Semantik

Black Milk, Elzhi, DJ House Shoes On J Dilla + Detroit Hip-Hop

A must see interview for production fans… Black Milk, Elzhi, and DJ House Shoes provide an interview discussing Tronic, the Detroit music scene, the origins of Dilla’s distinctive production style and the influence he held over other regional producers.  DJ House Shoes, Black Milk, and Elzhi also address bandwagon Dilla fans, opportunistic tributes, and other … Read more

Q-Tip On The Deprecation of Hip-Hop Music

Q-Tip delivers a strong dose of common sense and his point of view on the depreciation of Hip-Hop music in this interview supporting his recent release The Renaissance.  It’s a nice idea to think that everyone taking part in Hip-Hop actually cares about the artform, but somehow I get the feeling that this message is … Read more

DJ Q-Bert’s Skratch University Set For Launch

DJ Q-Bert of ThudRumble has partnered with ArtistWorks, Inc to create Skratch University, which will be an online tutorial/video learning site dedicated to teaching turntablists worldwide the art of scratching.   Skratch University will take the community approach to learning through video submissions with Q-Bert stating, "It’s cool that Skratching has so many fans around the … Read more

DJ Clark Kent On Blogging, Politics, And Nike Consulting

"Think about the people who are sitting around with all of that time on their hands to get on a computer just to listen to songs instead of having something else to do…"

A pretty tough statement for all of the new artists looking to leverage new promotional tools and fans tired of having mediocre music shoved down their throats by radio and television.  I get the feeling that Clark Kent is forgetting that not everyone has access or even the desire to access traditional outlets.

It’s obvious from Clark Kent’s references to music theft and stealing that he alread holds a negative view of online music distribution and promotion.  However, the fact remains that the music industry is changing and desperately needs to adopt new revenue models.

Part 2 after the jump.

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War Is Over! Musically Speaking

Musically speaking… War Is Over!  At least that’s the case for students at the University of Arizona, Tucson area where I’m told these posters are popping up.  Created with the intention of being a thought provoking statement for viewers to find their own meaning, there’s obviously much that’s open to individual interpretation. What does meaning … Read more

DJ Premier x Ludacris In Studio For Theater of The Mind

Hold on to your turntables and get ready to make a dash for you samplers… DJ Premier steps in studio with Ludacris.  In this clip DJ Premier rips apart a Ludacris vocal snippet with his classic cuts and goes on to talk about Luda’s standing in the history of MC’ing.

DJ Shiftee VS DJ Nelson At DMC Battle

Apparently somewhat of a controversy ensued from the judging of DJ Nelson’s win against DJ Shiftee.  Obviously everyone has an opinion, but what’s yours?  Who should have won the battle?

Dynamic Producer ATL 2009 Winter Conference

Here’s a chance to duck the winter cold and spend a couple of days networking, attending industry panels, showcases, competitions.  The Dynamic Producer conferences tend to receive mostly postive feedback from its attendees, so this may a good opportunity of for a quick regional event. January 16th and 17th Registration: $75 Panels include: Dynamic Producer … Read more

Rsonist/Heatmakerz Beat Making + Freestyle Studio Session

Rsonist of the Heatmakerz takes through the construction of a quick instrumental in order to showcase sample looping, keyboard work, and drum layering utilizing his Akai MPC 4000 sampler/sequencer.  Warning:  The track creation portion of the video is enlightening, but after 2:45 it deteriorates into a typical lackluster freestyle session.