new press kit!

A press kit and an EPK serve generally the same purpose, except one is more ADHD oriented than the other, depending on whether you read very slowly or have a terrible internet connection.  There are benefits and fallbacks to both – while an EPK allows for the viewer to get an informative and personal summary of your work, a press kit allows for you to go into way more detail than a several-minute video.  It’s hard to predict whether people, press, and bookers prefer one or the other, so why not create both!

Press kits are PDF documents that vary in length and style, but key aspects include:
(click images to enlarge or download the whole thing HERE)

1. Your bio

2. Descriptions of your work

3. Discography

4. Press articles and quotes

6. List of past shows

7. Contact and booking info

[Click HERE to download the whole thing]

To build a press kit, I recommend using a publishing program, preferably Adobe InDesign.  But others that can make something equally magnificent are Quark, Microsoft Publisher, and very clever usage of Microsoft Word.

Once again, it’s a very self-involved process, and since one of the main challenges artists often have is writing their own bios, I always recommend having someone else whip one up for you (plus, the Adriels know that talking about themselves in third person makes them go crazyyyyyy). Because people sometimes don’t like to navigate through websites and wait for Myspace pages or videos to load in order to learn about you, a press kit allows for them to flip through at their own speed, and focus on the aspects that matter to them.

We’ve been using press kits primarily for bookings since the beginning, even when we were a student organization and my design skills were limited to Microsoft Word text boxes, but they’ve always been one of our most vital aspects, sometimes even more so than this here website.

Here’s something fun and somewhat embarrassing…a history of our press kits, from the very first through the current!  Don’t laugh.  I’ll probably never show these the light of day again.

(2003-04)

(2004-05)

(2005-06)

(2006-07)

(2007-08)

(2008-09)

(Spring 2009)

(2009-10)

THERE!  Now you know our whole lives.  And also how long it took me to learn Photoshop.  But of course we’re not the standard, and though I’m running this series of how to do stuff we do, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we know what we’re doing.  So here are some (somewhat outdated) press kits from other artists!

Blue Scholars | J*Davey | Janelle Monáe | Slick Corea

Make sure to look at the last one…it’s siiiiiiick and basically represents the design that I’m forever aspiring for…in life.

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The homie Keelay was in town a couple of weeks ago for CMJ, and bunched together with Papa Lo, Geologic, Jern-Eye, and several shots of $4 tequila we found ourselves stumbling around a trance club with umbrellas and tiny plush tigers.  We FOCUSED, MAYN(!!)  Here’s a new video of the good man at work with more compadrés including Thurzday of U-N-I and Tunji of Inverse.

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