Killer Mike might be the smartest rapper since the Genius. And although his namesake speaks to his rhyme ability, when he speaks, you don’t think about him rhyming. Lord SHR recently sat down with the conundrum that is Killer Mike and chopped it up about a number of things. That conversation is now available in the Mass Appeal TV player to your right. Oh, and on a related note, he got joints!

There may not have been more “love in the club” last year than when Justice’s D.A.N.C.E. used to drop. This time around, however, the real cool kids return with a clip for “Stress” with a bit less affection and a little more aggression. Révolution!

Ask any GTA IV player, if you can pull them away from the console, and they’ll tell you that Rockstar spared no expense to authenticate “Liberty City” for the game. In that grand attention to detail, they got Cope2 holding down the walls! Grandgood via Cope2

Words: Kel Murphy

If you’re in NYC, more likely than not you’ve been to a party where Melo-X has rocked. He’s opened for hip-hop heavyweights like Clark Kent and 9th Wonder, but for the self proclaimed “renaissance man,” spinning records is just the beginning. Besides moving the crowd via turntables, Brooklyn-born Melo raps, writes songs, photographs, produces and even pimps (yikes). At 22 years old, he cites J-Dilla and Erykah Badu as inspiration for his recent instrumental album, “Dusty Time Warped Vibes.” We recently caught up with the Jack-of-all-trades to talk about the project, why he dissed the Jay-Z on it, and how reggae vibes make him get damn near butt-naked.

Well, your buzz is growing and you’re past the basement bashments so how do you feel? I’m happy right now. I’m on the come up so I’m opening for the big DJs. I opened for DJ Clark Kent at Lotus. He killed it! 9th Wonder, that was crazy. DJ Premier was there. It was like 400 people and we doing it monthly.

So you produce, you write, photograph, DJ… I’m an MC too. I been rapping since 9 years old. The reason I started DJing was cause I was getting equipment to make beats and I got two turntables so I was like I might as well collect records, so I started collecting records to sample.

Wait, list off all the shit you do… DJ, MC, producer, audio engineer, photographer, graphic designer, writer…umm I guess thats it…part-time pimp too [Laughs]

Damn. OK so talk about the Time Warped Vibes album… Well, I was working on it, and it was gonna be a double album, an instrumental album and a regular album. When I heard the Erykah Badu album I was like ‘Yo, I need to put this shit out.’ So, I put all the old stuff I had from what the instrumental album was gonna be and I added some new stuff and I just put it out.

One joint that sticks out to me is “Fuck Jay.” [Laughs] A lot of people think that ‘Fuck Jay’ is Fuck J-Dilla cause the whole album is reminiscent of J-Dilla, but I heard the sample that Jay-Z had on “Roc Boys” and I wanted to get a sample like that to mess with but I couldn’t find anything. I ended up finding something else so that’s why I titled the song “Fuck Jay.” I don’t need that sample I got my own…

So you taking shots at the thrown already? [Laughs] Not shots at the thrown but shots at the sample.

You’re a pretty mellow dude, but I seen you get crazy at a ‘Rice And Peas’ party at Sway. You even took your shirt off! What was that about?! [Laughs] Yo, that doesn’t happen a lot cause I’m a scrawny dude!

Was it the vibes or the liquor? It was a combination of a whole lotta shit…a whole lotta fuckery as Jamaicans would say. But the reason that happened was [because] it reminded me of an old school Brooklyn basement bashment party…like those parties where you could bang the ceiling. It gets really hot so you gotta take your shirt off. That’s why I took my shirt off.

I didn’t go to the most recent one, was it crazy? I took my shirt off again!

For all things Melo-X visit melo-x.blogspot.com

Unlike the little homie who sells Jordans at your local Footlocker, skate shop workers are usually able to use their kicks for what they were meant for.  Check out some footy from a couple of Jersey shops competing at the recent Shields Skatepark Showdown.

Besides being the birthday of the legendary James Brown (The Godfather!), this Saturday May 3rd, there is another event worth celebrating. Fuse gallery plays host to Sweet City Woman, an all female art show featuring esteemed graf artist and former Mass Appeal art director, Queen Andrea. Fuse is located at 92 2nd Ave between 5th and 6th streets.

In the wake of the acquittal of the police involved in the Sean Bell shooting, a lot of rappers have had a lot to say. But where are the doers? Of those thoroughly disappointed by the trial’s outcome, the Game strikes me as someone who just might end up on the front lines. Check him out addressing the situation from what looks like a pretty dope video shoot after the click through.

In a recent interview with MTV, the ever enigmatic Weezy F. revealed some details from the heavily anticipated Carter III.

“I’m not gonna have skits on the album. [The different versions of ‘A Millie’] will be where the skits would be,” he explained. “It’s gonna be like I’m calling home and the person who’s on that track is gonna be, like, inside Tha Carter at that time. Only people I put on there is all new artists — artists I think is gonna be in this music sh– for a long time. Tyga, Corey Guns, Hurricane Chris, Lil Mama — it’s gonna be ill. On the video, I’m introducing my artist, Lil Chucky. He’s 13 years old. He’s hot in the South. He’s got his own part for ‘A Millie’ too.”

With the exception of Hurricane Chris, I’ve almost forgotten all of these artists since reading that sentence. Now its not uncommon that artistic genius implodes on itself to where as said artist is completely out of touch with even his fans, but the question here was probably best posed by the Wayne himself; is he “Crazy for being Wayne, or is Wayne just crazy?”

You can easily be the rawest dude in the club if you hop out in a pair of these classic leathers. And if not, just bust a windmill during the old school set and accidently kick anyone in the face who tried to play you. Wait, you can break-dance right?

I knew the GTA IV hype was serious, but is the game worth losing a job for? We’ll have the answer for that and many more questions on Tuesday, but in the meantime, dudes have been getting bagged left and right for snagging a copy from stores’ shipments. The best part is, they’re only taking one copy each. They’re not flipping them, they just wanna have it early! Once again, Biggie’s words ring as true as ever: UPS, is indeed hiring.