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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While we continue to prep the relaunch of www.therootslive.com we have been given the blessing from Okayplayer to start posting up some highlights from The Roots’ weekly jam sessions right here, exclusively on AllTheWayLive (we’ll flesh out the content a bit more over at TheRootsLive when we relaunch later this year).  In the meantime, at the 4th installment of the jam series, the legendary kicked off one of the most ridiculous versions of Men @ Work ever performed.  The afrobeat was out in full force as Yoshi Takemasa and Luke O’Malley of the almighty Antibalas squad joined the mix, as well as ‘Moist’ Paula Henderson on baritone sax and Vernon Reid on guitar to lay down the vibe while Jaleel Bunton (TV On The Radio) and James Poyser joined Questlove on the drums (yes, 3 dudes on 1 drum kit) to bang out a ridiculous groove.  Kool G Rap has to be smiling somewhere right now.

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The Roots have been blessing NYC with incredible jam sessions at their weekly residency at Highline Ballroom.  These have been some of the best shows I’ve seen them do in their career (and this is coming from someone who’s seen them countless times).   At their most recent jam session, the 8th one of the residency thus far, tons of guests held them down including Pharoahe Monch, Skillz, Amanda Diva, Tiye Phoenix, Emilio Rojas and many more.  The evening was capped off by Dead Prez joining the foray with a rousing rendition of “Hip-Hop”, backed of course by The Legendary.  Keep in mind that all performances at The Jam are not rehearsed and played on the fly, on the spot… which just goes to show you how sharp The Roots are that they can jump into anything at any time.

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I have to show some love to Blitz The Ambassador here.  In case you don’t know, he’s a very talented young rapper originally from Ghana and has quickly become one of my favorite artists.  In addition to being a dope emcee/musician/producer, he has hands down one of the best live shows in hip-hop, backed by his band, the Mighty Embassy Ensemble.  He opened for Nas at Hunter College this past Friday and killed it despite some audio mix issues out of his control.  I included his performance of “Remembering The Future” from the show, as well as some awesome live videos from Blitz and a live download of “Kill The Radio” to boot.  Be on the lookout for his new album, Stereo Stereotype in stores August 4.

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