Side-effect of last week’s nasty sickness is my left ear is blocked so you get the mono review of PT’s new horn-blasted get-buck anthem. Pastor Troy is that guy inside your head who knows today is Friday and its time to unleash the fucking fury, like “maybe a half hour early you can dip out without the boss seeing you” over double-time hi-hats. It’s some of that tear-the-shit-up stuff you love, enveloping classic distrust for the law, that amped energy that balls up in yr chest and ends up unleashed from your volvo speakers in the sunshine, with all the distorted, ear-bleeding force of a thousand trumpets, like a drunk wiling out in the streets at T.I.’s coronation, or later that night under dim red lighting with with all the apocolyptic power of a couple top-popped 40s, people shaking their heads n dreads, swinging elbows and glancing around like they lost control, convulsing and bumping, the living incarnation of aggressive don’t-give-a-fuck. Then you wake up the next morning reeking of Kool smoke and some girl’s cheap perfume with cherubs revolving around your head singing sweet echoes of “PT Cruiser”‘s chorus in yr ear:
POLICE CANT BREAK IT UP, CAINT NO BOUNCERS BREAK IT UP…

Pastor Troy – Police Can’t Break It Up

(out tuesday)

A promo company finally sends us some music that doesn’t suck ass now if they could just stop emailing us about shit ass indie rock bands. Anyways here is the new single by A3 off Wreckshop Records’ upcoming Da Heavyweighters: Tilting the Scale compilation. The release date is suppose to be May 2nd but we’ll see if that goes down. The line up looks like some champed out texas shit. They got Slim Thug, ESG, Z-ro, Lil O, Mike D, and most of the Wreckshop family. If you don’t know about Wreckshop and you give shit about houston rap then you probably should check them since their line up includes Big Moe, Big Pokey, Ronnie Spencer, Tyte Eyes, A-3, Dirty Dolla, D-Gotti, Noke-D, and Fat Pat was on it before he died.

A3 – How We Act windows
A3 – How We Act real

While I’m posting up texas shit here is the new video from the DSR camp. The song features Fat B, Tum Tum, and Big Tuck. It’s a black & white video because they wanted to do something that had never been done before.

In The Hood

I slept through Southern Smoke 25. Had some awful sore throat but I drank last night anyway, and woke up this morning downing advil and living on green tea. So I’m spending another Friday night at home, bored and scalding my throat with hot drinks and saltwater, flipping through the new and improved Source, reading Matt’s Houston feature. And I got inspired to visit the rap-a-lot site. What do we have here:

Trae feat. HAWK and Pimp C – Swang remix

“Swang” was a laid back guitar-laced slow riding Houston anthem with a perfect video; the most memorable image is city lights sliding up the car hood, rolling in a cool, slow reflection of the song’s relaxed introspective guitar hook. The remix flips the beat, adding twinkling nighttime sparkles that shift the mood dramatically; it’s basically a new song, an even better fit for Trae’s graphite vocals. Gone is the melancholic, reflective nostalgia, replaced with uneasy chiming atmospherics, strange discordant uncertainty. Pimp C opens: “You got lots of friends when you’re up and when you’re ballin,” but he lets the obvious go unspoken; no mention how few folks went to see him when he was in prison, just cautioning haters because they know what’s coming. One of the better singles I’ve heard this year; when they reuse HAWK’s verse at the end it just sounds comfortable in this unsettling new setting.

this is jah, about five or six years ago

Father Jah – The Real feat. Shon D

There’s an off-chance that you know Jah from commandeering B. Gozza’s no-show 2000 Scribble Jam battle slot and making it to, I think, the finals. Otherwise, he’s been doing it for a while here in Louisville, at least a decade, pounding the pavement, selling blue cassette tapes downtown long before it was ‘revitalized’ for the yuppies and tourists. His crew, Unstopable Recordings (formerly Ya Boy Nem/Dem Nigguhz) plays out pretty regularly and has put out about a hundred tapes, CDs, and DVDs over the years. This is off his upcoming album, Philosophies of a Modern Day Mastermind. I’ve heard better from Jah and Unstopable but the last line — about how we’ll just have the Derby on Algonquin this year while the city government tries to ban Broadway “cruising” — completely redeems any other shortcomings.

*sic