Common hosted a benefit concert in Los Angeles this weekend with an all-star line up featuring tons of incredible special guests.  This was like an unofficial sequel to Dave Chappelle’s Block Party as the line-up of artists was boasted by Common, The Roots, De La Soul, Ludacris, Nas, Kanye West, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, MF Doom, Queen Latifah, Heavy D and more.  If that wasn’t good enough, a mixture of The Roots and Common’s band backed everyone throughout the night.  Our newest addition to the staff, AudioMuse, was in the building to record the event exclusively for ATWL.  You’ll be hearing a lot more from her in the coming weeks, but in the meantime, check out more than a dozen of our exclusive recordings from this incredible event, as well as some video footage from the evening.

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Everyone’s favorite summer hip-hop super tour finally landed in New York as Jones Beach was home to Rock The Bells this weekend.  The highlight of the day was clearly Damian Marley and Nas, performing together, in support of their highly anticipated upcoming album, Distant Relatives.  The duo premiered a handful of new songs from the project, which all sound amazing so far, but the most impressive was “Africa Must Wake Up”, which fittingly features Somalian-born rapper, K’Naan.  I’ve had Damian’s catchy and beautiful hook stuck in my head ever since the show, and you most likely will as well after the jump.  Rastafarianism! (c) Ras Trent.

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The Beastie Boys brought out Nas as a special guest during their set at Bonnaroo to premiere “Too Many Rappers”, which features the Queensbridge rapper and is on their new album, The Hot Sauce Commitee Part 1, which is due out September 15.  Its a bit unfortunate that this performance has Nas’ verses on the beat Mix Master Mike spins instead of a pure instrumental as its always strange when an emcee is rapping over his own voice on wax.  Still, the track sounds hot and I’m definitely looking forward to the album this fall.

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