Damian and Stephen Marley often cover their father’s classics, but their rendition of Pimper’s Paradise has always been one of my favorites.  Unfortunately no surprise appearance by Black Thought at this show, but still a great performance.  Cant wait to see Damian and Nas are cooking up and you can be sure we’ll have tons of exclusive audio of the Rock The Bells tour this summer, which the duo are headlining.

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The Roots continue to be the best thing that ever happened to NYC musically with their weekly residency at Highline Ballroom (which was just extended through the end of 2009).  At the 5th installment of the jam session, aptly titled The Jam, one of New York’s hottest emcees blessed the stage.  Joell Ortiz has been killin it on the mixtape market (check out his latest Covers the Classics release) and his surprise appearance at The Jam was more than welcome.  While The Roots were in the middle of a jammed out version of Quills, Black Thought introduced the Slaughterhouse rapper to the stage to spit some crazy bars, and then fittingly do an acapella version of his tribute to The Roots (inspired by The Legendary’s What The Do).  You will have this on repeat for quite some time, guaranteed.

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Talib Kweli and Hi-Tek, fresh off  the Reflection Eternal reunion, did a string of shows at The Blue Note earlier this year (much like his buddy Mos Def did).  Backed by a live band, featuring Daru Jones on drums among others, the shows were fantastic and it was especially great to hear Hi-Tek’s beats performed by a dope live band.  But Tekzilla was no slouch at these shows as he was busy at work on a drum machine all night long.  While all the Train of Thought (and new songs) sounded great, one of the standouts personally was “Memories Live”.  The smooth, mellow vibes translated beautifully with added soulful, jazzy guitar licks providing another layer to the beat.  Reflection Eternal’s new album album, tentatively titled Trainspotting, is expected to hit shelves this summer.

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Yo, Black Thought, why don’t you show ‘em what kind of rhymes you got, money!  The Roots continue to absolutely destroy shit at NYC’s Highline Ballroom at their weekly residency.  This past week was the 10th installment of The Jam (aka The $10 Bill Show or my personal favorite, The Dimebag Show) and The Legendary jumped into a cover of Kool G Rap’s classic “Road To The Riches” and killed it.  How many other emcees are out there covering classic hip-hop like this and not missing a beat?  Other guest musicians on this performance are Maurice Brown on trumpet, Dave Fiuczynski on double-neck guitar, Ray Angry joining James Poyser on keys, and Yoshi Takemasa & Marcus Farrar of Antibalas holding down the percussion.

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We’re back with more from Wale’s show in NYC last week.  You already heard Kid Cudi’s surprise performance of Day N Nite here, and now we proudly present more exclusive recordings from the concert. First up is Wale doing a fantastic cover of Tribe’s “Electric Relaxation”, with some go-go flavor, as well as the first single off of his debut album, Attention:Deficit, “Chillin”.   Both sound great live with UCB and should hold you over until Back To The Feature finally hits the internet.

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Whenever Mos Def performs with The RCDC Experiment, its always a mesmerizing, incredible experience.  This was no exception as Mos Def took the stage at the illustrious Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. last year, backed not only by The RCDC Experiment, but also a 9 piece horns section and a 10 piece orchestra, collectively The Amino Alkaline Orchestra and Watermelon Syndicate.  The show was phenomenal, but my personal highlight was a performance of an unreleased song, “M.D. (Doctor)” played to the music of David Axelrod’s groovy “Holy Thursday” (one of my favorite songs and also sampled on Lil Wayne’s “Dr. Carter”).  Keeping the doctor theme, Mos’ lyrics expose the shady aspects of the medical world and questions the ethics of the industry… its powerful stuff.  Here we have an exclusive recording of the song being performed at The Kennedy Center from September 22nd, 2008 as well as audio and video of another rendition of the song from the Cape Town Jazz Festival from this past April courtesy of the good folks over at Frolab.

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Wale’s Attention: Defecit tour stopped by NYC tonight at Le Poisson Rouge and he and his band, UCB, tore it down for the sold out crowd.  About halfway through his set, he summoned Kid Cudi to the stage to kick off Day N Nite, backed by the band.  Here is an exclusive audio recording of the performance from the show.

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Street Sweeper Social Club, the new super group fearuting Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello and Boots Riley from The Coup, did a surprise opening set at The Roots Jam session at Highline Ballroom earlier this week.  The crowd was definitely caught by surprise, but we were delighted to see what they had cooked up.  Morello had his usual bag of tricks, including strumming while de-tuning to change pitches, using the guitar’s plug as a pick and playing off its feedback, etc.  The surprise of their set was a rock heavy cover of M.I.A.’s Paper Planes, included here for your listening pleasure.

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