Talib Kweli and Hi-Tek on Juan Epstein

Great interview dropped by Juan Epstein today with all of the regular highlights including yelling at Rico, Jen From Brooklyn, and Rosie hating on Ciph for getting name dropped by Kweli back in the day.

The video above shows one of the big surprises from the show as Kweli performs a few classic snippets. Nice to finally hear Rosenberg and Ciph doing a great show. I’ve been avoiding the morning show since its format change but this back to a the classic Juan Ep’s, all the way left.

A few points during the interview also reminded me of shows I had completely forgot I had been to. Kweli mentioned opening up for N.E.R.D. on the Sprite Liquid Mix Tour. I attended the show at the Tweeter center (how great is that name now?) in Massachusetts and remember walking by the second stage and seeing Kweli perform in front of about 12 people. N.E.R.D. only performed to maybe 300 on the main stage and were on in the middle of the day, but the closing sets by Jay-z/Rocafella and 311 were packed. 311, stole the show with Amber.

Another reminder was during the Matt Pinfield walkin and Talib talking about a Highline ballroom performance for myspace. That was one of the most awkward shows I have ever been to. I was one of the few people there old enough to drink and the thing was setup as a fake New Years event but tapped over a month before. At least it was free.

Enough of my rambling, download the podcast.

Mixtape of the Week - DJ Sean G Presents: Lever 2009 (Hosted by PacDiv)

Starting a new weekly feature for whizhouse. Every weekend I’ll be profiling which ever mixtape has been getting the most burn in my itunes for the previous 7 days. With the way the internets hip-hop is going, I’m practically replacing my entire iPhone playlist every 7 days and while a majority of it is single tracks (and daily downloads of Cipha Sounds and Rosenberg) every week brings at least a few mixtapes to check out.

This week during my daily hour commute dealing with the L trains fantastic service, I’ve had DJ Sean G’s Lever 2009 in my number 1 spot. While little of this mixtape was super new to me, it was a great collection of my recent favorites. The track list includes a few tracks that have made TOD honors on whizhouse with 88-Keys-Stay Up, Jay Electronica-Exhibit A, GLC-The Big Screen, and The Cool Kids-Pennies (video from Rock The Bells). On top of a solid selection of tracks the mix is not overly hosted by PacDiv and includes a few snippets from the group including a standout ‘she’ featuring Tiron. When the full version of this is out, it will most likely make its way to TOD. Also on the mixtape is one of my favorite tracks from this past fall, Tiron’s Sydney.

Download the mixtape, and enjoy the weekend. Track list below.

Jay-z and the Roc: Take Over Hot 97 2001: PT 1 video

Big up to Cipha Sounds for posting this vid of the Roc-a-fella team in their prime spitting at Hot 97. Ciph has a full run down of the vid at dontgetgassed:

In 2001, way before people documented every single move of every single person every single day for youtube, a crazy invasion happened. The good old days when people actually broke records and artist on the radio. Jay-Z called Funkmaster Flex and told him that he wanted to bring all his new artist up and Blackout on the radio. I had a bullshit camera with me that day, but I was in the room that everyone was rappin in, so I got all the visuals but all the audio was all acapella. I finally tracked down the audio from the radio and linked it with the video. This is one of many parts I will be putting up. This shit is crazy.

This is really a great session if you want to have the audio for the entire thing, check out KNOWXONE for the mixtape.