Looking to use some Amazon credit we scored over the holidays, we flirted with the idea of finally picking up an album that we’ve long coveted: Sean Price‘s ultra-rare Donkey Sean Jr. mixtape, which features the oft-remixed (and eternally amazing) “60 Bar Dash.” Lo and behold, however, we’re not the only folks with such ideas […]
Tags:economics·hip-hop·music·Sean Price
Hopefully y’all are far away from the screen today, though we certainly know what it’s like to labor for a heartless boss who shrugs his shoulders at MLK Jr. Day. If you’re toiling for a paycheck today, please take a 2:42 respite to enjoy El Michaels Affair’s take on “C.R.E.A.M.” (above). Live version featuring Raekwon […]
This morning’s news that Teddy Pendergrass has passed on comes just months after we first started to discover his silky genius. For years, we considered Teddy Bear the epitome of old-person music, and rarely listened to the records of his that we’d somehow accumulated over the years. (When you’re a vinyl geek, you have a […]
We’re gonna use the khan’s prerogative to spend the rest of today on our ongoing Secret Major Project™. In our brief absence, please take a few seconds to check out Big Daddy Kane at his finest. While we may heartily disagree with his eschewment of escargot and the word “rendezvous,” we can scarcely deny that […]
Tags:Big Daddy Kane·hip-hop·housekeeping·Michael Jackson·music
We’re in the midst of trying to close two Wired pieces, including the gargantuan epic that took us out to Kenya last fall. More soon, honest—in the meantime, a sonic rarity worthy of your highly valued ears.
We were all set to do a last “Best of Oh Nine” installment on music, but events have intervened—namely a surprise blizzard here in Atlah, coupled with pressing Microkhan Jr. oversight duties. You can, of course, rifle through the sounds that echoed through our cranium in 2009 by checking out our “Music” tag; Lord knows […]
Upon recently hearing the classic Super Cat track “Scalp Dem” on WeFunk, we were reminded of a curious incident in dancehall history: Super Cat’s resurrection from the dead. Okay, perhaps it wasn’t quite as dramatic as alll that. But back in May of 1997, the wire services ran a story stating that Super Cat had […]
Tags:Cambodia·dancehall·Kate Webb·Michael Apted·music·religion·Super Cat·Vietnam War
Perhaps you think our khanic nature means that we’re firm believers in Tengriism, and thus won’t be sitting around the Christmas tree come Friday morning. But that’s not the case at all—while we do have a soft spot for Umay, we’re also big on the holiday spirit. Christmas will be roundly celebrated up here in […]
Tags:Christmas·Genghis Khan·hip-hop·holidays·housekeeping·music·Y'all So Stupid
Our pressing Wired deadline hits in exactly four hours for now, so we’re scrambling. Thanks for putting up with our relative lack of thoughtlessness these past few days—we’ve had to dedicate the bulk of our mental bandwidth to Kenya-related matters, for the good of the whole Microkhan crew. As we lean for the finish-line tape, […]
Pressing Wired deadline, so we’re checking out for a spell. Enjoy the above in our absence; we’ll return as soon as we sort out these monster edits.
Tags:hip-hop·housekeeping·music
In our never-ending quest to improve Microkhan Jr.’s rudimentary dancing skills, we’ve recently had to call out the big gun—the oeuvre of the Godfather of Soul. In doing so, we stumbled across the gem above, apparently taken from one of Mr. Brown’s early television appearances (back when he treated the medium with far more seriousness). […]
Tags:James Brown·music·R&B
We’re just absolute suckers for any song that shouts out both Paul Newman and Rick Cerone. A highly recommended gem from the same Diamond D album that gave us the classic “Sally Got a One-Track Mind”.
Tags:Diamond D·hip-hop·music·Rick Cerone
We’ve been thoroughly enjoying The A.V. Club‘s week-long “Best of the ’00s” series, including today’s installment on top cinematic performances. The site’s writers certainly did the right thing by including Samantha Morton’s star turn in Morvern Callar, one of our favorite movies of all time. The ending sequence, shown above, never ceases to create a […]
Tags:Lynne Ramsay·Morvern Callar·movies·music·Samantha Morton
Want one of your tracks to someday be posted on Microkhan? As MF Doom so amply demonstrates above, there’s one surefire way to earn that honor: mention Snake Plissken in the very first verse.
The rest of our day looks certain to be divvied up between childcare and working on a major secret project, so let us leave you with the latest from Big Boi—yet another track we got turned on to by the Fresh Produce crew. We can barely understand a word that guest star Gucci Mane slurs […]
We first got turned on to Donny Hathaway by reading the liner notes for The Chronic. We were amazed by how many of the samples were copped from Extension of a Man, and so we saved up some hard-earned cash to buy the album. It’s since become one of our favorites, a platter we’ve spun […]
Our pal who lusts after a Mozambique holiday also co-hosts one of the best Internet radio shows you’ve never heard of: Fresh Produce, which broadcasts far too seldomly from “an undisclosed location in South London.” The show’s most recent installment kicks off with the Hot 8 Brass Band doing a bonkers cover of “Sexual Healing,” […]
Earlier this year, we rescued several heaping armfuls of vinyl from a building on our blocks that’s undergoing a gut renovation. Many of the platters were too damaged to be of use, but there were gems amidst the trash—most notably an original pressing of the soundtrack for Three Tough Guys (aka Tough Guys). The lead […]
Tags:Geto Boys·hip-hop·Isaac Hayes·movies·music·Three Tough Guys
Seriously, basketball gods? We finally have an inkling of hope that our beloved Los Angeles Clippers won’t totally self-immolate this season, and then you see fit to break Blake Griffin’s kneecap? Ah, cruel deities—can you do nothing to reward our years of steadfast devotion? Or are you so incensed with owner Donald Sterling’s botched facelift […]
Tags:basketball·Blake Griffin·Donald Sterling·hip-hop·Los Angeles Clippers·music·Nice & Smooth·sports
We’re enjoying all that Northern California has to offer. You’re enjoying vintage ZZ Top. Who’s getting the better deal this afternoon?
Tags:California·music·ZZ Top
We’re up to our eyeballs with the day job, though happy to report that last night’s moderate alcohol consumption helped us overcome a serious creative block. This afternoon’s all about moving the narrative forward and avoiding mixed metaphors; in our absence, please enjoy what is inarguably Stan Bush‘s finest work. Not safe for the squeamish, […]
Writing up the Kenya piece through the lunch hour; hopefully back to Microkhan-ing in the mid-p.m. In the meantime, enjoy a little Syl Johnson—yet another soul nugget that the RZA feasted upon during the Wu-Tang Golden Age. This came on Radio Nova last night just as our stress level was beginning to peak; rarely has […]
Tags:music·Syl Johnson·Wu-Tang
Via Radio Nova. The soundtrack for the stacking of shirts. And if you’re a soul music fan, GStrongRaw’s entire channel is well worth a visit.
Though we recently vowed to avoid apologizing for light posting, we can’t help ourselves today. Sorry, just swamped with prepping for our East Africa trip—gotta pick up our doxycycline, along with a host of other odds and ends. For the moment, though, we’ll leave you with sonic stylings of the late Joe Higgs. And we’ll […]
On a crushing Wired deadline right now, made all the worse by the fact we’re still trying to figure out our Africa logistics. (Anyone know the intercity bus situation in southern Kenya?) But no reason you should have to feel our stress—sit back and enjoy the classic cut above (which we’re pretty sure features a […]
Tags:Africa·hip-hop·housekeeping·music·Remo Fernandes·Tha Alkaholiks·travel
We’re solo parenting Microkhan Jr. this week, which means we have to put off lots of tasks ’til after his bedtime—specifically catching up on the day’s e-mail deluge. That’s precisely what we were doing last night, cold Ballantine in hand, when William Bell’s classic “I Forgot to Be Your Lover” came wafting across Radio Nova. […]
The ultra-celebrated Ta-Nehisi Coates has lent us plenty of support over the years, so we’d like to return the favor by calling attention to his latest conquest: the vaunted pages of The New Yorker, where his killer MF Doom profile just debuted. Though to call it a mere profile is a disservice—it’s also a meditation […]
Trust us when we say that Voodoo Funk pretty much defines the phrase “Internet essential.” If you have even a cursory interest in vintage African sounds of the ’70 and ’80s, or even just plain ol’ vinyl collecting, you owe this site many hours of your time. It’s recently introduced us to a bevy of […]
Tags:Africa·music·Voodoo Funk
Speaking of Karōshi, we’ve been feeling a might frazzled by our workload as of late—not to mention the daily stresses of tending to Microkhan Jr. as he masters his use of the word “no.” So we’re looking forward to a few days in the Massachusetts hinterlands, where a longtime pal’s getting hitched over the holiday […]
Tags:Bollywood·Chaiya Chaiya·housekeeping·India·movies·music
Not that we expect any of y’all to remember this, but we left you hanging a couple of months back. See, we dug up a copy of Lee Mason’s “Shady Blues”, which we first fell in love with as a much-used hip-hop sample. And at the conclusion of that long-ago post, we promised to “follow […]
