You would have thought that spoofs of “gangsta rappers” were played out (or at least that the genius of Fear of a Black Hat made them irrelevant). But I have to admit, I was laughing mad hard at parts of this, especially from 7:25 onwards. The way the dude plays Rock Band is utterly insane.

Royce Da 5′9″ goes in on this Premo beat. As my man The Wise said to me, “It’s nice to hear a song called ‘Shake This’ that’s not about bums.” Looking forward to the Rik Cordero video.

I known Ruff and Gritz since we was babies / So when we meet up, we’re thick like gravy…

— The Wize, “Community Initiative”

Getting sick of that David Banner song and realizing that the new Kanye album is going to be the most self-indulgent and wack album of all time? Time to get with something new: Community Spirit, the debut EP from the Community League. Click the art to download—it’s the best album since sliced bread!

Who is the Community League? CL is a transatlantic hip-hop collective consisting of Springfield, MA’s Special Opps and a trio of British lads (The Wize and producers DJ Thundercat and Jokes) from Oxfordshire, England. It is also an extended family that believes that there’s nothing better than some good rap music, a round of Guinness, and the company of friends. We’ve had some great times hitting up shows in the Shire and plotting League domination in my college dorm room, and it’s been a pleasure to wake up to new music in my inbox and tales of hip-hop adventures over the past few years. I’m extremely proud of endless hours that went into this and the pure love of music that motivated it. Don’t sleep on the League.

Hard copy (the album sleeve alone is worth the cost—shout out to davidwhitepond)

Digital download

Over the past few weeks, we’ve discussed the death of “music television” and the movement of music videos to online formats. It used to be that every new video “premiered” on MTV/BET, but these days debuts happens all over the place. The Weezer “Troublemaker” video premiered at Yahoo! Music, and Kanye West’s video for “Love Lockdown”—the hauntingly poppy lead single of his forthcoming 808s & Heartbreak album—gave its “world exclusive” to the Ellen show. Seriously!?

What’s going on when a “hip-hop” artist premieres his video on the daytime talk show of a white lesbian? Maybe it’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Hip-hop is truly mainstream—even stay-at-home moms and homosexuals like it! Maybe ‘Ye is trying to pull an Obama and win over that middle-aged female demographic in anticipation of his album release. Or maybe the music industry is truly grasping at straws.

But I digress. Hit the jump to peep the video, and we’ll discuss why Kanye’s American Psycho swagger-jacking fails to inspire.

Switched deodorants to Old Spice Swagger today. Results pending.

My boy Nate just dropped this video. Check it out, and hit the jump for some top jokes from Barack and McCain.

I have an odd relationship with the fruit vendor who holds down the corner of 89th and Lexington, near my place of work in New York City. I cop bananas from him maybe once or twice a week, but his behavior and level of familiarity are extremely erratic. Sometimes he spies me coming from a distance and engages me in jocular conversation. Sometimes he completely ignores me. When we do exchange currency for fruit, he acts as if we are doing a literal drug deal, looking toward the horizon and nonchalantly counting out my change as if we weren’t actually even interacting with one another. One time I was rocking an England jersey and he said, “What jersey is that?” “England,” I replied. No follow-up question! This man is interested in nothing more than the facts!

Anyway, a couple weeks ago I was walking by in my fresh-ass new Idiom Packable Down Vest and he got really amped. “What colors do you have in that?” I explained that I just had the one I was wearing. I am not a Burton vendor, after all! He said he wanted one. After a brief negotiation, he agreed to give me a banana a day for 10 YEARS if I gave him the vest.

Clearly, this bloke is pretty shrewd. He knows that I know that I won’t be cruising around the Upper East Side during business hours for the next ten years (at least I hope not). Still, for however long it lasts, it’d be pretty sick to grab a free banana every single day.

What do you think. Is this a FAIR TRADE BANANA??

Wall St. is burning. The markets are going crazy. In these dark days, only the strong (or those favored by the government) can survive. AIG was too big to fail. Freddie Mac was too big to fail. What about you?

If you refuse to let a recession stop your shine, rock the tee shirt and rep the movement. Visit www.biggerthanthebank.com to order.

So yeah, I made these tee-shirts in hopes of funding the “Canal Street Bailout Plan.” That’s right, I’m pumping all proceeds straight into 15-minute foot rubs, pirated mixtapes, and street signs that say “Fuhgeddaboudit”! What was my inspiration for this remarkable product and its noble cause? Read the story after the jump.

After the demise of TRL, it was only a matter of time until Rap City pulled the plug. Now, it’s official. I’d be a hypocrite to get upset at the network, because I honestly haven’t tuned in to an episode for at least two years. Still, October 29 will still be a sad day. During my junior year of high school when I got tendinitis in my knees and couldn’t play sports, I used to go home and watch Big Tigga every afternoon. This was in 2000, before YouTube—let alone MTV Jams—began to make the “appointment viewing” of music videos irrelevant. It was also well before I became an “adult” who could not watch TV in the middle of the afternoon.

As far along in the show’s 21-season run as I watched, there was something almost stoic in Rap City’s refusal to adapt and revamp its platform. When it moved to “the basement,” the ill-lit room, cramped turntable set-up, and makeshift freestyle booth gave the show a gritty yet welcoming public access quality. When I was first getting into hip-hop, that vibe resonated with my relationship with the music. I didn’t listen to it in a glitzy studio overlooking Times Sq.—I listened alone on the couch, sometimes with my brother, sometimes while throwing down ridiculous dunks on my Little Tikes hoop. In the mid-90s, Joe Clair might as well have been in our basement, literally.