Tuesday, April 14, 2009

"UNDERGROUND 2 MAINSTREAM" Your NEW Source For Hip Hop Entertainment!!!

"UNDERGROUND 2 MAINSTREAM" Your NEW Source For Hip Hop Entertainment!!!

Elephant Man "Badmind Alleluia" Video

Posted: 14 Apr 2009 04:21 PM PDT

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Joe Budden "Excess" Video

Posted: 14 Apr 2009 02:39 PM PDT

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Wisin Y Yandel Ft 50 Cent "Mujeres In The Club" Video

Posted: 14 Apr 2009 02:35 PM PDT

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Chamillionaire "Maybach Music" Freestyle & Video

Posted: 13 Apr 2009 05:50 PM PDT

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Soundtracker Ali D Brings Hip Hop To Hollywood

Posted: 13 Apr 2009 05:08 PM PDT

IN a movie script, a "beat" is a moment of pause. Not for Ali Dee. He's dropping beats - as in, hip-hop beats - all over Tinseltown's biggest blockbusters.

The 38-year-old has written and produced original music for dozens of hit movies, including "Transformers," "Night at the Museum" and "Alvin and the Chipmunks" (whose soundtrack went platinum and won Ali a 2008 American Music Award).

Born Ali Dee Theodore and raised on the Upper East Side, the son of celebrated Broadway dancer and choreographer Lee Theodore, Ali started out with ballet lessons and touring as a 12-year-old with his mom's dance company. Then he found break dancing and rap, and a career in hip-hop was born.

@Work sat down with Ali at DeeTown headquarters in Chelsea, to find out how an old-school hip-hopper wound up writing songs for animated chipmunks.

Your career begins with rap, but the entry to rap was break dancing?

Yeah, and of all people, it was my mom who introduced me to it. She came into my room with a videocassette of two guys dancing and said, "I don't know what this is, but I want you to study it." This was, like, '83, before it hit. I made friends with a couple of guys up in East Harlem. I'd take the bus up and we'd go dance in the courtyard at the 116th Street projects.

How did you transition into rap?

First thing was a boombox, of course. I was going to Professional Children's School on West 60th Street, and while I was there I formed a rap group called the Park Avenue Rappers.

I dropped out midway through my senior year. They said I had to repeat 12th grade, so I emptied my locker, went home and said, "Pops, you've got to trust me. I know what I want to do. Give me six months." I started a new group called the Next School, we cut a demo, shopped it and got a record deal with Chrysalis. Next thing you know, we're co-hosting "Yo, MTV Raps."

When did your reputation as a beatmaster come into the mix?

I co-produced the Next School record and started getting work as a writer/producer for Motown, for Warner Bros. Everything was rooted in hip-hop, but it started getting a little more polished, mainstream.

How did you get into doing movies?

While I was signed as a writer/producer for Universal, their film and TV department started noticing my material, and it started getting little placements. One was in "Pleasantville," one in "American Pie 2." I'd get a check for, like, $18,000 for 18 seconds of screen time. I'm thinking, this could pretty nice.

When did you decide to go into business for yourself?

In 2001, it was time to renegotiate my deal at Universal, and I thought it was time to go for it. I cold-called every music supervisor, production company and Hollywood studio, and told them I was their guy for any genre. Six months passed without a call.

Then I get a call on my cellphone from the 310, an LA number. It's the guy who licensed my song in "American Pie 2." He's making a movie called "Big Fat Liar," and tells me, "My back's against the wall. I need four songs by tomorrow, and I only have $7,500 apiece." I set the phone down and look up at the sky and whisper, "Thank you."

A few weeks later, someone calls from Ice Cube's new movie, and he needs an opening title song. So, bang. It was just word of mouth. By the third year, it took off.

What's an average day like for you?

Right now we're working on "Alvin 2." I've got six production rooms, and 10 people coming in full time. It's like a manufacturing plant. We might hum a groove, and someone will go off and lay down a bass line. Then he'll hand it off and someone will add keyboards, and we'll start on another. We'll probably record 200 songs for that movie, and 18 will make it in. Ninety percent will be Chipmunks singing. That's us, by the way, not the stars. We'll sing everything at half-speed and then speed it up for the chipmunk effect. It's kind of funny. I'll take a call from high-level executives at Fox, and they'll ask, "So, what do the Chipettes sound like?" This is my job.

Nas calls For Unity In Hip Hop

Posted: 13 Apr 2009 05:06 PM PDT

The Streets Is Talking: News & Notes From The Underground


Nas!!! Rocking that Mets gear, repping for Queens. Esco is about to go on tour and put out an album with Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley called Distant Relatives in June. Meanwhile, the QB rap legend is sounding masterful on guest appearances such as Rick Ross' "Usual Suspects" and Jadakiss' "What If."

On the Jadakiss record, Nas raps, "What if I was just another corny rapper?/ What if I went first instead of Notorious?/ Who would tell my story after?" It's both a morbid and provocative question. We asked Nas to answer it himself.

"You never know [who would talk about my legacy]," he said in L.A. during the Rock the Bells press conference. "That's why we make a song like that."

Nas also said that he and Marley picked their album title because "we're all related. We're all in the human family. We gotta act like family sometimes. It's good to acknowledge your family. It's a crazy world out here. Sometimes it gets separated, it gets segregated. We gotta remember what this is about." ...

at 5:04 PM