The best and brightest of this past week in music, as well as a throwback track! Hopefully you can bump these tracks on your way to work to brighten up your Monday mornings. This week alone we have a brand new leak from Kendrick Lamar’s forthcoming sophomore LP, the return of Charles Hamilton (with the help of Rita Ora), an unreleased Kim Kardashian inspired track from Kanye West, and a charitable remix by John Legend and Sam Smith. Get started at the jump below to check out our favorite records of the past week.
While the tracklist was originally left blank on iTunes, today the blanks have been filled and we have the track names and features for Kendrick Lamar’s highly anticipated To Pimp a Butterfly LP. The 16-track album is set to include features from Thundercat, George Clinton, Snoop Dogg, James Fauntleroy and more! It may not have the strength of features that Kendrick’s freshman LP had, but either way, we couldn’t be more excited. Check out the full tracklist below.
In a recent interview with Clique, The College Dropout himself, Kanye West, revealed that he is set to receive an honorary doctorate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago on May 11th this year. Speaking on the arts, West told Clique “I was a gifted artist since age five and won national competitions and went to art school. I’m actually getting an honorary doctorate on May (11th) from the (School of the) Art Institute of Chicago.” From attending Chicago State University and the American Academy of Art before his eventual dropout (which paved the way for his debut album), this summer Mr. West will join his late mother by soon becoming Dr. West (although an honorary doctor of course). Check out the full interview below.
Last night DJ Oreo (DJ for Chance the Rapper and Vic Mensa) brought his OREOFEST experience to Reggie’s Music Joint in Chicago. And pretty much the whole city was in attendance, as Oreo brought out some of the biggest emerging names in Chicago rap music. OREOFEST saw performances by Katie Got Bandz, Alex Wiley, Z-Money, Lil Herb, Bandman Kevi, Leather Corduroys (SAVEMONEY), Ego, Cago Leek, MoBo The Great and more! Check out our photos below as The Early Registration’s Jesus Montero was there to capture some of the night’s best moments.
Listen to Joey Bada$$ new Flying Lotus produced track ‘Perception VS Reality’, released less than a couple of months after Joey’s debut album B4.Da.$$ (check out review here). In perception you would assume this track would be a great collaboration, and it reality… it still is a pretty awesome collab, which premiered earlier this week on BBC Radio 1. Check it out for yourself below.
Last night OVO Sound‘s PARTYNEXTDOOR brought his North American tour (which closes tonight in Minneapolis) to The Rave in Milwaukee, WI. Performing a number of tracks from his self titled project and its PARTYNEXTDOOR 2 sequel, PND brought his R&B party to the sold-out crowd. Check out our photos below as The Early Registration’s Dan Garcia was there to catch the best moments of the night, and if you’re overseas you can still catch PND’s European leg of the tour (which kicks March 24th in Oslo).
Listen to Kendrick Lamar’s new To Pimp a Butterfly track ‘King Kunta’. ‘King Kunta’ is produced by Sounwave and has been described as having a movie-like quality by the likes of Pharrell, Peter Rosenberg and more. To Pimp A Butterfly drops on March 23rd, so get ready and pre-order it now on iTunes. Stream ‘King Kunta’ here while you still can.
Last night Milwaukee rapper WebsterX, threw a send odd to SXSW at Fire on Water in Milwaukee with his “New Age Narcissism Road Trip” show. Performing some new music, as well as tracks from his Desperate Youth project, WebsterX got the Milwaukee crowd hype before his travels to Austin. Check out our photos of the ‘doomsday’ rapper’s performance below, and if you’ll be in Texas for SXSW this month, you can catch WebsterX at Jack White’s Third Man Records Showcase and the Gravitas Recordings & Banjos to Beats’ Air Up There Showcase (details below).
Check out REVOLT‘s in-studio footage of the making of Kanye West’s So Help Me God track ‘All Day‘. In what was just one of the many sessions where Kanye worked on the track, as he had been working on the track since last summer (and perhaps still is), and Diddy even makes a brief appearance to give feedback. Watch the video below.
In retrospect, 2012 was a particularly stellar year for music. Frank Ocean (channel ORANGE) and Kendrick Lamar (g.o.o.d kid m.A.A.d city) each dropped their respective masterpieces that permanently cemented them as modern classicists amongst critics and fans. Meanwhile, Death Grips’ The Money Store showed the group mastering their demented take on abstract hip-hop, Flying Lotus provided his most nuanced and hypnagogic release to date with Until The Quiet Comes, and Tame Impala proved that there was strange beauty in loneliness with Lonerism. However, one album stood out like a black sheep because while it was inaccessible to most mainstream music listeners, it was ambitious as it was gravely terrifying and ugly. This album is The Seer; New York experimental group Swans’ near masterpiece and and a classic that was considered by many to be the biggest comeback of the year. This album is indeed one of the finest works in the groups catalog as well as a roughly 2 hour post rock hell trip and endurance test through sheer brutality, meditative repetition, and catharsis.
The Early Registration 