Asita Recordings

We like Pam Grier, Red Stripe, the sound and the smell of records, mixtapes,the SF Giants, analog synths, McCovey Cove, Lanikai at night, and San Francisco's indian summer.

Friday, December 30, 2005

Ex-Vandalz 12" feat PerkOne, Deeskee,Bleek,Ellay Khule, Raaka, Exist, Xololanxinxo and more!



The new Ex Vandalz 12" EP Industry Standard is available at la2thebay.com now! It will be coming to the Asita Store soon. Joe has a beat on the track "Rally Ex" featuring Exist, Khule, and Xinxo...but really the whole thing is banging. Check out full length clips here:

http://www.myspace.com/exvandalz


tracklist includes

Industry Standard Deeskee remix
featuring Raaka Irsicience of Dilated Peoples and 2MEX of the Visionaries
produced by deeskee


Rally Ex
featuring Existereo of the Shapeshifters, Ellay Khule of the Hip Hop Kclan and Xololanxinxo of Of Mexican Descent and was produced by Joe Dub

Industry Standard
featuring Raaka Iriscience of Dilated Peoples and was produced by Vyente Ruffin, Perk One and Edward Vernon

Style Messiahs
featuring Meck One, Bleek, and K984 of the C2D Crew

Freshmen
featuring DJ Lime, L.O.R.D. and Recworm of the Smashpop Collective

Hubcaps and Mudflaps
featuring Bleek, Awol One and Akuma of The Shapeshifters

American Graffiti
produced by Meck One and Lars Weiss

plus instrumentals of Industry Standard remix and Style Messiahs

Friday, December 02, 2005

PE Producer Hank Shocklee video diary



Bomb Squad
founding member and Public enemy producer,Hank Shocklee, drops knowledge on a group at the Red Bull Music Academy in Seattle. Good footage that probes a bit deeper than the normal interview, exploring topics of sampling techniques, equipment, and the pros and cons of digital vs. analog recording. Yeah, I didn't know that Red Bull was in the business of making music either.


"Back to level 2 with a seriously inspirational lecture from the Bomb Squad’s Hank Shocklee, the man that brought the world one of the most legendary Hip-Hop acts of all time – Public Enemy. ‘Public Enemy #1’ intro-ed the session, and from the very first beat everyone knew they were in for a very special session indeed. Hank gave us the lowdown on how primitive techniques were back then, and for that ongoing debate on which is better: “Digital is a photocopy of analogue…you’d need at least 12 Mac G5’s to get even close to giving you that Neve board sound.” Gordon Ramsey fans will be pleased to know that making a great Hip-Hop beat is like baking a cake – ‘Impeach The President’ is the milk “some James Brown shit is your eggs.” Here ya go, expect some blazin’ Sara Lee MF Doom collab’s coming to an mp3 blog near you. Hank explains: “I like dark music, I like music that makes me feel depressed… I like music that when I hear it, it makes me feel like the baddest motherfucker walking down the street…I would look for sounds that sounded like I could jump off a building, that I could smack everyone upside, not that I’m violent. I just like these sounds,” he grins. “I don’t wanna make music that you listen to, I wanna make records that MOVE you. I was at a P.E gig at Madison Square and when ‘Rebel…’ broke out, shit just went crazy. I saw kids mugging, running round acting all crazy and I was like damn that’s the shit, there wasn’t no fight that broke out, kids were just mad hyped on the vibe of the tune”. He went on to say “I wanted to make dudes on the block feel energized at 3am, something to keep them awake and alert to keep them on their hussle at the time of the morning, and I wanted to create a state of emergency. Politically it was chaos, times was fucked up, and I wanted the music to make people be on guard, ready for when shit went off”. He parted with these words of wisdom “You gotta have a why?. If you’re making music you gotta have that. Why are you doing this? If you can’t answer that question then get out, get out now. Biggie and Jigga had a why. You ask them why they got into this they’ll tell you “We doin’ it for the bitches and the money dawg…” It might not be the right reason, but they still got a ‘why.’” What a legend. After the session ended, it seemed more than a half of, if not everyone inside couldn’t believe what they had just witnessed. Arial from Israel commented “I can’t believe I am in the same room as this man, his music means so much to me”, even one of tomorrow’s guests, Vancouver’s techno wunderkid Mr Mathew Jonson concurred “Man, I’ve spent more time listening to Public Enemy more than any other music ever, is doesn’t get much better than this”. [ watch it already! ]

Stay Free interview with Chuck D and Hank Shocklee
Red Bull Music Academy
Hank Shocklee discography
Bomb Squad discography

Thursday, December 01, 2005

unedited E-40 interview in Fader


"I’m a legend, but I stay H and H, hungry and humble."

A great interview with the one and only Forty Fonzarelli a.k.a E-40 courtesy of Fader Magazine. He talks about his upcoming album with Lil Jon "Ghetto Report Card" and the long existing relationship between Bay rap and Southern crunk music.

"F33 features a massive article on Untold Hip-Hop Moments, and included with all the memories and unearthed archival photography are three new interviews with E-40, Ghostface and Bun-B. We're going to run the full, unedited transcripts from each of these interviews this week on thefader.com, starting off with some words from the slang thesaurus himself, Forty Water." [read...]

Fader Magazine