French Hip-Hop

As many of you may or may not have heard, French Hip-Hop is doing incredibly big things for our culture and its music keeping the purest form of it alive, bringing a flavor of the utmost authenticity. This video is a living testament to how amazingly talented the individuals of that nation really are.

I hope you enjoy this vid and perhaps some of you may even learn a thing or two. I can't wait till I go to France, because I'd rather be a somebody over there, than a nobody over here with big aspirations. I dedicate this to all the true heads out there keeping the culture alive and well just as the man in this video.

Peace,

Scarlem D

Canadian Hip Hop

Here's a song by a Canadian Hip-Hop artist whom most of you have never heard of. His name is Mathematik and he hails from Scarborough, ON just like I do. The song is entitled UPRISE and was a single off of his first album entitled ECOLOGY. Mathematik, or Math was and I think always will be Canada's best kept secret, the other one being a songstress from Toronto, Canada called Esthero.

Check the video out and leave your comments. It was done at a time when hip-hop was very conscious and is in my opinion one of the illest hip-hop tracks of all time. If you really listen to how Math breaks it down on the mic you will agree with me that he is definately one of the illest MCs of all time. If you haven't heard his music before then I definately recommend that you get your hands on a copy of his first LP ECOLOGY as well as the 2004 follow-up entitled NO DIVISION. Ecology is better in my opinion however, and I hope you enjoy getting a real taste of what Canadians have to offer.

I'll be posting some of my own material at a later time.

Peace!

Skate Videos Used To Have Good Music

Throughout my many years of skateboarding I've discovered a lot of different artists that I still love to listen to today while watching skate videos. I think it's evident to point out that there is no visible spectrum between the likes and the dislikes of music by various cultures.

It seems to me that we're reliving the 1980's all over again as absolutely everyone is guilty of listening to shitty music nowadays. That is not to say that skateboarding has been tarnished by poor skateboarding skills however, the kids are getting better and better by the day. They do however lack that extra oomph, that extra soul factor that a lot of the really big greats always had since the beginning (i.e. Tom Penny, Danny Way, Gino Iannucci, Guy Mariano, Keenan Milton, Eric Koston, Chad Muska, Rodney Mullen, etc, etc, etc). They're good, really good even, but not quite the same as the O.G.s were.

The same could be said about the music nowadays, it's not that it's bad, it's just an even more worse version of the shit that was mediocre and came out 20 some years ago.

Here is an example of a video where the dude is a living legend. His name's Guy Mariano and he's filmed about 3 video parts in the past two decades. He's had a video part in Powell/Peralta's "BAN THIS", which was released in 1989 and featured a way ahead of its time part of Frankie Hill, a Chad Muska of his generation. He's had a full length video part in Girl Skateboard Company's film entitled "MOUSE", which features an all funk/jazz/retro soundtrack and is so good I decided to post the video of it in my blog.

He also has a full length part in the recently released full length feature from Lakai Footwear entitled "Fully Flared". The Fully Flared part is just as good, if not even better than his part in MOUSE, however, for the sake of the argument about the quality music and quality of skate videos, I would have to say that Guy Mariano's Par in MOUSE can dust anyone's video parts that have been comin' out in the new millenium (Rodney Mullen's and Daewon Song's not withstanding).

I hope you enjoy the video and I hope you enjoy the song. The flick came out in 1997 and is outstanding if you haven't seen it before, and the song is "Watermelon Man" as performed by Herbie Hancock.

Ah, the good ol' days...